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Desulfation of lead-acid battery by high frequency pulse

Conference Paper · June 2017

DOI: 10.1109/ECTICon.2017.8096328

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 Desulfation of Lead-Acid Battery
by High Frequency Pulse
Wuttibhat Jamratnaw
Department of Electronics and Computer Technology
Faculty of Industrial Technology
Loei Rajabhat University, Loei 42000 Thailand
jwuttikrai@live.com
Abstract— Lead-acid batteries are widely used in the industry
because of their high efficiency and low cost. One of the major
disadvantages of lead-acid batteries is sulfation, which decreases
batteries’ efficiency. Sulfate results in higher internal resistance
and capacity reduction. This article presents desulfation of lead-
acid battery by using high frequency pulse. The results showed
that after the lead-acid battery was charged with high frequency
pulse, the battery had lower internal resistance. The voltage of the
fully-charged battery and the cold cranking amps were higher,
resulting in better battery performance.
Keywords: component; lead-acid battery; desulfator; charger control
I. INTRODUCTION
Environmental problem is a major problem the world is
currently facing, for example, global warming or natural
disasters. People are more concerned and realize the importance
environment has on their living. As a result, like many green
projects, green energy has also come into consideration[1].
Solar electricity is an example of green energy. The use of
solar electricity for electricity generation is popular nowadays
because it is clean and environmental friendly. However, the
limitation of solar electricity is its unstable production because
the energy cannot be produced during the nighttime. Therefore,
for the continuous and stable use of solar energy, there is a need
for energy storage, that is, the battery. Batteries are popular with
solar cells, mainly lead-acid batteries because of its high
efficiency, low cost, and ability to supply high surge currents,
which means that the cells have a relatively large power-to-
weight ratio. Nonetheless, a major problem that can arise in the
lead-acid batteries is sulfate, which occurs because of improper
charging and discharging. Sulfate results in the decrease of
batteries’ efficiency, higher internal resistance, small fraction of
normal discharge current, longer charging times, incomplete
charging, higher battery temperatures, and so on. There are
various methods in desulfation, for example, the chemical
process responsible for the function of lead acid batteries has
several competing chemical processes ongoing in the cell. The
most familiar and desirable process is the production of electric
current due to ion exchange in the acid electrolytechemical and
electrical methods [2,3,4].
This article aimed to develop lead-acid battery desulfation
by high frequency pulse, which high frequency voltages sent
into the battery. The frequency of the voltages was the one with
978-1-4673-9749-0/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
which the resonant frequency of the sulfate molecule caused
oscillation in the sulfate salt molecules, causing the sulfate
molecules to return to the sulfuric acid electrolyte solution.
II. LEAD-ACID BATTERY
A. Working principle of lead-acid batteries [2]
The working principle is essentially the chemical reaction
shown:
𝑃𝑏𝑂 + 2𝐻 𝑆𝑂 + 𝑃𝑏 ⇌ 2𝑃𝑏𝑆𝑂 + 2𝐻 𝑂 (1)
When the battery is in discharging state, the active materials
of positive electrode, lead dioxide, will be converted into lead
sulfate. Similarly, the negative electrode, which is made up of
lead will be converted into lead sulfate as well. The electrolyte,
sulfuric acid will be consumed by reacting with the active
materials. The electrode reaction equations of positive electrode
and negative electrode in discharging state are demonstrated
below.
Positive: 𝑃𝑂 + 4𝐻 + 2𝑒 ⇌ 𝑃𝑏 + 2𝐻 𝑂
(2)
Negative: 𝑃𝑏 ⇌ 𝑃𝑏 + 2𝑒
When the battery is in the charging state, the lead sulfate will
be converted back to the active materials.
Positive: 𝑃𝑏𝑆𝑂 + 2𝐻 𝑂 ⇌ 𝑃𝑏𝑂 + 𝐻𝑆𝑂 + 3𝐻 + 2𝑒
Negative: 𝑃𝑏𝑆𝑂 + 𝐻 ⇌ 𝑃𝑏 + 𝐻𝑆𝑂 (3)
Theoretically, a lead-acid battery can be used for a very long
time if the chemical reaction equation shown in the Eq.(1) can
completely proceed. It is shown that the chemical reaction
proceeding in the lead-acid batteries is ,somehow, reversible. As
a result, the lead sulfate will gradually crystallize and deposit on
the electrodes. This phenomenon is known as the sulfation. This
usually leads to a short lifetime of the lead-acid batteries [5].
B. Sulfation [6]
When lead-acid batteries are subjected to insufficient
charging during normal operation, they impede recharging;
sulfate deposits ultimately expand, cracking the plates and
destroying the battery. Eventually so much of the battery plate
area is unable to supply current that the battery capacity is
greatly reduced. In addition, the sulfate portion (of the lead
sulfate) is not returned to the electrolyte as sulfuric acid.
Sulfated batteries show a high internal resistance and can deliver
only a small fraction of normal discharge current. Sulfate also
affects the charging cycle, resulting in longer charging times,
less efficient and incomplete charging, and higher battery
temperature.
C. Internal Resistance
Internal resistance is a good indication of the state of charge
and substitutes for specific gravity readings taken on flooded,
lead-acid type cells. Measuring the internal resistance of a
module monitors the two main failure modes—grid corrosion
and dryout[4]. Fig.1 shows the lead-acid battery equivalent
circuit Model, Rinternal is internal resistance of lead acid battery.
VOC is voltage open circuit (no load). Vb is voltage on load, and
E0 is voltage of battery [7].
III. EQUIPMENTS
A. Switching Power Supply
Switching power supply is built for electronic applications
and power supply for various devices. It can change the voltage
from high voltages to low voltages. The basic components of
switching power supply are generally similar and the most
important element of this component is switching power supply
converters, which consist of 3 parts:
 Filter circuit and regulator as a switching power
switch
 Converter as a high power switch and converter to
low voltage
 The control circuit controls the operation of the
converter to get the desired output voltage.
B. High Frequency Pulse Control
In this research, the arduino atmega328 microcontroller was
used to control the on-off the MOSFET to generate high
frequency pulse voltages using microcontroller to control the
voltage. The charging current was controlled at 0.1 C and
decreased when batteries were almost fully-charged.

