The lead–acid battery is an old system, and its aging processes have been thoroughly investigated. Reviews regarding aging mechanisms, and expected service life, are found in the monographs by Bode and Berndt , and elsewhere , . The present paper is an up-date, summarizing the present understanding.
Temperature effects are discussed in detail. The consequences of high heat impact into the lead-acid battery may vary for different battery technologies: While grid corrosion is often a dominant factor for flooded lead-acid batteries, water loss may be an additional influence factor for valve-regulated lead-acid batteries.
Although water loss is an undesirable effect of lead-acid batteries (with both AGM and flooded), the deterioration effect caused by water loss is acceptable or even negligible in most cases in real-life applications, as it is shown in this paper.
On the other hand, at very high acid concentrations, service life also decreases, in particular due to higher rates of self-discharge, due to gas evolution, and increased danger of sulfation of the active material. 1. Introduction The lead–acid battery is an old system, and its aging processes have been thoroughly investigated.
Availability, safety and reliability issues—low specific energy, self-discharge and aging—continue to plague the lead-acid battery industry, 1 – 6 which lacks a consistent and effective approach to monitor and predict performance and aging across all battery types and configurations.
Low temperatures may be critical due to freezing of the electrolyte, in particular at low states of charge (SOC). High temperatures may accelerate the ageing of batteries, resulting in premature end of service life. The battery temperature is mainly determined by external factors like climate conditions and battery packaging.