Pulsed-current charging of lead/acid batteries — a possible means for overcoming premature capacity loss?

Testing and performance analysis of charge controllers for Solar Home System

“…FURTHER IMPROVEMENT Among the tested charge controllers, only three were PWM charge controllers, where others are ON/OFF controller. Literature [4], [5] shows that PWM charging increases the charging efficiency and battery life. So, this technique should be implemented in the charge controllers.…”

Studies of the pulse charge of lead-acid batteries for PV applications

“…this process continues during the "OFF" periods and even is slightly facilitated) the pulse charge regime increases the faradic efficiency of the charge [3,7,8,[10][11][12][13] and even of the positive plate formation [20,21]. The increased Faradic efficiency can result only in a decreased oxygen evolution rate, while the mechanism stays unchanged.…”

“…The results show that the rate of the charge can be accelerated substantially down to 30-60 min for the full charge of an empty battery without substantial loss of energy. More recent studies show other advantages of the rapid pulse charge: it can be used to overcome negative phenomena limiting the exploitation period of the battery such as premature capacity loss (PCL) effect [7], to increase the cycle life of the battery [8], to suppress the sulphation of the negative plates in VRLA cells and to avoid the thermal runaway phenomenon [2,9,10], and to restore the capacity of batteries after sulphation [11]. Using pulse charge, a decrease and time delay of the oxygen evolution during the charge of VRLA cells have been reported [12].…”

Identification and remediation of sulfation in lead-acid batteries using cell voltage and pressure sensing

“…Most commercial battery chargers/desulfators conduct desulfation using a technique known as "pulse conditioning", which consists of applying short, high-current pulses to a cell [31e34]. Lam et al found pulsed charging to be a promising approach towards enhancing the cycle life of PbeSb and PbeCaeSn cells [35] that Keyser et al proposed to use high finishing currents and currentinterrupt charging algorithm to minimize sulfation and gassing during cycling [36]. Hydrogen and oxygen production associated with the electrolysis of water molecules at high states of charge, however, can lead to water loss, another aging mechanism that decreases cell capacity.…”