Silver Oxide Batteries

Silver Oxide batteries are a relatively new type of battery technology that came about to replace mercury batteries. Mercury batteries were banned for environmental reasons but their incredibly long lifetime and reliability were very desirable, and a replacement was needed. Enter the silver oxide battery.

Silver oxide batteries use the element silver which is an especially good semiconductor. When compared to mercury batteries, silver oxide batteries produce a higher voltage current but provide the same benefit of a constant voltage rate.


The cost of using silver in batteries can make it too expensive for some. However, silver oxide batteries are produced both in small coin size models and large custom models. The large models are for devices where the efficiency of the battery largely outweighs the concern for cost. Large custom designed silver oxide batteries can be found in military applications such as torpedoes and submarines.

Because of the prohibitive cost of silver oxide batteries, zinc air batteries are more commonly used for hearing aid devices. Zinc air batteries behave much like the fuel cell in a vehicle. They are inexpensive to produce and are being researched for use in electric vehicles.