For a PLANTE cell design the 13off lead plates at 210mm x 530mm x 2.24mm thick will give me about 550ah fully formed, thats about 60kg or in your speak 132 lbs for one 2v battery.
Probably more if the grid matrix grooves are consistent. A modern forklift version of the same size will be over double the ah.
My reply to a question on another forum where some one is experimenting with a simple cell.
Yes Bryan1, what your doing is the basic cell arrangement.
I have seen this arrangement in early 1900s manufactured Master Electric clocks where 2 lead plates are dug into the ground outside and a 1.5v is produced to energise a coil every 15 seconds or so, to impulse a mechanical pendulum. Those plates are about 18 inches by 18 inches and 1/2inch thick. Once a week the owner would water the plates that were buried in the ground.
I personally experimented with your shown/photos basic concept about 15 years ago. I could get the volts up but the amperage for each cell was extremely poor and therefore discarded this simple cell method.
As regards acid, yes there are alternative acid/alkaline etc for batteries, but for me i will stick to 15 to 1 sulphuric acid, as we need to self form the lead plates for the PLANTE design.
Its the lead oxide on the surface of the lead sheets that gets the amperage up.
Commercial batteries makers use lead oxide pastes that are mixed with several other secret ingredients and held in a lead mesh matrix that form the positive and negative plates.
The PLANTE battery cell i am trying to produce has fine pressed grooves in the surface of all plates. This then allows the first 0.6mm of the plate surface to form into the correct Lead oxide. Basically the surface becomes spongey as the lead is transformed with the charge and discharge and swap the positive and negative plates around. This is normally about 30 to 40 times. Then the final charge will set the battery to what is positive and negative.
The grooves are the modern twist to the PLANTE battery and the charge and discharge regime are also a modern twist. But the grooves need to be within parameters. I have some test results that show the sizes i have as suitable to get the lead oxide to form correctly, and also hold the lead oxide in position.
Once the battery is formed then the oxide will get thicker as the battery is used and the amperage will slowly rise. However there is an offset against the thickness of the lead and its structural integrity, again this is part of my test procedure.
Eventually, 30 years or so, the lead positive plates will completely turn to mush lead oxide, and the lead plate will just collapse. Then its my intension to remove the plates and replace with new positive plates and start the charge and discharge process all over again. Although in 30 years or so i may not be around.!!!! But my boys will be, so hence me doing a book about my batteries.
Most of you will know that its normally the Positive plates on any lead acid battery that just crumble away to nothing and the battery ceases to be useable battery.
Its the commercial boys and the consumer wanting high amp hour at minimum materials but then sacrificing longevity of the battery by using ready formed lead oxide in their lead matrix frames that is not very structural stable.
Those 30 to 40 Charge and discharge and reverse process with the PLANTE are very important and sets the final battery amp hour rate. Charge must be precise and discharge must be precise. Again i have some preliminary data on this, but at present will not give any figures until i have well tested the process.
Again these PLANTE batteries I am making need to be as efficient as possible, easy to make, but safe, with readily available materials. And any specialist bits like the stainless steel roller for the grooves in the lead plates must be easy to make and give consistency to each lead plate and yet require simple skills to operate.
Another of my replies to someone making a single cell.
There are a lot of things happening with the PLANTE cell.
Firstly, with a anode plate and a cathode plate, ie one lead plate and another lead plate facing each other this is called a single cell, the usable voltage of this cell will not exceed more than 2.3 volts, in practice its about 2.22volts.
Secondly, on bare lead when you first fill with acid solution the cell becomes live, the acid solution is fully charged ie, its specific gravity is up at the appropriate levels this will change as the cell is discharged. Normally its about 1.265 and during discharge it will drop to about 1.150 and the electrolyte will only be 17%.
When recharged the battery will rise again to 36% electrolyte and about 1.265 again. As the battery gets old in normal batteries, the specific gravity will drop as the internal plates deteriorate and the useful amp hour rates also drop.
For our PLANTE its the other way around. Our initial Amp Hour rate is not as good as a modern commercial battery, ie only about 1/3rd but over the many years it will be used the battery gets better until eventually all the lead plates internally are just a oxide paste. So we need to hold that oxide as long as we can, and not allow it to short out the cell within the battery itself.
Thirdly, when first filled you will see that the Cell is Bi- sexual, ie, put your voltmeter leads on each plate, then remove the leads and swap them around and hay presto it gives voltage the other way around as well.
Okay so we need to form the correct oxides to form on the correct plates. So to form we charge at 20% to 23% voltage of the 2.3 volt cell and at 10% to 13% amps of the rated Amp hour capacity of that cell.
12 volt batteries in general are normally 6off 2.22v voltage cells with each 2.22v cell have about 7off 2,22v cells parallel connected to get the Amperage out put up of each of the 2.22 cells in the 12v battery.
Rated Amp hour capacity of your 2.22v cell for a PLANTE battery is defined roughly by surface area of each POSITIVE plate in that cell. So for your plates of 270mm x 180mm and at say 2mm thick, we need to know the plate weight to get the surface area that we can form to get the amp hour. However a rough guide for your plates of one cell would be very approx. about, 7 to 9 amp hour for a kg of your size.
Discharge rates for PLANTE battery plate oxide forming.
Each of the 30 times minimum charge and discharge should be the same rates to form the correct Oxide. And remember the polarity should be reversed on each charge.
On the 31st charge you will then make the positive plates positive from then on.
Discharge during the initial oxide forming procedure should be about 10% of the battery capacity in voltage and amperage.
Whoops i have the oxide forming rates slightly wrong when i went through my figures. Sorry about that, but i wont edit the above as this is very much an experimental procedure so i always like to show mistakes, as i believe it helps others, and no one is flipping perfect.! and its good to see if Bruce is still awake, hahahaha
Charge rates are slightly wrong in my above posts, sorry.
For our PLANTE battery designated at 1.5volts we need to .........
CHARGING the PLANTE battery.
Okay so we need to form the correct oxides to form on the correct plates. So to form correctly for the best attributes for the oxide, we charge at 20% to 23% over the designated, designated voltage for each of our cells is 1.5v volt cell. And at 10% to 13% of the amperage of the calculated rated Amp hour capacity of that cell.
So for our battery we will charge at 2.43volts and at 57amps.
Remember change the polarity for each of the 30 plus charges as you form the plates.
Discharge at 10% of the cell capacity, so for our 2.22volt 550ah PLANTE battery thats,
2.442volts and 55amps.
