New breakthrough in lead-acid battery technology: graphene additives greatly improve the charging and discharging efficiency

New breakthrough in lead-acid battery technology

Time：2025-03-01 20:25:04

Browse：92

Recently, a remarkable technological breakthrough has brought a new dawn for the performance improvement of lead-acid batteries - adding graphene additives to lead-acid batteries can greatly improve their charging and discharging efficiency.

Graphene helps improve the performance of lead-acid batteries

Graphene, a two-dimensional material made of carbon atoms, has many excellent properties. Its ultra-high conductivity is several times that of copper, and the electron migration speed in it is extremely fast; At the same time, it has excellent mechanical strength and chemical stability. These properties play a key role when graphene is applied as an additive to lead-acid batteries.

In the positive electrode, the main component of the positive electrode of the lead-acid battery is lead oxide, and after the addition of graphene, it can be used as a high-efficiency conductive agent, greatly enhancing the conductivity of the electrode. This not only makes the electrode more responsive in the charge and discharge process, reduces the loss of active substances, but also improves the overall reaction efficiency. For example, in some experiments, the positive electrode of the lead-acid battery with the addition of graphene has increased the utilization rate of active substances by 20%-30% compared with the traditional lead-acid battery, so that the battery can convert electrical energy into chemical energy faster when charging, and can convert chemical energy into electrical energy more efficiently when discharging.

The negative electrode also benefits from the addition of graphene. The negative electrode of the lead-acid battery is composed of lead, and in the long-term use process, the negative electrode is prone to sulfation, which is one of the important reasons for the deterioration of battery performance and shortening of life. The graphene coating can effectively inhibit the occurrence of sulfation. Studies have shown that the unique structure of graphene can change the charge distribution on the negative surface, making it difficult for lead sulfate crystals to deposit in large quantities on the negative surface and form irreversible sulfation, thus extending the service life of the battery. Experimental data show that the negative electrode of the lead-acid battery with graphene is 3-5 times more resistant to sulfation, which significantly reduces the performance decline caused by sulfation of the battery.

In terms of electrolyte optimization, graphene composites show unique advantages. It can improve the distribution of the electrolyte inside the battery, so that the electrolyte more uniformly infiltrates the electrode, enhancing the efficiency of ion transport in it. Especially in low temperature environment or high rate charging and discharging extreme conditions, this advantage is more obvious. In the past, lead-acid batteries in low temperature environment, due to the reduction of ionic activity and the increase of electrolyte viscosity, charge and discharge efficiency will be greatly reduced, and even cannot work normally. However, after the addition of graphene additives, at a low temperature environment of -20 ° C, the charge and discharge efficiency of the battery can still be maintained at 70% to 80% of the normal temperature state, which greatly expands the temperature range of the lead-acid battery and improves its applicability in special environments.

Extensive impact of significant increase in charge and discharge efficiency

The charge and discharge efficiency has been greatly improved, so that the performance of lead-acid batteries in many application scenarios has been a qualitative leap.

In the field of electric vehicles, although lithium batteries currently occupy a dominant position, lead-acid batteries still have a certain share in some low-speed electric vehicles, short-distance logistics vehicles and other market segments with their cost advantages. With the addition of graphene additives, the charging time of these vehicles is greatly reduced. For example, low-speed electric vehicles that originally use traditional lead-acid batteries may take 8-10 hours to be fully charged, but after using lead-acid batteries with graphene additives, the charging time can be shortened to 3-5 hours, greatly improving the convenience of vehicle use and reducing the time cost of users waiting for charging. At the same time, the improvement of discharge efficiency means that the power output of the vehicle is more stable and strong during the driving process, and the driving range has also increased, generally increasing by 10%-20%, which can improve the distribution efficiency and reduce operating costs for short-distance logistics distribution enterprises without increasing too much cost.

In the field of energy storage, lead-acid batteries are often used in the energy storage of solar and wind power generation systems. In the past, due to its limited charge and discharge efficiency, it would cause a large energy loss in the process of storing and releasing electric energy. Now, lead-acid batteries with graphene additives can store electricity generated from renewable sources more efficiently and release it more fully when needed. Taking a small solar power station as an example, when using traditional lead-acid batteries, the loss in the process of energy storage and release is as high as 30%-40%, and after using new lead-acid batteries, the loss can be reduced to 15%-20%, improving the utilization efficiency of renewable energy and reducing energy waste. It is of great significance to promote the wide application of renewable energy.

Challenges and future prospects

Although graphene additives have achieved remarkable results in improving the charging and discharging efficiency of lead-acid batteries, this technology still faces some challenges in the promotion process.

On the one hand, the preparation cost of high-quality graphene is high, which increases the production cost of batteries to a certain extent. At present, graphene preparation methods are diverse, such as mechanical stripping, chemical vapor deposition, etc., but these methods either have low yields, or complex processes and high costs, limiting the application of graphene in the large-scale production of lead-acid batteries. However, with the continuous progress of technology, some low-cost mass production technologies are being developed, such as the REDOX method to prepare graphene, the future is expected to reduce the cost of graphene through technological innovation, thus promoting the wide application of this technology.

On the other hand, the long-term corrosion resistance of graphene in strong acid environments (sulfuric acid electrolyte of lead-acid batteries) needs to be further verified. Although the current research and experiments show that graphene can exist and play a stable role in a certain period of time, whether the sulfuric acid electrolyte will cause damage to the graphene structure during long-term use, and then affect the stability of the battery performance, still need more long-term experimental data support.

Looking forward to the future, with the continuous deepening of research on the composite system of graphene and lead-acid batteries, as well as the development of material composite optimization technology, graphene additives are expected to form a composite system with other materials such as carbon nanotubes, conductive polymers, etc., to further reduce the amount of graphene, while improving the overall performance of batteries. In addition, combined with the principle of supercapacitor design of lead-graphene hybrid energy storage system is also being explored, this new system is expected to take into account high power and high energy characteristics, for the development of lead-acid batteries open up a new direction.

In short, the application of graphene additives in lead-acid batteries has brought new vitality and vitality to this traditional energy storage device. Although facing challenges, with the continuous breakthrough and improvement of technology, it is expected to achieve wide application in more fields, inject new impetus into the development of energy storage field, and promote the sustainable development of related industries while meeting the market demand for efficient and low-cost energy storage.

Statement: The articles on this site are written by the GSGT team or reprinted from other media or compiled by AI.No reproduction without permission.For copyright or other issues, please contact:gsgtpower@163.com.

News

New breakthrough in lead-acid battery technology

Lead-acid battery 3PzS345 Specification - adapted to Jungheinrich ERE120 electric pallet truck

5PzS625 - Jungeinrich 1.6 tons storage EFG216 forklift special 48V625Ah battery - GSGT Mall

24V 12-3PZS210Ah tractor battery set for L10AC stacking forklift truck

24V 3EPZS345 stacking truck battery and Linde T20S electric forklift battery customization