Interview with Denis Carpenter, Jeff Poirer, Randy Raymond, and Ann Rule, Rayovac
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Topic: Mercury Free Hearing Aid Batteries
Carolyn Smaka: This is Carolyn Smaka, Managing Editor of AudiologyOnline. Today I'm speaking with Ann Rule, Denis Carpenter, Randy Raymond, and Jeff Poirer from Rayovac. Thanks everybody for joining today.
Randy Raymond: Thank you very much, Carolyn.
Ann Rule: Thank you.
Jeff Poirer: Glad to be here.
Denis Carpenter: Thank you.
Carolyn Smaka: Our topic today is Rayovac's mercury free batteries, which we're hearing more and more about. "Mercury free" seem to be real buzz words throughout the industry. Last year Denis and Randy filled me in a little on this topic, but I wanted to get an update and see what's happening in this area.
Randy Raymond: Thanks, Carolyn, I'll jump in. We've made tremendous progress in terms of mercury free batteries. We are almost a year and a half into our launch of mercury free batteries, and we have now shipped tens of millions of cells worldwide at this point. We're very pleased with the response that we're seeing to our product. We're getting affirmation from the marketplace that first and foremost, offering mercury free batteries was and is simply just the right thing to do.
There's a consciousness today, where most people are very responsive to doing the right sorts of things for the environment. Secondly, we're very pleased with the fact that our product is performing so well. Moving to mercury free batteries was highly challenging both from a technological standpoint and from a manufacturing standpoint, and our product has been very well received. We continue to gain tremendous experience, and in fact, we're now on the cusp of getting ready to launch our second generation of mercury free product this fall.
Jeff Poirer: I'd like to expand a bit on Randy's points. From the technology side, the need to be able to replicate the function of mercury in batteries was a fairly difficult task. As much as the element of mercury is undesirable in the environment, it did a number of positive things in zinc air batteries. Mercury was amalgamated or mixed in with the zinc, and it had multiple uses in the batteries, including suppressed gassing. It's also a very good electronic conductor, it affected the initial service life, and it improved service-life retention.
Eliminating mercury meant finding suitable substitutes that provided equivalent performance and function in the batteries. That was something that we worked on for a number of years until we reached the point of having a formulation that could give very high performance to our customers and enable us to start the manufacturing process evaluation.
Because we started this development many years ago, we were able to take the leadership step and introduce mercury free batteries to the marketplace. As Randy mentioned, we've built tens of millions of batteries that have served our customers' needs quite capably. We're now excited to leapfrog to the next level of performance with the next generation of mercury free batteries coming out in the fall.
Rayovac mercury free batteries are available in all cell and package sizes.
Carolyn Smaka: How long was the development process for mercury free batteries?
Randy Raymond: This is really the culmination now of six to seven years of very diligent effort. As a broad-based battery manufacturer, we had seen the drive to eliminate mercury in alkaline batteries in the 1990s, and for us it was just an inevitability that that would eventually happen with all cell sizes. And by the way, hearing aid batteries are not the only batteries that are affected by the removal of mercury. In fact, all button cell batteries will be affected by state legislation banning mercury in batteries in the United States come this time next year. So the launch of our mercury free eighteen months ago represented the culmination of many years work in terms of eliminating mercury. Since then our progress continues at a rapid pace to the point where we're now launching the next generation.
Jeff Poirer: It does seem like time has gone by very quickly since our launch of mercury free batteries. In our production review analyses, we look at performance of batteries after they've been on the market for some time. We're quite pleased that in our testing protocol the mercury free product has matured to 18 months of age and to see the level of performance and performance retention and that it replicates what we saw fro years of development testing.
Carolyn Smaka: Randy mentioned state legislation that bans mercury from button cell batteries. Can you go into more detail about that?
Randy Raymond: Sure. Legislation in the United States has been enacted at both the state and federal levels, which identifies mercury as being a hazardous substance that is undesirable in the environment. Several U.S. states, particularly Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, and now Louisiana, have taken action to in fact eliminate the sale of mercury-containing button cells. This includes not only hearing aid batteries but watch batteries, toy batteries and other button cells.
