News

Evercel's Battery Test Claims Validated

January 06, 2000 by Jeff Shepard

Evercel Inc. (Danbury, CT) recently announced it has received notice from JBI Corp. (Genoa, OH), a leading independent battery testing laboratory, that JBI has successfully duplicated Evercel's previously announced results of exceeding 500 charge/discharge cycles in Evercel's 12V, 30Ah battery.According to the company, JBI cycled an Evercel nickel-zinc 12V, 30Ah battery in air at 25 degrees C per the Evercel Standard Life Cycling (80 percent depth of charge) specification. The test, which began in June 1999 and has exceeded 575 cycles, is continuing, according to the company, and will only be terminated when the battery delivers less than 80 percent capacity (24Ah) at the C/5 rating. The battery was cycled at the C/3 rate and was measured at both the C/3 and C/5 discharge every 25 cycles. The C/5 capacity at 525 cycles was 25.97Ah, which equates to 86.57 percent of the rated 30Ah capacity. The capacity at 500 cycles was 26.45Ah, or 88.17 percent of the rated capacity.The company claims that during the course of the cycling, the battery exhibited no leakage, bulging, detectable gassing, nor raised any other safety concerns."The results achieved by JBI are yet another confirmation of what we have achieved in our own test labs, and by our licensee, Formosa Plastics," said Allen Charkey, executive vice president and COO of Evercel. "Since cycle-life was always considered the Achilles heel that prevented nickel-zinc's commercial viability, this test result is further evidence that our batteries are ready for the marketplace."