Figure 1 Basic equivalent circuit of battery

D. Cold Cranking Amps

Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) is the amount of energy a
battery can deliver in short bursts. Cold Cranking amps (CCA)
is the maximum amount of current (amps) that a battery can
deliver at 0 ° F for 30 seconds and not drop below 7.2 volts so a
high CCA battery rating is good, especially in cold weather.
Starting batteries are often rated in CCA and are designed to
deliver a short-duration burst of power.
E. State of Charge [8]
In the state of charge (SOC), it is necessary to charge the Figure 2 High Frequency Pulse Generator
battery faster. In order to maximize the energy generated by the
solar cells in the battery without causing damage during the
process of battery charging, the lead-acid battery generally has
three charges.
 Bulk Charge is first state of the battery charge is by
charging the battery with a maximum current until Figure 3 High Frequency Pulse Charger
the battery voltage is nearly 14.2 to 14.4 V typical
for a 12 V battery, depending on the type of battery.
 Absorption Charge is the second condition of the Fig. 4 shows the output of the switching power supply and the
charge of the battery. In this state, the voltage output of a high frequency pulse charger developed at time/div
across the battery will remain constant, but the scale of 200 μs and 5 μs, respectively. Fig.5 shows the large
current flowing to the battery will decrease. scale output of a high frequency pulse charger developed. The
 Float Charge is to charge the battery after the peak of the voltage was 18.5 volte.
battery voltage is near enough to prolong the
battery life.

Figure 4 High Frequency Pulse
V. RESULTS
The experimental results were divided into two states:
charging and discharging. The parameters used to observe
desulfation included internal resistance open circuit voltage and
cold cranking amps.
A. Charging State
The results of the battery charging experiment with high
frequency pulse by a developed charger showed that the open
circuit voltage and CCA increased, but the internal resistance
decreased as shown in Fig. 7-9.

Figure 5 High Frequency Pulse in Large Scale

C. Battery Tester
In this research, the QUICKLYNKS BA101 battery testers
were used to measure internal resistance: SOH; SOC; and CCA Figure 7 Internal Resistance
as shown in Figure 5. The system voltage was 12 Volts. The
input voltage range was 9V-15V. The testing range was 100 -
2000 CCA, and the AH range was 30-220 Ah.
D. Battery
The batteries used in this experiment were lead-acid batteries
FB EB125, which had been left unused for more than 6 months
so sulfate built up on the plates of batteries resulted in an
internal resistance higher than 20 mΩ and the fully-charged
voltage dropped to 12.35 volts.
IV. EXPERIMENT
This experiment aimed to compare the effect of lead-acid
batteries with sulfate on plates when charged with high
frequency pulse. The experiment was divided into two phases. Figure 8 Cold Cranking Amps
The first was battery charging with conventional chargers and
the second was charging with high frequency pulse.

Figure 6 Experiment
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Figure 9 Voltage Open Circuit Figure 12 Voltage Open Circuit

B. Discharging State
The results of the battery charging experiment showed that VI. CONCLUSION
the rechargeable battery had a longer power supply and the
This experiment was a comparison between lead-acid battery
internal resistance was in the range of 8 to 13 mΩ as a typical
charging with conventional chargers and lead-acid battery
battery, as shown in Fig. 10-12.
charging with high frequency pulse. The purpose of this study
was to determine the effect of desulfation by high frequency
pulse charging method.
The results showed that after charging with high voltage, the
internal resistance was lower. The fully-charge battery voltage
and cold cranking amps were higher, resulting in better battery
performance.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to Loei Rajabhat
University, the Dean of the Faculty of Industrial Technology and
my colleagues for all the support.
REFERENCES
Figure 10 Internal Resistance [1] W.Jamratnaw,“Efficiency of thermal energy with Evacuated vacuum
tubes,” 5th International Electrical Engineering Congress, Pattaya,
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[4] Hydroelectric Research and Technical Services Group, “Storage Battery
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[5] Schilling, and S. Ensuring, “Lead-acid battery performance with pulse
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[6] Wikipedia,”Lead-AcidBattery,”[online]
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Figure 11 Cold Cranking Amps [7] Nopparut Ritanon,”Study of Dynamic Model of Lead-Acid Battery in
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