Big and Heavy Lead Acid Battery but Still Useful
Has been used for over 140 years, lead acid battery is reliable and dependable. With mature technology, these batteries now are mostly maintenance free, such as sealed lead acid battery, gel battery, or AGM battery and so on. If you have a phone, you will know the lithium ion battery is very small and convenience to carry with anywhere. But on the contrary, the lead acid battery is big and heavy due to the electrolyte consisting of a diluted sulphuric acid. So this leads to they are not that convenience like li-ion battery. Of course, they are used on different field. Lithium ion batteries are often found in mobile phone, laptop, PDA, etc portable digital devices, while lead acid battery are widely used in many different industries, such telecommunication, power systems, radio, and television systems, solar, UPS, electric vehicles, automobile, forklifts, emergency lights, etc.
So how about lead acid battery? Are they are durable rechargeable battery? Are they environmental friendly? Can they be recycled for reuse? So many questions I want to know the answers of. The author will help me solve my trouble.
If you know well lead acid battery, you will find they are the oldest rechargeable battery so there is no doubt. Referring to the environmental friendly problem, there are some discussions. Lead acid batteries adopt a reversible chemical reaction to store energy. And it uses a combination of lead plates or grids and an electrolyte consisting of a diluted sulphuric acid to convert electrical energy into potential chemical energy and back again. During discharge, the lead dioxide (positive plate) and lead (negative plate) react with the electrolyte of sulfuric acid to create lead sulfate, water and energy. During charging, the cycle is reversed: the lead sulfate and water are electro-chemically converted to lead, lead oxide and sulfuric acid by an external electrical charging source.
The electrolyte of lead acid battery may create burns and other permanent damage if we come in close contact with it due to the use of diluted sulphuric acid electrolyte. And lead compounds can be absorbed through ingestion and inhalation. Moreover, lead is an acutely and chronically toxic compound, and is also highly toxic to fish, other animals and plants. Any materials leak during production or unattended disposal could result both environmental problems as well as health hazards. But on the other hand, these batteries can be recycled and reused in the making of new batteries based on the recent survey reports in this area.
Although they are not so environmental friendly like lithium ion battery, lead acid battery is still very useful. About 97% of these lead acid batteries are recycled according the Battery Council International, and can be reused in the making of new batteries based on the recent survey reports in this area. So if you have these batteries, please don’t throw it away, and transport it to be recycled. Let us service the Environment Protection.
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