Synthesis of Nanostructured PbO@C Composite Derived from Spent Lead‐Acid Battery for Next‐Generation Lead‐Carbon Battery

Abstract

Lead‐carbon batteries could provide better performance on high‐rate partial‐state‐of‐charge (HRPSoC) cycles than lead‐acid batteries (LABs), making them promising for the new‐generation of hybrid electric vehicles. The addition of carbon allotropes to the negative active material (NAM) could induce a significant improvement to the battery performance. Herein, an environmentally friendly strategy is demonstrated to prepare lead oxide and carbon (PbO@C) composite by pyrolyzing the lead citrate precursor derived from the spent lead paste of LABs. When the PbO@C composite is used as an additive to the NAM of lead‐carbon batteries, the utilization efficiency of the NAM is improved from 56.9% to 72.5%, and the cycle life of the cell in HRPSoC is tremendously extended by four times compared with the control one. The enhancement in battery performance is attributed to the hydrophilic carbon in the composite, which acts as a 3D electroosmotic pump facilitating electrolyte diffusion, and hindering the tendency to excess sulfation during the HRPSoC operation. This proposed research provides a sustainable and scalable strategy to recycle the discarded/spent LABs into high‐performance lead‐carbon batteries.

Positive Effects of Highly Graphitized Porous Carbon Loaded with PbO on Cycle Performance of Negative Plates of Lead-Acid Batteries

“…A certain number of oxygen-containing functional groups increased the electrode capacity of lead-carbon cells and the lead deposition on the negative electrodes [32,34,35]. Pb-COO chemical bond was proved to be included between Pb and C (Figure 4c) [5].…”

“…Compared with lithium batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries, and so on. LABs are expected to gain a larger market share due to their low cost, high recovery rate, and high safety [5][6][7][8]. Compared with iron-based batteries, LABs are better in terms of potential.…”

Hierarchical porous carbon@PbO1-x composite for high-performance lead-carbon battery towards renewable energy storage

“…LSV was tested within the potential range from −1.50 V to −1.20 V at a scan rate of 5 mV s −1 . Steady-state galvanostatic polarization of the lead-carbon electrodes were tested stepwise with constant currents of 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,25,30,35,40,45, and 50 mA after 20 min. The voltages were recorded by a multimeter.…”

“…Various carbon additives inhibit the sulfation of Pb negative electrode [5], due to the improved conductivity [6][7][8], increased electrochemical active surface area [9][10][11], enhanced electrolyte diffusion [12,13], and increased double-layer capacitive effects [8,14,15], etc. In consideration of the remarkable cycling life of carbon-enhanced lead-acid battery operated under PSoC operation, the terminology of lead-carbon battery is proposed to introduce a lead-acid battery coupled with a long-life carbon-enhanced lead-carbon negative electrode [16]. Despite the significant performance improvement achieved by adding carbon additives in negative electrode, carbon additives induce a high-rate hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) which results in serious water loss and low energy efficiency during charge-discharge [13,17,18].…”

“…Since Pb is of high HER overpotential and is the major component of negative electrode, decorating carbon with lead is one of the best methods to enhance the stability of lead-carbon electrode [34][35][36] while do not introduce impurities. Nevertheless, in previous studies, the micropore-dominated pore structure, the uneven Pb distribution, and the low porosity of the resulting lead-carbon com posite restrict the performance enhancement of lead-carbon electrode [16]. In recent years, hierarchical porous carbon has drawn great attention due to its high specific surface area, high outer surface (high meso-and macro-pore ratio) area and hierarchical porous structure [37][38][39].…”