Summary
Every year, about 200,000 lead-acid batteries are placed on the market in Germany - this corresponds to about 5 gigawatt hours energy storage. The case of application ranges from emergency power supply in hospitals, remote mobile phone stations to temporary storage of renewable energies.
Compared to other electrochemical energy storage systems, the processes in a lead-acid battery are extremely complex and partly not yet understood. Hence, further research could exploit considerable potential of this technology and expand the central role of lead-acid batteries in society and economy as a high-tech product in the future.
In this project, new additives and active material compositions will be examined with regard to their electrochemical effects on a micro- and macroscopic level. For this purpose, a test cell for investigation on laboratory scale will be set up. Furthermore, a method for determining the electrical conductivity of the active material during operation of the electrode will be developed. Electrodes for each individual active material mixture will be manufactured and used in the test cell in order to investigate the effects of different additives.
Apart from this, the potential distribution of an electrode during discharge is modeled. In addition, a method for investigating the impedance (alternating current resistance) of the electrolyte (mixture of sulfuric acid and silica) is established. The aim of using new silica materials is to reduce the amount of silica added to the electrolyte which saves production costs and could improve the battery properties.
