Hearing aid batteries are a necessity for many people, proving their worth time and time again. In order for you to get the most out of your batteries, there are some important things you should know about battery care. You should also know more about the battery composition and chemistry; you'll come to appreciate your battery more if you do.

Zinc Air Batteries

Zinc Air batteries consist of zinc, an easily available, silver-white colored metal that is used for many different applications, not only for hearing aids, but also for making brass and for galvanizing metals like iron and steel. Air is what powers this type of battery; exposure to oxygen is crucial so that the mechanism can gain its energy. Zinc Air batteries come in several sizes, such as size 10, size 13, size 312, and size 675, the biggest. These are often color-coded for the consumer's convenience. These color codes are:

• Yellow for size 10
• Orange for size 13
• Brown for size 312
• Blue for size 675

Zinc Air batteries typically last about two years in storage, possibly longer. This is a quite a long-lasting time-frame for such a small, delicate battery. Zinc Air batteries are much more efficient, safe, and have far fewer negative impacts on than environment than previous incarnations of hearing aid batteries like mercuric oxides.

Mercury Free Zinc Air Batteries

Zinc Air batteries are ordinarily formulated to be mercury-free; this was a big concern years ago, as hearing aid batteries tended to contain mercury as a component. In response to concerns about potential health hazards of mercury, the mercury in hearing aids has largely been done away with. Mercury Free batteries are becoming the new standard of hearing aid battery manufacture since they conform to international protocol about hearing aid specifications. They are much more benign in terms of environmental concerns than batteries that contain mercury, which is known to be harmful to the environment. It's really important that batteries be mercury-free because mercury can cause health problems such as organ damage that are permanent in people who have an on-going acquaintance with mercury.

Maintaining Your Batteries

It must be said that you should be very careful with your hearing aid batteries, as they are somewhat fragile and they are susceptible to many external interferences that may affect their operation. These external factors include exposure to overwhelming heat, or cold; exposure to loud noises for a prolonged period; keeping the batteries activated for an extensive amount of time; and even using the battery too quickly after the tab is pulled off, will possibly lead to inefficiency and poor battery performance. Hearing aid batteries typically last between three and 30 days, depending on size and usage rates.

• Do not expose it to extreme heat or cold
• Turn the batteries off when you are finished using them
• Try not to be around too much loud noise
• Wait the recommended amount of time before putting the battery in your hearing aid after you tear the tab off. In order to effectively utilize your hearing aid batteries, you would keep the tabs on the hearing aid battery until you are ready to use them
• Wait a couple of minutes for the zinc in the battery to absorb the oxygen; do not immediately put the battery in your hearing aid. The tabs are there for a reason, so that the batteries can stay intact and "fresh"
• After this, you would insert them into your hearing aid device and you're all set
• Make sure to deactivate your hearing aid battery when you're not using it
• Also, even if you you put the tab back on the hearing aid battery, it will have no effect on any potential extension of your battery's lifespan; so, please avoid doing this if you can

Q&A

No. Instead, you can properly dispose of your used or old hearing aid batteries by recycling them; this can be accomplished by delivering them to places that collect hearing aid batteries for recycling purposes.

An average hearing aid battery lasts anywhere between three and 30 days depending on its size and how much the user runs it in the hearing aid. The 675 has the longest running time as it is the largest battery.

• Size 10: 3-5 days
• Size 312: 10-15 days
• Size 13: 8-14
• Size 675: 14-30 days

Zinc Air batteries work by soaking up oxygen through holes in the battery surface; the air provides the batteries' charge. You would pull off the color-coded tab in order to put this process in motion.

They are safer to use because they are typically mercury-free. Mercury has a harmful effect on the environment and also on people's bodies, so the less mercury that's in a product, the better.

It's encouraged that you store your batteries at temperature within a narrow temperate zone such as 50-77° humidity isn't great for your batteries, either. Also, don't put your batteries near any other metal objects, as this will short-circuit them.