Corrosion Control - The key to extending lead-acid battery life

Corrosion Control - The key to extending lead-acid battery life.

When the subject of battery service life is discussed, usually no attempt is made to distinguish the difference between battery failure and battery wear.

This has perpetuated a multitude of distortions and myths about lead-acid batteries. The deep rooted belief that sulfation builds up in batteries through normal use as they age is based more on wishful thinking than on fact. The real cause of sulfation is below-optimum charging and batteries being left standing too long without being charged. The consumer has long been left frustrated by battery problems. Simmering dissatisfaction, rather than any advances in technology, helped desulfation to acquire its marketing theme and gave it its commercial identity.

Corrosion, not sulfation governs maximum achievable battery service life: 

BREAKTHROUGH. Battery corrosion has long proved frustratingly difficult and expensive to overcome, causing corrosion treatment to be ignored and cast aside as a commercial no-no. But technology has moved on. The Chino battery gave us valuable information about corrosion control. Later, we discovered that the electrochemistry behind corrosion in lead-acid batteries has much in common with the electrochemistry behind electroplating. The convergence of these two acted as the catalyst we needed to make the breakthrough. Ideas like Batteryvitamin are created by practical need. Corrosion treatment of lead-acid motive power and deep cycling batteries has now been fully developed into a practical and successful battery servicing routine. 

INTRODUCTION [1], a comprehensive applications overview.

VALUABLE. Battery life extension has obvious market appeal - every 1% increase in lead-acid battery life, on a world-wide basis, has an estimated value of $0.9 billion per year. Sulfation treatment technology restores, it does not extend. Technology is not a democratic concept - yet presumptuous advertising copywriters thought they had the right to vote to arbitrarily give sulfation treatment battery life extending powers. (It is like voting 5+2 is not 7 but 10.) Ultimately, after many decades, the open market delivered its impartial verdict: Had desulfation been capable of extending battery life, sulfation treatment would definitely not have remained a modest cottage industry.

BUSINESS. We commissioned an independent battery laboratory to test our technology. The laboratory used comparative testing based on a national (USA) battery deep cycle testing procedure. Field trials were run over six years in four different countries. We thoroughly investigated the technology right down to its basic underlying interactive molecular level and have included all this detailed information on the pages of this website. We are supremely confident Batteryvitamin has excellent business potential. 

BUSINESS [2], an outline of corrosion treatment in terms of a new service business concept, plus financial analysis.

BATTERYVITAMIN. Our corrosion treatment is purpose designed to treat corrosion of the positive plate grids of batteries that are in service, while in service. It took a long time to develop because the mechanism involved is very complex. It does not work directly on the positive plates. It is an indirect process that starts when the dissolved metal portion of the waste produced by positive grid corrosion is held back at the surfaces of the negative plates. When this happens, the corrosion of the positive grids automatically ends up being suppressed - and as a consequence the positive plates last much longer. The process requires a corrosion inhibiting substance to be put into the battery to help hold back the dissolved metal portion produced by corrosion. Batteryvitamin contains such a substance and is thereby uniquely suited to extend battery life. 

TECHNICAL-INFO [3], a precise step-by-step, detailed technical explanation right down to molecular level.

CORROSION TREATMENT EXTENDS BATTERY LIFE.

Testing was performed on 100 A-h Group CG-2 batteries according to Battery Council International Deep Cycling Test Procedure 5/93. Batteries charged at 30A, to a limit of 2.55V per cell, until 130% of the previous discharged capacity had been returned. Discharge at 75A down to 1.75V per cell. Batteries were rested until the discharge time + the period of inactivity = 4 hours, before commencement of the next cycle. Each battery was deep cycled until its individual discharge capacity fell below 80% of the manufacturer's stated A-h rating. Testing by independent Kan Laboratories, Inc., Hoffman Estates, Chicago, USA. 

BACKGROUND. The battery industry likes to say that the purpose of battery testing is making sure batteries conform with the high standards of prescribed specifications. The consumer believes that testing is done to find the best way of maximizing battery life. The unkind truth is that battery specifications describe the lowest acceptable standards required of manufacturers.

It seems as if consumer expectations have long been purposefully dashed by illusions of excellence.

Our testing was directed at finding a practical, fundamentally sound way of extending battery life and thereby help to fulfill consumer expectations. We did not simply test the batteries, we closely monitored the batteries throughout the entire testing procedure.

We ran several tests. Each test was begun with 12 batteries. Two batteries - one untreated and one treated - were torn down at intervals for careful analysis during the course of testing, giving us a step-by-step factual picture of (1) the wearing out process and (2) the counteracting process, as they unfolded, from the beginning to the end.

Example: Hand-made transparent test cells, two totally independent sealed containers including gas evolution monitoring, comparing a new technology with an existing technology.

We followed up with hundreds of additional tests on hand-made battery cells and succeeded in verifying every technical detail at work. It is a rich, new technology, fully explained on the pages of this website.

SULFATION. Battery reconditioning specialists insist the vast majority of failed batteries they receive are sulfated. That may be - but so what. These batteries failed due a wide variety of causes - thereafter will not have been on charge for some time - not surprisingly, they ended up sulfated. It is important to note that sulfation occurs almost exclusively in automobile, truck, golf cart and, in particular, marine batteries because these batteries are so very often not properly charged.  

CORROSION. Telephone exchanges around the world have 24 cell lead-acid batteries, kept on float charge at 52-54 volts. Typically last 20 years. Millions of forklift truck lead-acid batteries in use world-wide are repeatedly deep cycled, (very stressful for batteries). Typically last 5 years. When these standby and motive power batteries finally wear out, it is because their positive plates have, over time, developed a variety of defects, predominantly as a result of positive grid corrosion. This represents hard evidence: Corrosion, not sulfation causes batteries to wear out.

MAJORITY. An argument consistently put forward is that desulfation has been used "to extend battery life" for such a long time, by so many, it is simply impossible for everybody to have been wrong all along. That line of reasoning has already received its comeuppance at the highest professional level. The following example is based on fact. At a time when the total world population of doctors was 8.4 million, there were two doctors who refused to believe stomach ulcers were caused by stress and lifestyle. In 1984 Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robin Warren of Perth, Australia demonstrated stomach ulcers were, in fact, caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori. No operations required - simply take an antibiotic! They were awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology in 2005.  

INFORMATION. Some people see new ideas as disruptive and as threatening the existing order of things. Others see them in terms of opportunity, as beneficial transformers of economic and social life. Opinions vary. All we can do here is to present the best information at our disposal.

• Two out of every three batteries sold are replacement batteries. Unsurprisingly, the battery industry is not enthusiastic about making batteries last longer. While consumers definitely want batteries to last longer, the persisting controversy that surrounds sulfation cures has made consumers apprehensive. Taking away the reason for their apprehension is the key to creating a near-unstoppable commercial demand for a genuine battery life extending product.
• Openness and up-front descriptions explaining exactly how the new battery treatment works are absolutely essential.
• Doing what is right prevents ideology prevailing over evidence, blind faith triumphing over reason