But an emerging technology offers a new approach, zinc-air batteries.

However, a zinc-air battery will work fine with an adapter.

Miniature zinc-air batteries type "P" are used in hearing aids and medical instruments.

Zinc-air batteries, which generate power through a chemical reaction between zinc and oxygen, are common in hearing aids, for example.

Zinc-air batteries type PR44 require air to work.

Zinc is used as the anode or fuel of the zinc-air battery/fuel cell.

Metallic zinc could be used as an alternative fuel for vehicles, either in a zinc-air battery or to generate hydrogen near the point of use.

Stanford University researchers unveil a zinc-air battery that is more energy-dense and cheaper than lithium-ion counterparts.

For applications with liquid electrolytes, such as the zinc-air battery or the alkaline fuel cell, the dry mixture method is used.

The two utilities said last week that their new zinc-air battery was superior in some ways to the lead-acid batteries used in many electric-car experiments.

Some approaches use a large zinc-air battery to maintain charge on a high discharge-rate battery used for peak loads during acceleration.

Another example is zinc-air batteries where the cell is sealed until use: a tab is removed to admit air and activate the cell.

Zinc is also used as an anode material for batteries such as in zinc-carbon batteries or zinc-air battery/fuel cells.

Large zinc-air batteries, with capacities up to 2,000 ampere-hours per cell, are used to power navigation instruments and marker lights, oceanographic experiments and railway signals.

New Batteries for Laptops The emerging technology of zinc-air batteries offers a way to provide longer periods of use in portable computers and other devices.

Battery holders for zinc-air batteries must not be completely air-tight since approximately 1 litre of air is required per ampere-hour of discharge per cell.

The term zinc-air fuel cell usually refers to a zinc-air battery in which zinc metal is added and zinc oxide is removed continuously.

Zinc-air batteries have higher energy density and specific energy (and weight) ratio than other types of battery because atmospheric air is one of the battery reactants.

Li-ion, Li-poly, Aluminium-air batteries and zinc-air batteries have demonstrated energy densities high enough to deliver range and recharge times comparable to conventional vehicles.

Zinc-air batteries use air as the depolarizer and have much higher capacity than other types (they use air from the atmosphere which does not need to be supplied in the battery).

The postal service will buy more than 50 vans and light pickup trucks made by Mercedes-Benz that will use zinc-air batteries produced by the Electric Fuel Corporation.

Batteries used in electric vehicles include "flooded" lead-acid, absorbed glass mat, NiCd, nickel metal hydride, Li-ion, Li-poly and zinc-air batteries.

In alkaline electrolytes, like zinc-air batteries and alkaline fuel cells, it is usual to use less expensive catalysts like carbon, manganese, silver, nickel foam or nickel mesh.

Zinc-air batteries can be used to replace now discontinued 1.35 V mercury batteries (although with a significantly shorter operating life), which in the 1970s through 1980s were commonly used in photo cameras.

One advantage of utilizing zinc-air batteries for vehicle propulsion is that earth's supply of zinc metal is 100 times greater than that of lithium, per unit of battery energy.