Lead-Acid Batteries: Science and Technology

A Handbook of Lead-Acid Battery Technology and Its Influence on the Product

D. Pavlov

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780444595607
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Lead-Acid Batteries: Science and Technology: A Handbook of Lead-Acid Battery Technology and Its Influence on the Product, Second Edition presents a comprehensive overview of the technological processes of lead-acid battery manufacture and their influence on performance parameters. The book summarizes current knowledge on lead-acid battery production, presenting it in the form of an integral theory that is supported by ample illustrative material and experimental data that allows technologists and engineers to control technological processes in battery plants. In addition, the book provides university lecturers with a tool for a clear and in-depth presentation of lead-acid battery production in courses.

This updated edition includes new supplementary material (text and illustrations) in chapters 2, 4, 6 and 16, as well as a brand new chapter on the action of carbon as an additive to the negative active material and the utilization of the lead-carbon supercapacitor electrodes. Substantial revisions of other chapters have been made, making the book beneficial for battery researchers, engineers and technologists.

• Written by a world authority on lead-acid batteries in a comprehensive and unified manner
• Includes new chapters on lead-acid batteries operating in the HRPSoC duty for hybrid electric vehicle applications and on lead-carbon electrodes
• Presents a comprehensive overview of the theory of the technological processes of lead-acid battery manufacture and their influence on battery performance parameters
• Proposes optimum conditions for individual technological processes that would yield superior structures of the lead and lead dioxide active masses
• Discusses the processes involved in the closed oxygen cycle in VRLAB and the thermal phenomena leading to thermal runaway (TRA)

Part 1

Fundamentals of Lead–Acid Batteries

Outline

Chapter 1. Invention and Development of the Lead–Acid Battery

Chapter 2. Fundamentals of Lead–Acid Batteries

Chapter 1

Invention and Development of the Lead–Acid Battery

Abstract

Gaston Planté invented the lead–acid battery by combing a lead/lead sulfate and lead dioxide/lead sulfate electrodes. He demonstrated it before the French Academy of Sciences in 1860. The battery had low capacity because the electrodes were produced by electrochemical cycling of lead plates in H₂SO₄ solution. Fauré increased the capacity by coating the lead plates with lead oxide paste to form active masses. Volckmar and Sellon replaced the lead sheets with lead–antimony (PbSb) grids. Barton proposed a method of PbO manufacture by oxidation of molten pulverized Pb and Shimadzu by friction of lead balls in mills. The technology evolved into manufacturing pastes from tri- or tetrabasic lead sulfates, pasting of grids, and electrochemical formation of electrodes. Thanks to this technology, skeleton and energetic structures are formed in both active masses. The capacity of the negative plates was improved by adding lignosulfonates, BaSO_4, and carbon to the paste.

To reduce water loss during operation of the lead–acid battery, the PbSb grids were replaced with PbCa ones. This resulted in premature capacity loss on cycling, which was overcome by the addition of tin to the PbCa alloy. In batteries with PbSnCa grids, the polymer separator was replaced by absorptive glass mat, which transferred the oxygen evolved at the positive plates to the negatives, where it was reduced and the water was restored. Maintenance-free valve-regulated lead–acid batteries were created.

Lead–acid batteries are produced for use in automobiles for starting, lighting, and ignition. Other applications include stationary batteries used for back-up power supply, traction batteries, special purpose batteries for aircrafts and submarines, reserve (stand-by) batteries, and batteries for hybrid electric vehicles.

Keywords

Development of lead–acid battery; Gaston Planté; Lead–acid batteries for hybrid electric vehicles; Lead–acid battery; Lead–carbon electrode; Types of lead–acid batteries; VRLAB

1.1. A Prelude

A scientific product is never born spontaneously in a researcher's mind. Normally, it is a result of the efforts of many scientists whose work and achievements have provided the background for and “paved the way” to the invention of this new product. The person recognized as the inventor of the product is actually the one who has best understood its essence (fundamental principles) and has produced, and convincingly demonstrated this product to the public. Such is the case with the invention of the lead–acid battery, too.

The discovery of electricity as a form of energy is, if not the greatest, definitely one of the greatest achievements of mankind. Electricity ha...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part 1. Fundamentals of Lead–Acid Batteries
• Part 2. Materials Used for Lead–Acid Battery Manufacture
• Part 3. Processes During Paste Preparation and Curing of the Plates
• Part 4. Plate Formation
• Part 5. Battery Storage and VRLA Batteries
• Part 6. Calculation of the Active Materials in a Lead–Acid Cell
• Appendices
• Index