Can throw away batteries be charged?

[ShawnD]

I have 4 of those big 6V batteries used mostly in flashlights. The batteries are almost dead and I really don't want to break the bank buying new ones. Can I just hook them up to my 9V battery charger (in parallel) and charge them? Will they hold a charge again? Will they explode?

[314159]

Nope. Sorry, but it won't work. If it did, why would people pay more for rechargable batteries? What you'd need is a device called a pulse recharger, which can recharge regular batteries as if they were rechargeables. Of course, even with this you'll get lower amounts of charge stored, and the batteries will allow for far less recharges than ones designed to be recharged.