Home Made Deep Cycle Batteries

[Quigon10101]

Plate Forming Update:

Having read from a few sources, including Lyndon Lamar's Storage Battery Engineering, I am confident that the correct way forward is to (a) charge, (b) discharge, (c) reverse polarity, and repeat.

There is also a method listed in that book which I find practical, unless I have read it wrong.

From page 126: "(Norden's method of forming Plante plates): In the formation, a peroxide is added to the solution, in order to form the continuous reduction of lead peroxide to sponge lead. Norden recommends the addition of Potassium Permanganate[...]."

Now potassium permanganate is easily available from chemists. So is hydrogen peroxide albeit I'm not going to risk using the latter as I've read somewhere that it can form something terrible called Piranhic acid when added to Sulphuric acid.

So I guess I'll be adding a pinch of potassium permanganate to each cell since the quantity is not mentioned in the book. Someone knowledgeable should advise perhaps.

I know this will continuously add sponge lead to the positive plates on each polarity reversal of charge, and then the additive is bound to disintegrate eventually, leaving a lot of sponge on all plates (not too much I hope), the positive ones should then turn to lead peroxide on the next charge.

[BroMikey]

Studying New Materials

Hi Quigon10101

Great information. I find in my learning something new always surfaces.

I looked for lead sheets some time back and antimony is a common lead additive.

The separators are important yes but the biggest concern is the positive plate disintegration so good sized industrial batteries make the dark red positive plates thicker.

All of the 30 years batteries I have taken apart have broken positive plates.

After forming and cycling the positive plates develop microscopic pin holes throughout the lattice structure. The stronger made arrangements as I have shown in the picture above do not utilize powder held in place with binders in the grid formation you are suggesting.

While the stronger structures without the powder take longer to break down don't have as much surface area exposed to the acid AT FIRST but eventually perforate as all plates do to form an ever increasing exposure to the electrolyte.

With larger plate surface area a batteries capacity is greater and generally the smaller high capacity batteries are short lived.

If you want longevity consider doubling the size of the battery like we see with the Nickel Iron ones. Don't use thin plates with powder held into grids for highest outputs for unit volume, use stronger more clumsy looking plates and make them bigger to equal the surface area you need.

Not the other way around.

Mike

[Quigon10101]

Thanks for the comments Mike.

I'm not using powdered / Faure / pasted plates. I think the picture I posted to show my welded method of construction has misled you to think so.

These are solid pure lead plates that I cut out from a 1 mm thick lead sheet. However, I regret cutting and welding them. I should have instead measured and cut out 12 long strips and rolled two of them for each cell to make a 12v plante battery.

I'm worried about the mere 1 mm thickness of the lead. It might not last as long as I want it to.

In that same book, I also read about Superoxide of lead and how a certain method of forming plante plates in a neutral pH electrolyte can yield superoxide lead crystals that are extremely tough, adhere strongly to plates and therefore increase the battery life astonishingly. There is a video by JB in which he adds some chemical to the alum solution to neutralize the electrolyte pH. I think thats the ticket.

[BroMikey]

Alum Batteries

My 1700ah battery set is converted to Alum.

Here is another design known as tubular plates on both the positive and neg side to increase positive plate life by making the positive side way bigger.

[Quigon10101]

Some thoughts on active material

Indeed, for pasted grid sort of batteries, or in fact all the commercially available lead acid batteries which are actually all powder or coarser granules trapped in metallic grids or mesh, the battery life ender is the inevitable shedding of the positive plates. This occurs over time because of charge cycles and plate expansion which loosens the active material and it then falls off the plates.

On the contrary, I read in Lyndon Lamar's Battery Storage Engineering book that in solid lead or Plante plate batteries, the immediate issue is instead the early failure of negative plates made from solid lead due to the eventual loss of the lead sponge surfaces after many charge-discharge cycles. Due to this, some earlier Plante battery manufacturers therefore did not use solid lead / Plante plates as negatives, or resorted to form much thicker spongier solid lead plates for the negatives. So that the charge-discharge cycles and the unavoidable shedding of active material would not decrease the negative plate capacity due to shedding.

Plante himself was plagued by the shedding and the resulting capacity reduction problem in the beginning when forming his plates by charge-discharge cycles, which expand and contract the plates and result in shedding of active material / crystals / sponge lead surface. He employed what is reported as "periods of repose" in conjunction with repeated reverse charging during plate formation "in order to make the sponge lead (or crystals) adhere strongly to the solid lead plate surface". I need to learn more about the specifications of this period of repose. Perhaps it spans a full day. This is also why the plate surfaces need to be sandblasted or grooved or scored and must be exceptionally clean so that the active material adheres strongly to them and does not shed much.

