Rechargeable NiMH Battery Facts

Rechargeable NiMH batteries are extremely earth-friendly products.  You should really consider replacing most of your battery needs with NiMH batteries.  Read on for quick facts about these rechargeable batteries.

NiMH (nickel-metal hydride) batteries are rechargeable and do not suffer from "memory effect" unlike NiCd (nickel-cadmium) batteries.  NiCd batteries had to be completely discharged before recharging or the NiCd batteries would suffer a drop in voltage at the point the battery began recharging.  The NiCd battery would "remember" that point where the battery began recharging and would cause problems.

NiCd batteries obviously contained cadmium, which is a dangerous toxic heavy metal.  Cadmium can cause severe pollution to water, air and land if incinerated or buried by releasing toxic gas.  Please recycle NiCd batteries!

NiMH batteries have charge capacities that differ depending on the battery type.  For example, AA NiMH batteries can range from 1100 - 2800 mAh (milliampere hour).  AAA batteries can range from 850 - 1000 mAh.  The higher the mAh, the longer the battery can go between charges.

The life of NiMH batteries can be extended by recharging the batteries often and not letting the batteries fully drain.  NiMH batteries can typically be recharged between 500 - 1000 times depending on their use and how much each battery is drained before recharging.

The one disadvantage (you knew there had to be one, right?) of NiMH batteries is they discharge at a significant rate: about 5-10% the first day, then leveling off between 0.5 - 1% per day at room temperature.  NiMH rechargeable batteries are excellent for digital cameras, MP3 players, portable game systems, PDAs, portable CD players and toys because these are high-drain devices that will need to be recharged a lot.  You will want to avoid the use of NiMH batteries in low-drain devices like clocks, smoke detectors and remote controls.

Alkaline batteries may seem cheaper at first glance, but since you can only use them once and then throw away (please recycle), alkaline batteries are actually quite expensive once you add up all of the times you have to throw out batteries and buy more instead of recharging them over and over again several hundred times.

Because of their less-harsh compounds towards the environment, lack of a "memory effect" and the capability to recharge hundreds of times (instead of buying hundreds of alkaline batteries), NiMH rechargeable batteries should be used for most applications in your home or on the road.  They are real money-savers and help protect the environment by producing less trash in our landfills.