Generally speaking Lead Acid batteries are broken down into two main categories; Flooded (or wet) Cells and Maintenance Free Sealed Lead Acid Batteries (SLA). Flooded Lead Acid batteries are the most commonly found lead acid battery type and are widely used in the automotive industry.
Flooded Lead Acid batteries are the most commonly found lead acid battery type and are widely used in the automotive industry. They provide the most cost effective solution, as the least cost per amp hour, of any lead acid battery type. The modern wet cell comes in two styles; serviceable and maintenance free.
Standby Sealed Lead Acid batteries are the most basic variety of the Sealed Lead Acid range. As the name suggests, they have been designed only for standby applications where they operate on a float (very low) load, maintaining Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS), Alarm Systems, Telecommunications and Network Systems.
Lead Acid versus Lithium-ion White Paper Lead acid batteries can be divided into two distinct categories: flooded and sealed/valve regulated (SLA or VRLA). The two types are identical in their internal chemistry (shown in Figure 3). The most significant differences between the two types are the system level design considerations.
AGM (Absorbed Glass Matt) and Gel Cell (gelified electrolyte). AGM batteries offer the best price point in the Valve Regulated Sealed lead acid variety. AGM Sealed Lead Acid Batteries utilise an Absorbed Glass Matt (AGM) process which is superior to traditional flooded technology.
A common misconception is that all "sealed" lead acid batteries are GEL. Gel VRLA batteries contain a gelified electrolyte which differs to their AGM counterparts. Sulfuric acid is mixed with silica fume, which makes the resulting mass gel-like and immobile. This creates a completely maintenance free, non spill able lead acid battery product.