Sodium Sulphate as an Electrolyte Additive and its Influence on the Performance of the Lead Acid Battery

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 studies have been carried out on the 12V-65Ah automotive flooded type battery. The structural and morphological characteristics by X-ray diffraction and Scanning Electron Microscopy are performed respectively in order to understand the influence of modified electrolyte on the positive plate properties of the charged battery. The XRD spectral analysis reveals that lead based compounds PbO2 and PbSO4 have been found to be in acceptable range when the additive percentage closer to 2.0 %. Further, the morphology of the PbO2 particles are found to be uniform compared to standard sample as evidenced from the SEM. The morphological studies on the positive plate and electrical characteristics of the batteries in the modified electrolyte were found to be sensitive to percentage of dosage of the sodium sulphate. The small dosage has beneficial on the properties of electrode performance of the battery. Thus, the influence of sodium sulphate on the electrical and electrode properties on the charged battery were studied and the results were correlated and discussed.