Abstract: The sodium sulphate in the electrolyte and its influence on the electrochemical characteristics such as capacity, reserve capacity, cold cranking ampere, high rate discharge and charge acceptance of the lead acid battery have been investigated.
The total quantity of voltage discharged by the sodium sulfate additive electrolyte (0.80V) was less than that of the dilute sulfuric acid electrolyte (1.20V) and this implies that the additive slightly improved the cycle life of the battery.
All lead-acid batteries will accumulate sulfation during their lifetime as a normal part of the chemical processes of the battery. But, sulfation builds up most and will start to cause problems when your battery is undercharged, stored in excessive heat, or stored without a full charge. Is Battery Sulfation Bad?
The sodium sulphate in the aqueous sulphuric acid electrolyte acts as buffer solution and also expected to improve the reversibility of redox reaction in the lead acid battery. Further, the density of the electrolyte changes with Na2SO4concentration in the electrolyte and the same is depicted in Fig.2.
Additive effects of aluminium sulfate in the sulfuric electrolyte solution of lead acid battery had no improvement on the charge cycle and stability of the cathode with reference to the battery made of dilute sulfuric acid electrolyte.
Presence of sulphate salts to the battery electrolyte to reduce the solubility of lead sulphate reduces the number of failures from shorting when the battery is deeply discharged or stored with minimal electrolyte. [14-17].