Influence of Safety Valve Pressure on Gelled Electrolyte Valve-Regulated Lead/Acid Batteries Under Deep Cycling Applications

Abstract

Cycle life tests have been carried out to evaluate the influence of safety valve pressure on valve regulated lead/ acid batteries under deep cycling applications. Batteries were cycled at 5 hour rates at 100% DOD, and safety valve pressure was set to 1.08 and 2.00 bar, respectively. The batteries lost 248.3 g and 235.3 g of water for each case after about 1,200 cycles, but the cyclic performances of the batteries were comparable. Most of the gas of the battery during discharging was hydrogen, and the oxygen concentration increased to 18% after 3 hours of charging. The micro structure of the positive active materials was completely changed and the corrosion layer of the positive grid was less than 50 µm, regardless of the pressure of the safety valve after cycle life tests. The cause of discharge capacity decrease was found to be water loss and the shedding of the positive active materials. The pressure of safety valve does not give little effect to the cyclic performances and the failure modes of the gelled electrolyte valve-regulated lead acid batteries.