Should You Refrigerate Your Batteries?

Methods/Materials

40 AA Alkaline batteries are to be divided into three groups (room temperature, freezer, and refrigerator) for 40 days. After 24 hours are allowed for them to come to room temperature they are to be tested in a battery draining mechanism. A stopwatch should be used to test the time it takes for the fan of the mechanism to stop rotating. The times of all 20 trials of each temperature group are to be analyzed.

Results

Results should show that the batteries stored at room temperature (average 68 F and 20.43 C) last an average of 12 minutes. This should be a lot longer than either the refrigerator or freezer groups. Refrigerator batteries should be stored at an average temperature of 38 F or 3.33 C and the freezer batteries should be stored at an average temperature of 18.6 F or -7.44 C.

Conclusions/Discussion

Our conclusion is that room temperature is the best place to store AA Alkaline batteries of the three temperatures that we tested. The batteries were stored for a period of 40 days. We were very surprised to have conclusive data with this time period alone. We tested only AA alkaline batteries to control variables but we would find it very interesting to test other brands and other sizes of batteries! Good luck!