Starting, lighting, and ignition

C—Lead Lead anode Lead oxide Secondary Lead—add batteries used for starting, lighting, and ignition (SLI)... 

The world market for batteries of all types now exceeds 100 billion. Over half of this sum is accounted for by lead-acid batteries - mainly for vehicle starting, lighting and ignition (SL1), and industrial use including traction and standby power, with about one-third being devoted to primary cells and the remainder to alkaline rechargeable and specialist batteries. 

SLI batteries (starting, lighting and ignition) 100-600 Wh Cars, trucks, buses, tractors, lawn mower traction... 

SLI battery A battery of usually 12 or 24 V used for starting, lighting and ignition in vehicles with internal combustion engines. 

The latter batteries are used for such different applications as in consumer elee-tronics, in vehicles for starting, lighting, and ignition (SLI) and for traction, as emergency power supplies, in load-leveling systems of electric power stations to supply peak demand, and as systems to couple with alternative energy sources. 

The lead/acid battery will remain the primary system for starting, lighting and ignition (SLI) applications. This does not pose a serious threat to the environment, since >85% of the batteries are presently being recycled. However, the sealed Pb/acid cells used in many consumer applications will probably go the way of... 

Lead—acid batteries are used in three main applications automotive (starting, lighting and ignition, SLI), for motive power and for standby (reserve) power. A fourth type of lead—acid batteries is trying to gain a market segment, too, i.e. batteries for hybrid eleetric vehicle applications. In view of the partieular battery funetion and the speeifieity of the operation mode in the above four applications, the amounts of the three expander eomponents should differ for the different battery types, depending on their effeet on the proeesses that oeeur in the battery. Boden [39] proposes typical expander formulations for the different battery applications as summarised in Table 7.3. 

The first VRLA batteries were developed in the 1970s. In 1978 automobiles started using the VRLA battery for starting, lighting and ignition (SLI) purposes. Because they required little maintenance from the 1990s they were used in prototypes of electric vehicles. VRLA batteries have contributed to the reduction costs of electric vehicles and subsequently their sales. 

The most important market remains the car battery for starting, lighting and ignition (SLI), with approximately 50 x 10 units per year being sold in the USA. Lead/acid batteries are, however, also used on a very large scale for traction (e.g. delivery vans, milk floats, fork-lift trucks, industrial trucks — there are more than 100 000 such vehicles in the UK) and for stationary back-up or emergency power supplies. More recently, small lead/acid cells to compete with high-quality primary cells and nickel/cadmium cells for instruments, radios, etc., have also become available. 

Ftg. 11.6 A cutaway drawing of a starting, lighting and ignition lead-add battery. (Courtesy Lucas Batteries Ltd.)... 

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