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Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal

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Fieldlines.com: The Otherpower discussion board Notices Classifieds Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal

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Topic: Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal (Read 9324 times)

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CraigCarmichael
Newbie

Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal


on: July 19, 2010, 05:24:57 PM

Posts: 34

Hi, I found out that lead-acid batteries evidently last 3 or 4 times as long if a sulfate salt is added to the sulfuric acid. It inhibits the usual corrosion and sulfation. I also found a couple of patents where a sulfate salt is secretly hidden in the electrode separator sheet "of golf cart and traction batteries" so no one (even in the factory!) knows it's there. It just dissolves out when the battery is filled. You can tell if your battery is already salted if you can find the cycle life specs: 100 -120 - 200... cycles: no salt has been added (most smaller batteries: deep cycle, RV, marine, and car starter batteries) 600 - 753... cycles: you can bet sulfate salt has been added to give them this longevity! (golf cart, forklift, very large batteries, very costly batteries) I doubt you'll find much in between like 300 or 400 cycles to confuse the issue: either it's salted or it isn't. * The best sulfate salt to use is pure sodium sulfate. That's only been recognized for 10 or 20 years AFAIK. * In the past sodium-aluminum sulfate (alum) has been used - it works but it's not the pure deal. Its battery life extending effects have been known since before world war two! * A few have used magnesium sulfate ("Epsom salts"). That's the least useful

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29/12/2013 7:57

Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal

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one. Many web pages are devoted to battery renewal with alum. Sodium sulfate has barely started registering in the collective consciousness, which is mainly why I'm writing this. My "claim to fame" here is that I did some experiments and determined the amount of sodium sulfate to put in, which I expressed as "a gram per cell per 2 pounds of battery weight" (12 volt battery). Essentially for a new(ish) battery, you just add the salt so the battery will last much longer -- like the manufacturer would have done if they actually wanted to give you value and quality for your money. For a "worn out" battery, you have to dump the acid and replace it with distilled water and salt, then do some charge-discharge cycles. Then you'll get more years of use out of it. It seems that treating a battery in "mid life" can cause problems, in my experience. More detailed info on my page: http://www.TurquoiseEnergy.com /Na2SO4.html I want to spread the word. Nobody involved with lead-acid batteries wants them to last longer for you - not even the retailers. What a great, decades old, scam "short lived" lead acid batteries are! Cheers, Craig
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dnix71
Hero Member

Re: Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal


Reply #1 on: July 19, 2010, 08:32:23 PM

Posts: 1747

I've heard of guys who used epson salts to revive "dead" batteries. They can't be mechanically damaged, just sulfated. I assumed it was the addition of magnesium that changed things. There used to be this pink stuff sold in a very small bottle to revive sulfated batteries that worked well, but it made the batteries "hot" and they would disssolve (plates fall apart) if you weren't careful. I always wondered about the color of the stuff, since there are some mercury compounds that color. I didn't want to be around it. One of the few things I remember from basic chemistry was that metal sulfate compounds have extremely low solubilities in water. That's why alum is used to treat raw water. The sulfate binds well to any heavy metal present and settles out of solution. Cheap and easy clean water. The other thing that might revive a dead battery, but shorten it's life would be anything that makes the plates spongy again. If the plates aren't porous you won't have much capacity. Anything that would bind to the plate and attract hydrogen would tend to reinflate the plates, but at the risk of breaking them. Antimony is added to lead to harden it, but it also makes it brittle. The amount of antimony needed to harden lead is very small. I have worked for a commercial almost my whole adult life. We still use lead type sometimes and the stuff is recycled endlessly. If we get a batch with too much antimony it doesn't cast right. It's easy to spot. Too little is just as bad, since pure lead is too soft and the cast type wears out too soon.
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29/12/2013 7:57

Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal

http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php?topic=143844.0

JeffD
Jr. Member Posts: 50

Re: Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal


Reply #2 on: August 01, 2010, 01:40:33 AM

This has been known for a lot longer than you think and its no secret. Its Just information that gets shoved into the background over time and comes to the surface every 20 to 30 years. Have a read of "The Storage Battery" by P. B. Warwick which was written over 100 years ago. The 1896 first edition covers the use of sodium sulphate addition in new cells. The 1903 "new revised and enlarged edition" goes into a little more detail on the use of sodium sulphate ie how much to use based on electrolyte volume and concentration and also talks about using it to remove hard sulfation. You can find the details on page 90 of the 1903 edition which is available for free through google books and other free libraries on the internet. Mr. W.J.S. Barker-Starkey was one of the first to use and document the use of soda salts in lead acid batteries back in the late 1880's. In the January 28, 1887, Electrical Review http://books.google.ca /books?id=PAwAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94&dq=barker-starkey& source=bl&ots=G10R7aBYr8&sig=FDEHaJHCdeOJWrHomlXiy_lelhc&hl=en& ei=uQlVTMu-HM-gnQe18tS4Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result& resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=barker-starkey&f=false there is a good discussion on the effects of sodium sulphate on some badly sulphated plates. In 2007 when I first started looking into rebuilding old batteries and building my own cells based on P.B. Warwick's instructions in "How to make and Use the Storage battery" I started experimenting with sodium carbonate ( which is what Barker-Starkey and Warwick used) to help clean up badly sulphated plates. Mixing sodium carbonate (washing soda - arm & hammer) with sulphuric acid will form sodium sulphate and lots of carbon dioxide gas which causes the acid to foam. The sodium carbonate must be added in very small amounts. Note that sodium carbonate is also used to neutralize sulphuric acid so adding too much will neutralize the acid and then eventually the solution will go alkaline as more sodium carbonate is added. The cell will work in an alkaline solution but cell voltage is around 1.6v fully charged and drops much faster when discharging and the cell only has about a third of the capacity than when using acid. The only plus when fully alkaline is it doesn't hard sulphate. The use of sodium carbonate as the electrolyte is mentioned in the Electrical Review but as already mentioned the capacity of the battery greatly suffers. If you don't change the modified electrolyte after the plates are cleaned up, then the positive plates will have a short second life since the large addition of sodium sulphate accelerates the corrosion of the positive plates. Although this is mentioned in several documents published prior to 1900, I never came across them until about two months after the first cell cleaned had failed. After being de-sulfated (took about 3 days of low current charging), the cell worked well for about 4 months and then started to rapidly lose capacity. I removed the cell plates to inspect them and discovered that the positive plates had turned to mush (but at least they weren't hard sulphated . Using smaller additions of sodium carbonate to form sodium sulphate reduces the rate of corrosion of the positive plates but also reduces the speed at which the plates de-sulphate. Having a clear case aids immensely in deciding if more sodium carbonate is needed but I have never had that luxury.
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dnix71
Hero Member

Re: Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal


Reply #3 on: August 01, 2010, 07:31:21 PM

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29/12/2013 7:57

Lead-acid Battery Longevity/Renewal

http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php?topic=143844.0

Posts: 1747

My first post here should have said "commercial printer" most of my adult life. I bought sodium meta bisulfite once from Ace Hardware labelled "TSP" and was thoroughly p-ssed off when I got home and found out what it really was. I wanted trisodium phosphate for my garden, not a cheap substitute to clean floors. Oddly enough I can't find it listed anymore, but sodium sulfite is easy to get locally because it's used to dechlorinate a swimming pool. Sodium metabisulfite is used as a food preservative and in wine making, so it can be bought locally, too.
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