1. Development status and main challenges of traditional lead storage battery technology
Generally speaking, traditional lead storage batteries have mature technology, developed and complete industrial chain, and various technologies have formed large-scale commercial production, and have entered the era of meager profits, and their profits and competitiveness have entered a state of large-scale effect.
According to the categories of industrial batteries and automobile starting batteries, automobile starting batteries are relatively early in technology, and there have been basically no revolutionary technological improvements in the past 20 to 50 years. The winding type is a representative of the new technology of automobile starting battery, and the technology entry threshold is relatively high. Industrial batteries mainly include two types of batteries for communication backup and energy storage, using advanced sealed valve-regulated batteries. This type of battery technology matured in the 1980s and 1990s, with advanced technology and high technical thresholds. In particular, colloidal batteries and tubular colloidal batteries have long cycle life and good high temperature resistance, and are widely used in energy storage base stations. In addition to these mainstream batteries, there are also advanced lead storage batteries such as lead-cloth horizontal batteries, but they have not formed a large-scale market for various reasons.
The main challenges faced in the development of traditional lead storage batteries are reflected in various fields. Low specific energy, relatively short deep cycle life, and poor high current performance are the main factors restricting the development of batteries.
2. Development status and main challenges of super lead storage battery technology
According to the battery structure design and international published information, super lead storage batteries are used in hybrid vehicles and photovoltaic power generation systems. For example, Honda Insight and PNM Resources’ photovoltaic power generation project (using 500kWECOut super battery, which is currently in the testing process), is currently operating in a stable state and has excellent performance.
Although the test and trial operation of super lead storage batteries have obtained good performance data, there is no large-scale commercial production, especially in China, which are still in the stage of technology research and development and trial.
According to the information obtained so far, the main challenge for the technical development of super lead storage batteries is a series of problems caused by the introduction of carbon materials.
(1) Hydrogen evolution problems of carbon materials (it is easy to cause the battery to lose water and cause failure), carburization problems, self-discharge problems, etc. However, the mechanism of carbon materials in the negative electrode to improve the performance of the lead negative electrode and delay the vulcanization of the lead negative electrode has not yet formed a consensus, and the exploration of the mechanism also needs in-depth research.
(2) Mixing carbon material into the negative electrode material of traditional lead storage battery can greatly improve the fast charge and discharge capacity, but the material performance is often attenuated very seriously, and the service life cannot be guaranteed. How to improve the cycle life is the key challenge.
(3) Further optimization for various failure modes of traditional VRLA batteries, for example, development of new long-life alloy grids, optimization of assembly pressure, selection of elastic AGM separators, formulation optimization of positive and negative electrode additives, etc. .
