Novel lead acid battery desulphators

• Main Author: Maung, Aung Tun.
• Other Authors: Yu Siu Fung
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Electric apparatus and materials
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/17582
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Lead-acid battery has been around for more than a century and it is now commonly used in our daily life. More than 85 percent of the lead-acid batteries reached their premature life due to a problem called “sulphation”. Sulphation can be reversed and the battery’s life can be prolonged by using a process called “desulphation”. Desulphation can be achieved by making use of an electronic device called desulphator. This project aims to develop a battery desulphator which adopts the US patented “pulsing technique” which injects a pulse into the battery to bring the sulphate back to the electrolyte and effectively extend the battery’s lifespan. Studies were done on the formation of sulphur in the battery and the working principle of pulsing technique. Based on the studies, a few desulphator circuits were built based on by Alastair Couper’s desulphator design. The effectiveness of desulphation depends on the output pulse of the desulphator circuit. The built desulphators were tested and the critical factors that affect the output pulse of the desulphator are addressed. Various experiments were done to adjust these factors of the output pulse. From the results obtained, different ways of adjusting the critical factors were analyzed and discussed. Based on the analysis done, in the future, the circuit can be modified and experiments can be done to see the improvement of the new circuit which might take weeks or months time.