Batteries and Energy Storage

What this quiz asks

• Phone batteries are often rated in 'mAh'. What does that stand for?
• What is the nominal voltage of an ordinary single-use AA battery like this one?
• The energy stored in a home battery or an electric car's pack is usually given in which unit?
• In 1859 the French physicist Gaston Planté invented the first rechargeable battery. What type was it?
• Ordinary alkaline AA batteries are designed to be recharged hundreds of times.
• An alkaline battery gets its name from its electrolyte. What is that electrolyte usually?
• A 12-volt car battery is made of six cells in a row. About what voltage does each lead-acid cell give?
• Which rechargeable type replaced nickel-cadmium in most AA rechargeables, partly to get rid of a toxic metal?
• Is the so-called 'memory effect' mainly a problem of nickel-cadmium batteries rather than lithium-ion ones?
• Why does a lithium-ion battery slowly lose capacity over the years?
• Keeping a lithium-ion battery hot and at 100% charge for long periods makes it age faster.
• Compared with a battery of the same size, how does a supercapacitor behave?
• Select ALL of these that store energy mechanically rather than chemically or electrically.
• What is the name for the dangerous chain reaction in which a damaged lithium-ion cell heats itself up ever faster?
• Dinorwig, the pumped-storage power station nicknamed 'Electric Mountain', was built inside a mountain in which country?
• Select ALL of these metals commonly found in the cathodes of lithium-ion batteries.
• Around 1901 Thomas Edison developed which rugged rechargeable battery, hoping to power electric cars?
• Put these battery types in order of when they were invented, earliest first.
• Stanley Whittingham, a 2019 Nobel laureate, built the first lithium battery in the 1970s while working for which company?
• A fully charged 3,000 mAh phone battery works at 3.7 volts. About how many watt-hours of energy does it hold?