TY - JOUR A1 - Recknagel, Sebastian A1 - Richter, A. A1 - Richter, Silke T1 - Investigation on the heavy metal content of zinc-carbon and alkaline manganese dry cells JF - Waste management N2 - The objective of this work was to test the compliance of commercially available batteries with the German Battery Ordinance, a project of the German government that was initiated by the Federal Environment Agency. Different types of commercially available dry cells were analysed for their cadmium, lead and mercury contents. The dry cells underwent mechanical pre-treatment, separation of the different components and microwave-assisted digestion before determination of the heavy metals. Mercury is sometimes added to prevent the generation of gaseous hydrogen from the electrochemical process. Lead could be present since it is sometimes used as an alloying element of zinc. Cadmium has no technical importance and is an undesirable impurity. None of the batteries contained higher heavy metal mass fractions than the permissible limits. KW - Lead KW - Mercury KW - Cadmium KW - Battery KW - Analysis KW - Dry cell KW - Zinc-carbon KW - Alkaline manganese KW - German Battery Ordinance PY - 2009 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2008.06.042 SN - 0956-053X VL - 29 IS - 3 SP - 1213 EP - 1217 PB - Pergamon Press CY - New York, NY AN - OPUS4-18572 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -