Question
Do zinc air batteries contain mercury?
Answer
Traditional zinc air batteries contain mercury. As much as the element of mercury is undesirable in the environment, it did a number of positive things in zinc air batteries. Mercury was amalgamated or mixed in with the zinc, and it had multiple uses in the batteries, including suppressed gassing. It's also a very good electronic conductor, it affected the initial service life, and it improved service-life retention.
In response to federal and state legislation banning mercury from button cell batteries, the battery manufacturers reached an agreement to set a deadline of June 2011, after which time all button cell batteries will be free of mercury.
Eliminating mercury meant finding suitable substitutes that provided equivalent performance and function in the batteries, both of which are difficult to do. The technical development team at Rayovac worked on a solution for a number of years, until we reached the point of having a formulation that could give very high performance to our customers and enable us to start the manufacturing process evaluation. All of our Rayovac hearing aid battery product lines are now available in our Mercury Free formulation, which we launched almost 2 years ago. In fact, our second generation of mercury free batteries will be available later this year.
Thank you for your question.
Ann Rule is Marketing Manager at Rayovac, and focuses on the company's hearing aid battery business in North America. For more information, please visit Rayovac's website for professionals at www.ThePowerofHearing.com , or the Rayovac web channel on AudiologyOnline.