If your cellphone battery runs out, that’s inconvenient. But if your medical implant is without power, that’s a whole different ball game. The risk of running out of juice, particularly due to patients not complying with charging requirements, means that non-rechargeable, primary batteries have been the commonest choice for implanted devices, with lithium-ion rechargeables now taking about 15% of the market. By Kevin Schrantz, Direct...

When Clayton Equipment secured the contract from London Underground to convert a fleet of maintenance locomotives from diesel to electric power, it asked EnerSys to supply the motive power batteries. The battery manufacturer supplied cells from its Hawker Perfect Plus range which were assembled into high-performance 210kWh packs to deliver the power needed to support a highly demanding operational requirement.