An innovative & forward-thinking lead-acid battery manufacturer in India

It is true to say that batteries are one of the major innovations which have combined with other technologies to shape the modern industrial world. From industrial to domestic to personal use, they have truly given us freedoms and possibilities which would be impossible without portable and stationary energy storage. It is very clear to any modern human, that the march of the battery into more and more aspects of our daily lives is on a rapid increase, from single cell- single use in hand held devices like an AA alkaline for a computer mouse or a zinc-air button cell used in a wristwatch, to a grid-scale megawatt Battery Energy Storage System. Despite this plethora of chemistries and applications, it is the lead acid chemistry which is still, after 160 years since its invention, the most prolific provider of stored energy on the planet. This comes as a surprise to some who think that li-ion is the highest selling technology. This is true but only in value, not in capacity. Because of its higher cost per kWh, li-ion batteries have a higher sales value and bigger revenue than lead acid. However, this is one of the reasons that the lead acid battery (LAB) has endured so long in a highly competitive and changing commercial environment. 

we look at the invention of the lead acid electrochemical storage battery, and trace its origins through history, from the first known examples of electrochemical cells through to the modern VRLA and bipolar versions. In 1749, Benjamin Franklin, the U.S. polymath, first used the term “battery” to describe a set of linked capacitors he used for his experiments with electricity. These capacitors were panels of glass coated with metal on each surface. These capacitors were charged with a static generator and discharged by touching metal to their electrode. Linking them together in a “battery” gave a stronger discharge. Originally having the generic meaning of “a group of two or more similar objects functioning together”, as in an artillery battery, the term was used for voltaic piles and similar devices in which many electrochemical cells were connected together.

The lead acid battery is an electrochemical storage device and as such has the same principle of providing an electric current and voltage as all other electrochemical batteries, some of which preceded the adoption of lead acid as a method of storing and delivering electricity. However, it was the first battery which was rechargeable. This meant it could be used many times and brought back to its full state of charge when required. It was this that set it apart from other battery chemistries of its time.

It was the Frenchman Alessandro Volta who invented what we would call the first electrochemical cell in 1800, now known as Volta’s Voltaic Pile, This was essentially a vertical tower of alternating copper and zinc discs with brine soaked cloth between them.

The practical problems with this first battery are pretty obvious (side shorts from leaking electrolyte, keeping the cloth moist etc.). However, it did produce a substantial shock, and when series connections between individual cells were made, it gave an even bigger jolt. Still, it was not an ideal way to store and deliver electricity. Some improvements were made to the design which allowed batteries to made by connecting cells contained in individual glass jars and it was a Scot – William Cruickshank, who made a box construction and laid the plates on their side instead of in a stack. This became known as the trough battery and was in fact the precursor of almost all modern battery constructions. However, the big problem with either of these designs, was that they were not rechargeable. One discharge and you had to put in new plates and electrolyte and start again. Not really a practical solution to storing and providing electricity.

It was not until 1859 that a Frenchman, Gustav Planté, invented the world’s first rechargeable electrochemical cell. This was a spirally wound double sheet of lead separated by a rubber strip, immersed in a sulphuric acid electrolyte and contained in a glass jar.

Whilst the battery became an overnight sensation in the energy supply business, it still was limited in its capacity. This remained a problem until a major breakthrough in the commercialisation of the lead acid battery was made in 1880 by Camille Alphonse Fauré. In order to increase the duration of the current during its discharge, he had the idea of coating the lead sheets with a paste of lead oxides, sulphuric acid and water. He then developed the process of curing whereby the coated plates were put into a warm, humid atmosphere. Under these conditions the paste mixture formed basic lead sulphates which also reacted with the lead electrodes to form a low resistance bond. The plates were then charged in sulphuric acid and the cured paste was converted into electrochemically active material. This gave a much higher capacity than the original Planté cell.

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