The Rejuvenation of Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) Battery with Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Charging and Ultrasonic

EasyChair Preprint no. 2775

Abstract

The objective of this research study is to investigate the possibility for rejuvenation of the valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries, which have been used. Because the performance degradation of batteries is strongly related to the accumulations of lead sulfate (PbSO4) crystals at the battery cathodes, the rejuvenation of batteries could be achieved by removing the PbSO4 crystals. We hypothesized that the pulse-width modulation (PWM) charging and ultrasonic cleaning might be able to eliminate the deposited PbSO4 crystals at the battery cathode, resulting in a better battery performance. Our results indicated that PWM cannot be used to rejuvenate the VRLA batteries with only two cycles of charging. Interestingly, while the ultrasonic can be used to clean the PbSO4 crystals pre-deposited on the lead substrates in a liquid media, it is not possible to remove the accumulated PbSO4 crystals at the cathodes in the gel media of VRLA batteries. It is expected that ultrasonic cleaning might be able to rejuvenate used flooded lead-acid batteries by specifically removing the deposited PbSO4 crystals at the cathode.

Keyphrases: Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), sulfation, Ultrasonic, Valve-regulated lead acid battery (VRLA battery)

@Booklet{EasyChair:2775,
  author = {Nattarat Kengkla and Sutatch Ratanaphan and Tullathorn Earmyang and Maytaporn Chokdurong and Pitchayut Tisa},
  title = {The Rejuvenation of Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) Battery with Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Charging and Ultrasonic},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 2775},

  year = {EasyChair, 2020}}