Improving the Lead Acid battery life by conducting polymer nano layer

The lead-acid battery always has been the most important rechargeable electrochemical storage system, maintaining its prime position unchallenged now for more than a century. In this type of batteries, during discharge, the positive (PbO2) and negative (sponge lead) active materials react with the sulfuric acid (electrolyte) to form lead sulfate. Lead sulfate is an insulator, which increases the resistance of the active material as the discharge reaction continues. The active material also experiences an expansion as the positive and negative are converted to PbSO4. The expansion can interfere with the integrity of the active material and its adherence to the grids (current collectors). Investigations under deep discharge have shown that the early battery failure is a result of accumulation of lead sulfate on the negative plates. So the increased demand of cycle life performance of lead-acid batteries requires the improvement of the negative lead electrode [1].Polyaniline (PANI) is a unique type of polymer because it is a type of conductor. Although it was discovered over 150 years ago, only recently has polyaniline captured the attention of the scientific community due to the discovery of its high electrical conductivity. Amongst the family of conducting polymers, polyaniline is unique due to its ease of synthesis, environmental stability, and simple doping/dedoping chemistry [2]. In This work we investigate effect of nanometric PANI layer on lead acid battery performance subjected to the Japanese Industrial Standards (JES) protocol.