Lead-acid battery development

Bullock KR (1995) Progress and challenges in bipolar lead-acid battery development. J Electrochem Soc 142 1726-1731... 

Major Milestones in Lead-Acid Battery Development... 

Buonarota, A., Menga, P., and Scarioni, V. (1987). An electrical model for discharge and recharge of lead-acid batteries, developed for industrial applications. L Energia Elettrica 7-8, 325-332. 

The electrowinning process developed by Ginatta (34) has been purchased by M.A. Industries (Atlanta, Georgia), and the process is available for licensing (qv). MA Industries have also developed a process to upgrade the polypropylene chips from the battery breaking operation to pellets for use by the plastics industry. Additionally, East Penn (Lyons Station, Pennsylvania), has developed a solvent-extraction process to purify the spent acid from lead—acid batteries and use the purified acid in battery production (35). 

Tetrabasic Lead Sulfate. Tetrabasic lead sulfate [12065-90-6] 4PbO PbSO, mol wt 1196.12, sp gr 8.15, is made by fusion of stoichiometric quantities of Htharge (PbO) and lead sulfate (PbSO heat of formation, Ai/ = — 1814 kJ/mol (—434.1 kcal/mol). Alternatively, tetrabasic lead sulfate may be prepared by boiling the components in aqueous suspensions. At about 70°C, tribasic hydrate reacts with lead oxide to form tetrabasic sulfate. At 80°C, this transformation is complete in - 20 hours. Tetrabasic lead sulfate is used in limited quantities in Europe as a PVC stabilizer. However, in the United States, lead-acid batteries have been developed by BeU Telephone Laboratories, which contain tetrabasic lead sulfate. Such batteries are used for emergency power at telephone switchboard stations and have an anticipated service life of over 50 years. 

The lead—acid battery is one of the most successful electrochemical systems and the most successful storage battery developed. In 1988 total battery sales, excluding Eastern European central economy countries, were more than 17 biUion (1). Lead—acid battery sales accounted for about 57% of that figure. About 80% of the lead [7439-92-1] (qv), Pb, consumption in the United States was for batteries in that year. 

In the 1990s, the use of batteries in electric vehicles and for load leveling is being revived partly for environmental reasons and partly because of scarce energy resources. Improvements in battery performance and life, fewer maintenance requirements, and automatic control systems are making these appHcations feasible. Research and development is ongoing all over the world to develop improved lead—acid batteries as weU as other systems to meet these needs. 

J. R. Pierson and C. E. Weinleiu, "Development of Unique Lightweight, High Performance Lead—Acid Batteries," iu J. Thompson, ed.. Power Sources 9, Academic Press, London, 1983. 

The historical development of the separator and of the lead-acid storage battery are inseparably tied together. When referring to lead-acid batteries today one primarily thinks of starter batteries or forklift traction batteries, but the original applications were quite different. 

Electric road vehicles have been reduced to insignificance, as mentioned already by, vehicles with combustion engines. Another electric vehicle — the electrically driven submarine — presented a continuous challenge to lead-acid battery separator development since the 1930s and 1940s. The wood veneers originally used in electric vehicles proved too difficult to handle, especially if tall cells had to be manufactured. Therefore much intense effort took place to develop the first plastic separators. In this respect the microporous hard rubber separator, still available today in a more advanced version, and a micro-porous PVC separator (Porvic I) merit special mention 28]. For the latter a molten blend of PVC, plasticizer and starch was rolled into a flat product. In a lengthy pro-... 

Finally, one development results from returning to a basic idea from the dawn of the lead-acid battery, wherein the functions of support for the positive active material and of the separator are combined into one component the gauntlet separator [84] consisting of a coarsely porous, flexible support structure coated with micropo-rous polyethylene material for separation. The future has to show whether this approach will be able to meet all demands. 

Flaving had over 150 years of technical development behind them, lead-acid batteries can be custom-tailored to specific applications, such as those requiring deep discharge cycles (e.g., where the batteries are used as the sole power source for electrical equipment) and for battery backup uses such as in large uninterruptible power supply systems in data centers. Moreover, lead-acid cells not only have low internal resistance but also experience no memory effect as do some more exotic cell designs, such as NiCads. This enables these cells to produce enormous currents and have a moderately long, predictable life.1... 

For an easier read, try the feature article in the occasional Chemist s Toolkit series, entitled Batteries today by Ron Dell, in Chemistry in Britain, March 2000, p. 34. It goes into greater depth than here, and is informative and relevant. The recent paper The lead acid battery by A. A. K. Vervaet and D. H. J. Baett, Electrimica Acta, 2002, 47, 3297, discusses the recent developments of this, the world s bestselling battery. 

Cost The cost of the battery is determined by the materials used in its fabrication and the manufacturing process. The manufacturer must be able to make a profit on the sale to the customer. The selling price must be in keeping with its perceived value (tradeoff of the ability of the user to pay the price and the performance of the battery). Alkaline primary Zn—MnOz is perceived to be the best value in the United States. However, in Europe and Japan the zinc chloride battery still has a significant market share. In developing countries, the lower cost Leclanche carbon—zinc is preferred. Likewise, lead acid batteries are preferred for automobile SLI over Ni—Cd with superior low-temperature performance but with a 10 times higher cost. 

Standard lead-acid batteries lose a small amount of water by evaporation, but the major mechanism for water loss is by electrolysis to form hydrogen and oxygen, as described by eqs (5.5) and (5.6). The presence of small quantities of foreign elements lowers the overvoltages for these processes and leads to an accelerated water loss it has been shown that the elements antimony, arsenic, cobalt, manganese, nickel, platinum and tellurium all have a deleterious effect, even at low levels. Two general approaches have been taken in the development of MF batteries ... 

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