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How much nickel is in a NiMh battery?

For example, how much nickel is needed for a 100Wh NiMh battery?
How much nickel is in a common AAA NiMh battery?

This question is equivalent to:
How much lithium in lithium polymer batteries.
It is also asked in:
chemistry.se

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jawo
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  • "This question is equivalent to:" Not per se, because the nickel and lithium serve slightly different purposes. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams May 03 '16 at 06:43
  • How big is the battery? – Andy aka May 03 '16 at 07:39
  • @IgnacioVazquez-Abrams , Lithium is used as cathode, nickel as anode. Where is the different purpose? – jawo May 03 '16 at 07:43
  • @Andyaka amount of Nickel per energy or per weight should not require absolute sizes. But as an example: nickel/100Wh – jawo May 03 '16 at 07:43
  • Li-ion cells transfer lithium ions, Ni-MH cells do not transfer nickel ions. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams May 03 '16 at 07:59
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    Mhm while you're right, this is not the topic in both of the questions. – jawo May 03 '16 at 08:16
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    "*Materials of Construction:* The materials of construction for the nickel-metal hydride battery external surfaces are largely comprised of nickel-plated steel, and therefore, are resistant to attack by most environmental agents." From http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/nickelmetalhydride_appman.pdf -- But as to how much Ni, they don't say, neither in that applications guide nor in their datasheets. Unclear why an engineer would need to know the internal construction details. Suggest you contact energizer and/or duracell directly, ask for applications engineering help. – MarkU May 03 '16 at 09:13

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A cell of 1Ah releases a charge of 3600 Coulombs, or 0.0373 mol. Since one nickel atom is required to produce 1 electron in Ni-MH chemistry, a cell of 1Ah needs a least 0.0373 mol of Ni, which is 2,19 grams of pure metal, assuming 100% of Ni(OH) participates in the reaction.

So, Ni-MH batteries contain at least 0,219 kg/100Ah of nickel.

And yes, you should have asked it at Chemistry.SE.

Dmitry Grigoryev
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