Comparison of AA battery chemistries

I have a source for disposable Li-SOCl2 14500’s rated to 2450mAh @ 3.6v, I’m wondering if these wouldnt be good for daily use in my SC52 giving me the capacity of NiMH and the ~500lm’s like on Li-ion 14500’s (at the expense of one-time use) HKJ do you have any experience with any brand of these? If I sent you a couple could you do some tests? The brand I ran across is “ultralast”, not sure if there are others.

Thanks HKJ, this comparison concurs with my findings, I only use Eneloops and keep the lithiums as backups due to long shelf life.

Good read.

I believe that these batteries can only deliver a low current, i.e. they are not good for flashlight usage.

At the current time I will not say yes to test them, I have way to many batteries in queue.

Guys, do lithium 1.5v AA batteries need any special charger to charge? Is Nitecore I4 suitable to charge them right?

They are not rechargeable, you will have to buy a new battery when it is empty.

Oh, I didn’t know. Thanks.

There are Lithium primaries (which these are) and Li-Ion rechargeables.

Li-Ion in AA size are sometimes called 14500s. They are 3.7V (fully charged 4.2V) and they need a proper charger designed for these voltages.

Sometimes people get confused between the two types as they sound similar.

Most of the time, you can also get 3.2 volt (3.6 volt charge voltage) 14500 cells.

Here I have some data of primary lithium (NICE, ENERGIZER.)

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/16814#node-19545

Thanks for clarifying this. I just thought for some reason that there are also rechargeable lithium 1.5v AAs, but now I see that there still are only NiMH )

Very useful info! This should be a sticky IMO.
Thanks for doing this comparison.

Thanks for the comparison chart. In my place, alkaline and lithium batteries dominate the stores. I don’t bother which one is best to use for certain devices. As long it works well.

Very nice visual here, Thanks HKJ!

Thanks HKJ.
While it is online, I thought I would post this link to an 18 page pdf from energizer. It has some comparisons to alkaline and nimh.

That is an excellent write-up on lithium batteries. The comparison curves do (of course) look very much like the curves I have published (See bottom page 6).

The article does also include performance at different temperatures.

Your curves look more scholarly, but I suppose Energizer doesn’t want to scare the children. :bigsmile:

Some people believe that including less detailed contents, makes the information easier to read. That is probably correct, but personally I often prefer more detailed information.

Nice comparison, I knew the basic differences but these graphs tell the exact story, thanks!

Great test review which shattered my notions about Alkaline batteries !
So which type of batteries are good for flashlights that are not used until emergencies like in the car’s glove compartment and those used primarily at home for power failures.

I sense there is a trade off between capacity at higher loads and shelf life. From this review the primary Lithium batteries seem like the wise choice for these applications, but they are way too expensive here for me to use them they cost like $15/4. If the Eneloop have good storage life I might just switch them all over.