If we can research, unlock and employ the superoxide of lead thing which comes in a neutral pH electrolyte, I think we will have hit the goldmine of battery longevity regardless of if the plates are solid or pasted grid type.

[BroMikey]

Expansion and contraction

Hello Quigon10101

Yes the Negative plate goes through a lot of stress. There must be a retainer or binding material AND loosely populated aggregate placed in the windows to allow for expansion. If placement for expansion is not allotted the entire plate will swell and distort in the long run.

In early models in the 1930's Sponge material meaning that LEAD OXIDE was mixed with fine wood fibers as a retainer lattice to do two things. One thing was to leave room for expansion and number two was to keep the active LEAD OXIDE in place so the packing did not get so loose and the window so empty the the grid dust just fell out.





A simple solution is to use the spiral cell configuration as it solves many of these problems with endless complex models of advanced binders.

The spirals are strong red plate structures that stand up to the abuse of perforating wood pecker like holes til the death of the plate.

Also spirals leave plenty of room for expansion and contraction in the negative plate.

There are many other ideas for advancements of battery building found in 100 years of patented research. After finding these ways that are new ones testing must be done to verify the success of retaining active LEAD OXIDE in negative plate grid windows.


Here is a simple corrugation gear set





I had suggested spirals because they are a great solution for simple construction and are far better than solid ones which are 10X larger for the same capacity.

Mike

[BroMikey]

Surface Area

If we can research, unlock and employ the superoxide of lead thing which comes in a neutral pH electrolyte, I think we will have hit the goldmine of battery longevity regardless of if the plates are solid or pasted grid type.

Hi Quigon

Surface AREA determines the capacity. Your statement above is the same as this one.

" It does matter if it is a 50 square foot house or a 5000 square foot house they are all the same size and will perform the same task of housing electrons"


The solid plates are the 50 square foot structures while a modern LEAD ACID LEAD OXIDE grid designs represent the 5000 square foot structure.

Both the 50 square foot and 5000 square foot structures are the same external size. It takes time for this stuff to sink in.

Mike

[BroMikey]

Corrugated plates

Here is another patent





http://patentimages.storage.googleap...S1376566-1.png

[Quigon10101]

Hi Mike

That is some great information there bro and I thank you for sharing it. My next and so on home made batteries' design will be spiral / cylindrical because no doubt thats the winner design in many ways. (a) Ease of construction, (b) more surface area, (c) mechanical strength, (d) more electrolyte circulation, (e) room for fillings if the lead is corrugated, (f) efficient utilization of space, to name the obvious advantages.

Now I would like to share a quick update on the state of battery currently being formed.

I have added Potassium Permanganate to the electrolyte, one teaspoon per cell compartment. First I added half a teaspoonful per cell and the electrolyte turned dark violet. Then I started charging it in reverse, in order to form the side intended to be the negative plates. The steady current draw of the battery has increased by 500% after an hour or so of reverse charging. After an hour the dark violet electrolyte turned pale. I stirred the electrolyte to see if it had settled below, but was pleasantly surprised to see that it had been used, as described in the Norden process I mentioned in my previous post. So, I added the other half of the teaspoonful to each cell now turning the electrolyte dark violet again. I will take the battery off charge when the electrolyte turns pale again and continue with the reverse charge tomorrow, allowing the battery that little 'period of repose' as Plante put it.

[Quigon10101]

Update

After having charged the battery in reverse with potassium permanganate added to the electrolyte (Norden method of Plante plate formation), I am pleased to bring you the results so far and this update.

The process is definitely working and the potassium permanganate is assisting wonderfully, having shortened the forming process by many folds. Now I'm giving the battery straight up charging with my SS-SSG energizer, and after having added more potassium permanganate to the electrolytes in each of the six cells. I left it overnight and as expected the dark violet electrolyte had nearly turned clear in the morning. The bubbles formed with the energizer are mostly small and numerous.

After the electrolyte absorbs all the forming additive the sponge lead formed at the surface of the positive plates will then turn to lead oxide (hopefully) in tough little crystalline form. And that will complete the battery which will then be ready for service. After that I have to measure its amp-hour capacity.

[machinationu]

any more updates after ~ 2 years?

I'm thinking about doing the same, but the separator material?
The corrugated idea is great..
found that polyethylene not very good, totally destroyed by cobalt sulfate...
it simply turns into white powder. (Only on 2 units test)

And after 4 years and a DOD of ~10-20% 6 volt Golf Cart batterys sulfated
(my fault by undercharging to less than 2.5 V)
if the oxygen is Trapped in the bottom it will just heat battery as the neg plate is being oxidized by the trapped gas, can't be H as it rises fast. These big bubbles must be oxygen, simply turning the battery to ~ 20 degrees releases lots of them bubbles, and voltage drops (charges) and heat goes down..

The rubber separator has to have holes in it?