Jeff Poirer: It started back in the late 1990s into the early part of the 2000s where we saw a number of states and municipalities contemplating bans on the sale of batteries containing mercury. A critical mass was reached in a couple of key places, and that raised a lot of concerns because at the time suitable substitutes weren't available. A June 2011 deadline was decided in a collective agreement with battery manufacturers, and then other states and localities decided that they no longer needed to enact their own bans.
The June 2011 deadline provided the industry with the time to adjust and got us all behind one approach.
Carolyn Smaka: Thanks for detailing that legislation a bit. My next question is about the second generation of mercury free batteries from Rayovac. What can we expect from the second generation, and how will it differ from your current mercury free batteries?
Randy Raymond: We're very pleased overall with our first generation product in that we achieved some very definite targets for performance and for reliability. First and foremost, the product had to be extremely reliable. It had to be consistent and it had to be resilient against things like leakage and swelling, and we absolutely were able to do that. As the market leader, having a product that did undesirable things like leak or swell would not have been acceptable at all to our customer base.
Secondly, Rayovac is known for having the world's longest lasting hearing aid batteries, so it was critical for us to ensure that our mercury free product offered as long a life as our mercury containing counterpart. There are products out in the marketplace today that, while they're mercury free, offer substantially less performance than what our mercury containing product has. That would not have been acceptable to Rayovac users. The last item was voltage, and we knew when we launched mercury free batteries that they operated at slightly lower voltage than our standard product, yet better than other products in the market. That really became the area where we fixated on for our generation two product.
Denis Carpenter: 95% of consumers surveyed experienced an outcome either equal to, or better than, our standard product. A small proportion of users may have experienced premature low battery signals, and that's what the second generation will take care of.
Jeff Poirer: Exactly. The introduction of mercury free batteries coincided with the explosive growth of mini-BTEs with very high current demands due to advanced signal processing and wireless connectivity. This presented a challenge to operate under some of those loads. We knew in terms of technology leadership we had to meet the demands of high power aids and satisfy those device needs by continuing our product roadmap with further improvements.
So that's one of the key things that have driven us to look for ways to improve our operating voltages. We've focused our research and development on cathode improvements. With the upcoming introduction of a new cathode technology, having advanced voltage additives will help us to meet the demands of hearing instruments with advanced technology.
Carolyn Smaka: Speaking for myself here, but I've always taken batteries for granted. I never thought of ongoing battery R & D, or the bigger picture such as a product roadmap for battery technology.
Randy Raymond: In many respects, battery technology is an enabler. Unless we're able to provide what the hearing instrument engineers need in terms of a power source, they're handcuffed in terms of what they can do. So we have a very close hand-in-glove relationship with hearing instrument manufacturers, and that makes this all work. We design our roadmaps according to their technology and vice-versa, so it's a very tight knit relationship. While they may have great ideas for new hearing instrument technology or functionality, if they don't have a power source, they can't take it anywhere.
Jeff Poirer: We're driven to develop the best products for our customers. At Rayovac we realize that hearing instruments improve quality of life, and our piece of the business is critical to powering hearing instruments on a daily basis. In that way, we're contributing to allow people to lead better lives, and we all truly take that to heart.
Carolyn Smaka: What specific products are available in mercury free?
Ann Rule: All of our standard product lines are now available in our Mercury Free formulation. For hearing care professionals that buy directly from Rayovac, our ProLine line is fully available in mercury free, in all package sizes and in all cell sizes. The Extra brand is converted as well for those who buy products through distributors. Batteries for sale at Wal-Mart have been mercury free for almost two years now, and the Rayovac brand shipping to all other major retailers are fully converted to mercury free.
In fact, according to Nielsen data, over 50 percent of the retail market is now mercury free, and we would expect it to be 75 percent by the end of this year.
Denis Carpenter: It again goes back to the environmental consciousness that Randy mentioned earlier. This consciousness has matured in recent years, and you see a new focus on environmental issues such as climate change now. Nobody would argue that putting mercury in landfills is the right thing to do. We've taken a powerful step forward here to do something about it, and we're firmly committed to getting mercury out of our products, out of manufacturing facilities, and out of our environment. We're fully committed to doing that with as high of a performance and as good of a quality as we enjoy in our mercury containing cells.
Carolyn Smaka: It's been a pleasure speaking with you all today. Not only did I learn a few things, it was a lot of fun, too. I'll plan on following up with you when the second generation of mercury free batteries are available later this year.
