How Do I Clean Up After an Alkaline Battery Leaks?

All alkaline battery leaks are generally the potassium hydroxide that’s inside the battery leaking out. Potassium hydroxide is a thick paste, it can get hard and form gunk inside your electronic devices. Inside the battery, the paste is wet and used for conduction. When it leaks out of the battery, it dries up. Since potassium hydroxide is a base, you need an acid to clean it up.

Remember when cleaning your electronic devices; you don’t want to get water in them, as electronics don’t like water. Make sure all of the moisture is dried up prior to loading new batteries into your electronic device. A highly used item like game controllers, are more likely to get a battery leak in them. They go through batteries like crazy, be sure to clean up the spill completely, or you will not have good conductivity.

Vinegar and Lemon  juice is a excellent cleaner when mixed with water for cleaning battery leaks up. You want the water to be slightly acidic. Use a Q-Tip soaked in the acidic water to gently clean the area out of the electronic device. When you use a Q-Tip, you avoid using too much water and control the cleaning.

Don’t forget to wash your hands when you are done. You do not want potassium hydroxide on your hands, as burning and irritation is a common side effect to exposure.

Alkaline Battery Disposal Note:

Alkaline batteries used to contain mercury, a toxic metal, but the government banned mercury in general purpose batteries around 1996. Alkaline batteries don’t have any special disposal requirements — it’s legal to discard of  Alkaline batteries in a trash receptacle. There is a exception which is button batteries, the batteries that are in watches and calculators. California has banned the disposing of any and all alkaline batteries.

Manufacturers reimbursement

Many battery manufacturers of alkaline batteries offers a product reimbursement for damaged products due to leaking of alkaline battery or batteries. Most consumers are unaware of this offer from battery manufacturers. Contact the manufacturer of the leaking battery for more details.

Bestbatterytips.com Note

We here at bestbatterytips.com encourage everyone to recycle all batteries from big to small regardless of state laws. Please help keep the environment free of chemicals.