Hybrid Lead Acid Battery—An Investigation of Its Performance Improvements
摘要
This work is to carryout a research if a lead acid battery built with a Supercapacitor (Hybrid Battery) will give a better life cycle in applications where the charge/discharge currents are very high and in the order multiple C-rates (C-Capacity in Ampere Hours) ranging 0.5C to 2C. Lead acid batteries get damaged if deep discharges happens frequently for short periods and thus causing the battery capacity (SoH) to reduce drastically comparing a constant or less fluctuating charge/ discharge cycles. Lithium-ion batteries are a better option and gives longer life cycle in such applications. But lead acid batteries use local raw materials, easily recyclable technology, which is already in place and at a lower cost as against lithium-ion batteries who use imported raw materials or even cells, difficult to recycle, pose a risk to the environment, and are much more expensive. In this research a hybrid battery was built using standard commercially available lead acid battery and a supercapacitor along with associated control circuits—components. Since Supercapacitors have very low ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) compared to lead acid battery, sudden charge or discharge currents of high magnitude tend to flow from/to the Supercapacitor and thus protecting the lead acid battery from such transients. A battery life cycle tester was used to compare a standard Lead acid battery pack against the hybrid battery pack to judge the life extension quantum by running charge/discharge cycles continously till the SoH reaches 60% or less.