lead acid battery reconditioning

[Doug1]

well heres my experience.Been servicing #10 us hc250's which sat in a uncharged (drained state) for 6 months they would not hold a charge or even reach 12.5 v on a meter even after charging for two days.
  I figured by all the loud girgling of large amounts of large blurping bubbles they were shot.Some show signs of plate warping and creep. So I figured what the heck a little epsons salts could not make it worse then it was. One teaspoon of salt to one table spoon of distilled water for each of the 30 cells. Boiled the brew to melt the salt and added a table spoon of hot mix to each cell. Then back on the charger. Manually cycled the charger for two hours in high charge 4 hours in desulfate for 30 hours. It worked.
  I had plenty of time to think. I believe it is the O2 content which causes the sulfation. Boiling water removes O2 from removing micro air bubbles which are present. Ive heard of some people equalizing batteries by over charging causing them to boil and off gas which would be one way of getting extra air out of the electrolite but would be very stressful to the plates. I was also watching a food channel show about how to make clear ice cubes that night and they boiled distilled water twice letting it cool in between to remove the tiny air bubbles from the water which confirmed my earlier thoughts. If hydrogen floats up lighter then air then normal use would eventually remove hydrogen leaving more oxygen content which oxidizes the plates with a combination of sulfur and oxygen. The surface tension difference may cause that oxidation layer to prevent water from entering the plate surface. Better quality water with less O2 and heat may be the easy way to resolve it. I have 10 more batteries which are slated to be recycled which have been so completely destroyed the cases have swollen and become egg shaped.
  A thought, place the batteries in a boiling vat of water and charge alternating the charge cycle same as above but also removing all the acid and putting back only twice boiled and cooled new water. If the opportunity presents itself in terms of time I may even try to build a vacuum chamber or vacuum device to attach to the battery cells to remove O2 while charging and conditioning.
  In any event Im ahead 2 grand already.Being in command of 27,000 $ worth of batteries and growing I think a little investigation using junk batteries is not out of the question.
  As time and events permit I will update. Hopefully the distributor I buy from wont have a hissy fit and raise the battery prices and maybe there is way to find out if electroplating techniques use specific bath temperatures to improve the rate at which the process works for electroplating.

[pese]

E-book from my collected "finds"....
Pese


http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/5232/desulfator.pdf

[forest]

How to charge deep cycle lead acid battery in less then 10 minutes ?

[Moab]

Thank-you Pese. lots of good info in that !

E-book from my collected "finds"....
Pese


http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/5232/desulfator.pdf

[Doug1]

Thanks pese
   Ive seen that book before, nice easy circuit but my charger is a smart charger with a similar functioning pulser. I'm not that patient as to wait a couple months to reclaim a battery. If it turns out that the oxygen content in water/acid is the reason the eventual death of lead acid batteries then why use water at all? There must be other conductive liquids which do not contain oxygen that could be used as a replacement in lead acid batteries. Since the battery industry sells some billions of dollars worth of batteries each year i doubt they will be of much or any assistance in an effort to make even one battery last longer. That would be no more practical then the electric company helping to make energy free.
   If batteries are effected in their output by temperature then it should stand to reason it would also effect the charge side either by surface tension or emulsion of the acid.Again the use of water begins to look like the use of a known week point to regulate the life expectancy of the product.