Ann Rule: Thanks, Carolyn, we'll look forward to that.
For more information, please visit Rayovac's website for professionals at www.ThePowerofHearing.com or the Rayovac Web Channel at AudiologyOnline.
Randy Raymond: Thank you very much, Carolyn.
Ann Rule: Thank you.
Jeff Poirer: Glad to be here.
Denis Carpenter: Thank you.
Carolyn Smaka: Our topic today is Rayovac's mercury free batteries, which we're hearing more and more about. "Mercury free" seem to be real buzz words throughout the industry. Last year Denis and Randy filled me in a little on this topic, but I wanted to get an update and see what's happening in this area.
Randy Raymond: Thanks, Carolyn, I'll jump in. We've made tremendous progress in terms of mercury free batteries. We are almost a year and a half into our launch of mercury free batteries, and we have now shipped tens of millions of cells worldwide at this point. We're very pleased with the response that we're seeing to our product. We're getting affirmation from the marketplace that first and foremost, offering mercury free batteries was and is simply just the right thing to do.
There's a consciousness today, where most people are very responsive to doing the right sorts of things for the environment. Secondly, we're very pleased with the fact that our product is performing so well. Moving to mercury free batteries was highly challenging both from a technological standpoint and from a manufacturing standpoint, and our product has been very well received. We continue to gain tremendous experience, and in fact, we're now on the cusp of getting ready to launch our second generation of mercury free product this fall.
Jeff Poirer: I'd like to expand a bit on Randy's points. From the technology side, the need to be able to replicate the function of mercury in batteries was a fairly difficult task. As much as the element of mercury is undesirable in the environment, it did a number of positive things in zinc air batteries. Mercury was amalgamated or mixed in with the zinc, and it had multiple uses in the batteries, including suppressed gassing. It's also a very good electronic conductor, it affected the initial service life, and it improved service-life retention.
Eliminating mercury meant finding suitable substitutes that provided equivalent performance and function in the batteries. That was something that we worked on for a number of years until we reached the point of having a formulation that could give very high performance to our customers and enable us to start the manufacturing process evaluation.
Because we started this development many years ago, we were able to take the leadership step and introduce mercury free batteries to the marketplace. As Randy mentioned, we've built tens of millions of batteries that have served our customers' needs quite capably. We're now excited to leapfrog to the next level of performance with the next generation of mercury free batteries coming out in the fall.
Rayovac mercury free batteries are available in all cell and package sizes.
Carolyn Smaka: How long was the development process for mercury free batteries?
Randy Raymond: This is really the culmination now of six to seven years of very diligent effort. As a broad-based battery manufacturer, we had seen the drive to eliminate mercury in alkaline batteries in the 1990s, and for us it was just an inevitability that that would eventually happen with all cell sizes. And by the way, hearing aid batteries are not the only batteries that are affected by the removal of mercury. In fact, all button cell batteries will be affected by state legislation banning mercury in batteries in the United States come this time next year. So the launch of our mercury free eighteen months ago represented the culmination of many years work in terms of eliminating mercury. Since then our progress continues at a rapid pace to the point where we're now launching the next generation.
Jeff Poirer: It does seem like time has gone by very quickly since our launch of mercury free batteries. In our production review analyses, we look at performance of batteries after they've been on the market for some time. We're quite pleased that in our testing protocol the mercury free product has matured to 18 months of age and to see the level of performance and performance retention and that it replicates what we saw fro years of development testing.
Carolyn Smaka: Randy mentioned state legislation that bans mercury from button cell batteries. Can you go into more detail about that?
Randy Raymond: Sure. Legislation in the United States has been enacted at both the state and federal levels, which identifies mercury as being a hazardous substance that is undesirable in the environment. Several U.S. states, particularly Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, and now Louisiana, have taken action to in fact eliminate the sale of mercury-containing button cells. This includes not only hearing aid batteries but watch batteries, toy batteries and other button cells.
Jeff Poirer: It started back in the late 1990s into the early part of the 2000s where we saw a number of states and municipalities contemplating bans on the sale of batteries containing mercury. A critical mass was reached in a couple of key places, and that raised a lot of concerns because at the time suitable substitutes weren't available. A June 2011 deadline was decided in a collective agreement with battery manufacturers, and then other states and localities decided that they no longer needed to enact their own bans.
