Difference Between Nimh and Lithium Batteries-Introduction,  Differences And Cost Effect

With the development of human being's mastery of electric energy, many kinds of electrical appliances and power supply appear in the market. There are various types of batteries, such as lead-acid batteries, lithium batteries and nickel hydrogen batteries. The chemical reactions of them are different when they are charged and discharged, which also makes their differences in performance and other aspects. Now, this article will introduce lithium battery and nimh battery, and compare their advantages and disadvantages.

Can?you?use?nimh?instead?of?lithium?batteries?

First, what is a nimh battery? Nimh battery, whose full name is nickel metal hydride battery, produces a chemical reaction similar to that of a nickel cadmium battery when it is discharged, and they both use nickel hydroxide. The battery was mainly used in the previous generation of electric vehicles. Today, the electric vehicle market is almost completely occupied by lithium batteries, but nickel hydrogen batteries will still be used in hybrid vehicles.

From the similarity of lithium battery and nimh battery, nimh battery can replace lithium battery to some extent:

·Both lithium and nimh batteries have high energy density. Their capacitance is high, and even most of the nimh batteries have higher capacitance than ordinary lithium batteries. Similar large capacity can ensure that nimh batteries are competent for some of the duties of lithium batteries.

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·Lithium battery and nimh battery both are pollution-free, they are in line with the concept of green environmental protection. The chemical reactions produced by the charging and discharging of these two batteries will not produce harmful substances.

·Both lithium battery and nimh battery belong to secondary battery, and both have long cycle life. They can be recycled for about 1000 times, which makes their service life about five years.

·Both lithium battery and nimh battery has BMS (Battery Management System). BMS can monitor the state of the battery and react to prevent the battery from overcharge and over discharge. This means that nimh batteries also have good security as lithium batteries.

However, there are also great differences between lithium battery and NiMH battery. Many differences will lead to the failure of NiMH battery to replace lithium battery in some fields. At the same time, some advantages of NiMH battery can make it better than lithium battery in some aspects.

What?are?the?differences?between?nimh?and?lithium?batteries?

First of all, the most important is the difference of charge discharge efficiency. Lithium battery has higher charge discharge efficiency, which means that it can provide higher voltage and current when charging and discharging. An ordinary lithium battery can provide about 3.7V when discharging, while a nimh battery can only provide 2.4V (although compared with 1.2V of AA battery, nimh battery is quite excellent).

Moreover, nimh has a high self discharge rate, which is not good news for users, which means that its charge will be lost more quickly. Nimh battery will lose about 50% of its power every month, while lithium battery will only lose about 2% of its power in a month, which also leads to the failure of nimh battery to be used in low load equipment like lithium battery for a long time. For example, if the nimh battery is used in the clock, the charge that it loses through self discharge is much higher than that consumed by clock operation. This kind of energy utilization efficiency is extremely low, and you need to charge it frequently.

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Nimh battery also has a memory effect, which will lead to a short-term reduction of its capacitance, which has a certain impact on the user experience. But lithium batteries do not have this problem, which is an advantage of lithium batteries over nimh batteries. The charging efficiency of lithium battery is much higher than that of nimh battery. The normal charging time of a nimh battery is about 10-12 hours, while a lithium-ion battery only needs 1-3 hours to fully charge, because rapid charging will damage the nimh battery. This defect makes nimh battery not as flexible as lithium battery in service time.

Lithium batteries are lighter in weight. In the case of uniform specifications, the quality of lithium battery is lower than that of nimh battery, which makes it have a wider range of applications than the latter.

The performance of lithium battery is better than that of nimh battery under extreme conditions. A lithium battery can charge and discharge normally at - 20 ℃ to 60 ℃. However, the voltage of a nimh battery will drop and the discharge efficiency will be greatly reduced.

Compared with lithium batteries, nimh batteries also have advantages. First of all, it is cheaper, its manufacturing cost is less than half of the lithium battery, and its product development cost is less than 75% of the lithium battery development cost, which makes it more price advantage in the market. In addition, there are less active substances in it, and the probability of safety accidents caused by overcharge and over discharge is small (however, most lithium batteries are equipped with protection plates, which can prevent overcharge and over discharge of batteries).

Which?batteries?have?battery?cost?effect,?nimh?or?lithium?batteries?

From the price point of view, nimh battery is dominant, its cost and development cost is far lower than the current lithium battery. However, with the continuous improvement of lithium battery technology and the continuous increase of lithium battery production, its price and cost will continue to decline, which means that nimh battery will gradually lose its price advantage and be gradually eliminated by the market.

From the perspective of cost performance, lithium battery has many superior performances, such as strong discharge capacity, light weight, good environmental adaptability, fast charging speed, which can make it adapt to the power demand of various fields, which is impossible for nimh battery.

According to the above reasoning, it can be concluded that the current nimh battery is more cost-effective, but the development prospect of lithium battery is better, which is expected to completely replace nimh battery in the future.