PowerGenix of San Diego has achieved some initial success. In December it began selling its AA rechargeable nickel-zinc batteries in Ritz Camera stores. It now has agreements to deliver $70 million worth of its batteries over the next three years to makers of power tools, garden tools and electric scooters and bicycles; shipping starts this fall. The attraction: Zinc is plentiful, nontoxic, recyclable and enables production of batteries with a high rate of discharge.

Among the key determinants of dell latitude d420 battery,dell latitude d430 battery success are cost and weight per watt-hour stored. Zinc’s metrics: 40 cents, 17 grams. That compares with 48 cents, 25 grams for the older nickel-cadmium, and 70 cents, 9 grams for the newer lithium-ion chemistry, which is rapidly gaining ground in the power tool market and already pretty much owns the laptop and cell phone business.

Zinc’s lower cost and high discharge give it a shot at the power tool market, says PowerGenix Chief Executive Daniel Squiller, who previously ran the power supplies and battery unit, a U.K. controls and automation company. Prices are still relatively high: a four-pack of nickel-zinc AAs (storing 10.4 watt-hours) with a charger sells for $40, 20% more than a comparable nickel-metal-hydride set at Ritz. For power tools PowerGenix expects to charge less than makers of nickel-metal-hydride batteries.

PowerGenix is still a pip-squeak, having raised only $61 million from venture capitalists and praying for revenue of $10 million this year. But Squiller’s ambitions are big. There could be room for nickel-zinc in household electronics and toys as well as in drills and hedge trimmers. Nickel-cadmium, a common rechargeable dell latitude d500 battery,dell latitude d505 battery  for consumer products, is being legislated out of existence in certain European countries because cadmium is a toxic heavy metal that contaminates the environment. Last year retailer Toys “R” Us and manufacturer  swore off nickel-cadmium in toys they make.

Seeing the coming death of nickel-cadmium, PowerGenix designed its manufacturing process to work with minor adjustments on existing nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal-hydride production lines. PowerGenix is outsourcing production to a Chinese company.

How PowerGenix solved the longtime challenge of getting zinc to recharge is a tale of insight and persistence. Rechargeable batteries use positive and negative electrodes that oxidize and dissolve to varying degrees when the dell latitude d510 battery,dell latitude d520 battery  is in use or recharging and then go back to their original states. Those who tried using zinc as a negative electrode found it tended to drift around during discharge and not return to its original location during recharge, quickly rendering the battery useless.

PowerGenix solved the problem over two years by using an electrolyte–the electrically conductive material in the battery–made with a small amount of phosphate. The phosphate limits the zinc’s solubility so the battery can recharge. PowerGenix chemists also found they could retard the faster corrosion rate of the higher-voltage zinc batteries by using purified zinc.