The June 2011 deadline provided the industry with the time to adjust and got us all behind one approach.
Carolyn Smaka: Thanks for detailing that legislation a bit. My next question is about the second generation of mercury free batteries from Rayovac. What can we expect from the second generation, and how will it differ from your current mercury free batteries?
Randy Raymond: We're very pleased overall with our first generation product in that we achieved some very definite targets for performance and for reliability. First and foremost, the product had to be extremely reliable. It had to be consistent and it had to be resilient against things like leakage and swelling, and we absolutely were able to do that. As the market leader, having a product that did undesirable things like leak or swell would not have been acceptable at all to our customer base.
Secondly, Rayovac is known for having the world's longest lasting hearing aid batteries, so it was critical for us to ensure that our mercury free product offered as long a life as our mercury containing counterpart. There are products out in the marketplace today that, while they're mercury free, offer substantially less performance than what our mercury containing product has. That would not have been acceptable to Rayovac users. The last item was voltage, and we knew when we launched mercury free batteries that they operated at slightly lower voltage than our standard product, yet better than other products in the market. That really became the area where we fixated on for our generation two product.
Denis Carpenter: 95% of consumers surveyed experienced an outcome either equal to, or better than, our standard product. A small proportion of users may have experienced premature low battery signals, and that's what the second generation will take care of.
Jeff Poirer: Exactly. The introduction of mercury free batteries coincided with the explosive growth of mini-BTEs with very high current demands due to advanced signal processing and wireless connectivity. This presented a challenge to operate under some of those loads. We knew in terms of technology leadership we had to meet the demands of high power aids and satisfy those device needs by continuing our product roadmap with further improvements.
So that's one of the key things that have driven us to look for ways to improve our operating voltages. We've focused our research and development on cathode improvements. With the upcoming introduction of a new cathode technology, having advanced voltage additives will help us to meet the demands of hearing instruments with advanced technology.
Carolyn Smaka: Speaking for myself here, but I've always taken batteries for granted. I never thought of ongoing battery R & D, or the bigger picture such as a product roadmap for battery technology.
Randy Raymond: In many respects, battery technology is an enabler. Unless we're able to provide what the hearing instrument engineers need in terms of a power source, they're handcuffed in terms of what they can do. So we have a very close hand-in-glove relationship with hearing instrument manufacturers, and that makes this all work. We design our roadmaps according to their technology and vice-versa, so it's a very tight knit relationship. While they may have great ideas for new hearing instrument technology or functionality, if they don't have a power source, they can't take it anywhere.
Jeff Poirer: We're driven to develop the best products for our customers. At Rayovac we realize that hearing instruments improve quality of life, and our piece of the business is critical to powering hearing instruments on a daily basis. In that way, we're contributing to allow people to lead better lives, and we all truly take that to heart.
Carolyn Smaka: What specific products are available in mercury free?
Ann Rule: All of our standard product lines are now available in our Mercury Free formulation. For hearing care professionals that buy directly from Rayovac, our ProLine line is fully available in mercury free, in all package sizes and in all cell sizes. The Extra brand is converted as well for those who buy products through distributors. Batteries for sale at Wal-Mart have been mercury free for almost two years now, and the Rayovac brand shipping to all other major retailers are fully converted to mercury free.
In fact, according to Nielsen data, over 50 percent of the retail market is now mercury free, and we would expect it to be 75 percent by the end of this year.
Denis Carpenter: It again goes back to the environmental consciousness that Randy mentioned earlier. This consciousness has matured in recent years, and you see a new focus on environmental issues such as climate change now. Nobody would argue that putting mercury in landfills is the right thing to do. We've taken a powerful step forward here to do something about it, and we're firmly committed to getting mercury out of our products, out of manufacturing facilities, and out of our environment. We're fully committed to doing that with as high of a performance and as good of a quality as we enjoy in our mercury containing cells.
Carolyn Smaka: It's been a pleasure speaking with you all today. Not only did I learn a few things, it was a lot of fun, too. I'll plan on following up with you when the second generation of mercury free batteries are available later this year.
Ann Rule: Thanks, Carolyn, we'll look forward to that.
For more information, please visit Rayovac's website for professionals at www.ThePowerofHearing.com or the Rayovac Web Channel at AudiologyOnline.
