Freezing rechargeable batteries

[lightwisps]

Does anyone have any ideas about freezing rechargeable batteries that are freshly recharged? I now have a couple extra left over from a purchase yesterday and I charged all of them up because recharging them takes so long. Would freezing them be a good idea? Thanks Don

 

[Ian Grant]

Get a better charger, mine charges in a couple of hours. I also have a lead to charge from a car cigarette lighter, and a separate adapter to give me 240V AC from the cigarette lighter for other chargers etc.

I store at normal temperatures.

Ian

 

[Rick A]

Hmm... I always thought that freezing batteries drained the energy from them. My batteries die in the winter in the cold.

 

[Sirius Glass]

The battery experts that I have worked with over many years told me that freezing or refrigerating batteries was not productive. Freezing some batteries damages them.

 

[L Gebhardt]

If you are using the newer NiMH slow discharge batteries like the Enloops they will last a long time without freezing them. They also survive freezing just fine (at least down into the -15C range). If they are the original NiMH batteries (no claims of year long storage) nothing I have seen will keep them from being self discharged in a month or two.

I have switched over to Enloops entirely. I use them in trail cameras in the Winter and they last fairly well, and definitely survive and function in cold weather.

 

[Hexavalent]

Freezing a Li ion battery that isn't designed to withstand freezing is not a good idea.
Refrigeration *might* prolong charge keeping.
Do not put a very cold, or frozen battery in a charger, particularly a "rapid charger".

 

[polyglot]

Do not freeze batteries, it won't help and there's a good chance you will destroy them.

If these are AA/AAA batteries, buy Eneloops because they basically don't self-discharge.

Make sure you have a proper delta-V charger that shuts off when the battery is full (the voltage actually drops a couple mV), not just a cheap timer-based charger. Anything else and you will be damaging cells through overcharging.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Lithium rechargeables are preferable to those based on nickel. They hold their charge longer and are not subject to "memory problems." Freezing batteries is never a good idea. As far as refrigeration is concerned it is helpful with the older carbon-zinc batteries but not any other type.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Never heard of such an idea. Very cold conditions would reduce the performance of fully-charged/in-use batteries so I don't know what storage in a freezer would do to them.
If cold performance is a worry, switch to lithium batteries.

 

[lightwisps]

Thanks for all the great advice, they are now living happily at room temperature. Don