Development of High Performance Lead-Acid Batteries through Electrode and Electrolyte Additives

Over the last few decades’ energy has become the central focus of the modern economy. Energy security and efficiency has become a national priority. The access to energy is very critical to the wealth, life style and image of every country. The effect of globalization, population increase and rising consumer demands across the developed and developing countries have resulted in an exponential increase in energy consumption. This has significantly increased the gap between energy production and demand over the last few decades. Fundamental breakthrough in clean energy research is needed to solve the problem of such magnitude. Innovations in materials and processing technology provide significant opportunities for transitioning from fossil based sources to clean energy sources such as nuclear, wind and solar energy. \nRenewable energy sources like solar and wind provides time-varying (depend on climatic conditions), somewhat unpredictable energy supply, which must be captured and stored until demanded. Success of these technologies relies on development of efficient energy storage materials that can be utilized in smart batteries and capacitors. Fuel cells offer another alternative clean energy but would probably require further research in bringing down the cost for mass market. \nIndia's is a fast growing economy and its prime agenda is transformation of reducing energy demand, improving its efficiency, increased use of renewable energy sources for power and transportation. Key to this mission is transport ministry has announced 30% electric mobility by 2030 and Energy ministry targets 225 GW of renewable energy by year 2022. Although there are encouraging progresses in the development of technology for harvesting sustainable energy from different sources, the development of energy storage devices with desirable properties such as long-term stability, prolonged cycle life and cost are still lagging far behind. The shifting of road transportation from vehicles driven by internal combustion engines (ICE) to electric vehicles (EVs) or Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), a real ‘green’ revolution also requires efficient energy storage systems. The electrochemical energy storage in batteries have been attained much interest due to their compactness, life, ease installations, availability and low cost. \nAlthough many battery technologies are available in the market today, lead-acid batteries continue to be one of the most popular battery system ever developed, and no other battery is yet able to compete with the lead-acid batteries on cost grounds. Lead-acid batteries remain the most successful energy storage device in automotive, telecommunication, uninterruptible power supplies [1-4]. Even though lead-acid batteries performances are optimized in the past in several different ways, there are still certain challenges facing lead-acid battery designers, as additional failure modes become evident in various end-uses. The life of lead-acid batteries is limited due to grid corrosion at the positive plate and sulfation at the negative plates during storage and heavy-duty operations [5-9].