When an old battery or electronic device looses its charge after not being used for several months or years, where does the lost energy from the previous charge “go”?

Question

Is it just lost in thin air? Lost as heat even though the device is not used? Thank you for the insight.

In: 0

Answer 1

>where does the lost energy from the previous charge “go”?

A battery’s “charge” is physically the proportion of chemicals in their non-reacted state to the reacted state.

Your typical alkaline battery uses zinc and manganese dioxide as their reactants. These are slowly converted to zinc oxide and manganese trioxide, and electrons flow through the circuit. They can’t react directly because of the internal structure of the battery keeps them apart.

This structure isn’t perfect, though, and some leakage happens. This is called self-discharge, and it’s why batteries lose charge even if they’re not being used.