What materials are inside an aa battery?

Question

What is inside a regular duracell aa battery and what makes it work?

Answer 1

Nasty stuff, don't open them (they may explode if cut burnt etc) and if it leaks don't touch if with your skin even if it looks dry.

The Duracell battery you speak of is a higher quality 'alkaline' battery: You can find info on how they work here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_ba...

The cheaper AA batteries (that don't last no where near as long and are more prone to leaking - they also feel alot lighter than the alkaline ones for some reason) are zinc-carbon or zinc-chloride batteries. Wikipedia these too if you want to know how they work.