I just went out to buy some 9 Volt batteries because the fire alarm decided to be my alarm clock today and tell me, quite loudly, it was hungry and needed more batteries (/s). I replaced the battery and went to go pick up some more batteries for when the other fire alarms require replacement batteries, and I had thought, if those batteries stay in the package for an extended amount of time, will they still have the same amount of life in them as when i first bought them? Or will they lose power and life, even though they are sitting in a sealed package?
In: Technology
Inside a battery is an “electrolyte” basically a goo that electrons can flow through but need a push to want to flow. The electrolyte separates 2 elements that want to share electrons. When they share, the element becomes a slightly different element, but the important part here is that the element with shared electron no longer will accept another electron. When you connect both ends of the battery electron flows from negative to positive outside the battery, but positive to negative inside the battery, pushing its way through the goo. The battery is “dead” when it no longer has enough unused elements on each side of the goo center. Now using a battery will make electrons flow through the goo and use up the elements. But sitting on a shelf, the electrons very slowly push their way through the goo. So if left to sit for a very long time it would eventually use up all the elements and not be able to produce power anymore.
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