Why does battery powered electronics (such as a remote or an electrical toothbrush) lose power as the battery is weakened and not work at full power till the battery is dead?
In: Technology
Batteries work by chemical reactions in a liquid; as concentrations of the chemicals drop, there are fewer opportunities for the different chemicals to “find” each other and react, so you get fewer reactions, releasing fewer electrons, and thus get less voltage.
Coin cell batteries used to have liquid mercury as one of the chemicals, and they worked at basically 100% until they ran out and then voltage dropped to zero pretty much all at once. That’s because unlike a chemical floating in a liquid, the liquid was 100% active chemical the Hg itself).
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