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Lightweight plastic grids for lead/acid battery plates have been prepared from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene copolymer. The grids have been coated with a conductive and corrosion-resistant tin oxide layer by a novel rapid thermally activated chemical reaction process. X-ray powder diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy show the coated tin oxide film to be SnO 2 -like. The grids are about 75% lighter than conventional lead/acid battery grids. A 6 V/1 Ah lead/acid battery has been assembled and characterized employing positive and negative plates made from these grids. The energy density of such a lead/acid battery is believed to be more than 50 Wh/kg.

A sealed, starved-electrolyte, negative-limited 6 V/1 Ah laboratory prototype of a nickel-iron (Ni-Fe) battery comprising five cells stacked in series with ceria-supported platinum as hydrogen-oxygen recombinant catalyst was assembled. The battery was tested under various operational conditions. While a continuous increase in gaseous pressure in the cells was observed without the recombinant catalyst, the cells with the recombinant catalyst registered a decline in gaseous pressure subsequent to the onset of hydrogen-oxygen recombination. The battery showed little decay in its capacity during its life-cycle tests conducted at C/5 rate at 25°C. The battery performance is superior to its conventional vented-counterpart.

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