Lead acid battery is the earliest secondary battery in industrialization. It has a history of more than 150 years since it was invented in 1859, but the development of the industry is still in the ascendant.
Lead acid battery has the largest market share and the most widely used battery in chemical batteries, especially in the application fields of starting and large-scale energy storage. It is difficult to be replaced by other new batteries for a long time. The price of lead-acid battery is low, and it has the comparative advantages of mature technology, excellent high and low temperature performance, stable and reliable, high safety, good resource reuse, and obvious market competitive advantage. Compared with other battery metal materials, lead resources are relatively rich, lead reserves and recycled lead guarantee the sustainable development of lead-acid battery industry for a relatively long time, lead-acid batteries are widely used, and lead resources will not be short for a long time. The disadvantages of lead-acid battery are: low energy density, short cycle life, the main raw material lead is a kind of toxic substances, lead pollution risk exists in the process of battery production and recycled lead processing, and poor management may cause harm to the environment and human health.
With the breakthrough of new technology and the application of new structure, advanced lead-acid batteries such as lead-carbon batteries, bipolar batteries and non lead grid batteries are coming out, which have changed the shortcomings of low mass to energy ratio and short cycle life. With the gradual improvement of laws and regulations and the improvement of management level, the risk of lead pollution can also be prevented and controlled. It has injected new vitality into the sustainable development of lead-acid battery industry. In the future, lead-acid batteries will still play an important role in standby power supply, energy storage, starting, power and other applications.
Comparative advantage of lead acid battery
① Performance comparative advantage
At present, the large-scale industrial secondary batteries mainly include lead-acid batteries, nickel cadmium batteries, nickel hydrogen batteries and lithium-ion batteries. Nickel cadmium batteries contain highly toxic element cadmium, which has been gradually replaced by other batteries. At present, the most widely used batteries in the market are lead-acid batteries, lithium-ion batteries and nickel hydrogen batteries.
Compared with other secondary batteries, lead-acid batteries mainly have the following performance advantages: a. the battery with the longest industrial production time and the most mature technology has stable, reliable performance and good applicability; B. the battery adopts dilute sulfuric acid as electrolyte and has no flammability. The battery adopts normal or low-voltage design and has good safety; C. the battery adopts low-voltage design; C. It is suitable for high rate discharge applications such as hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) due to its high working voltage and wide working temperature range; D. It can be used for floating charging with excellent performance of shallow charge and discharge, which is suitable for UPS, new energy energy storage, power grid peak shaving and valley filling; E. the technology of large capacity battery is mature, which can be made into thousands of ampere hour battery, providing convenience for large-scale energy storage.
② Cost comparative advantage
Lead acid battery is the cheapest secondary battery, and its unit energy price is about 1 / 3 of that of lithium-ion battery or nickel hydrogen battery. In addition, the main components of lead-acid batteries are lead and lead compounds, the lead content is more than 60% of the total battery mass, the residual value of waste batteries is higher, and the recycling price is more than 30% of the new batteries, so the comprehensive cost of lead-acid batteries is lower.
③ Comparative advantage of recycling
Lead acid battery is the most easy to realize recovery and recycling because of its simple composition, mature recycling technology and high recycling value. The global production of recycled lead has exceeded that of primary lead. The lead reuse rate of waste lead-acid batteries in the United States has exceeded 98.5%, and the lead reuse rate of waste lead-acid batteries in China has reached more than 90%. Nickel cadmium battery, nickel hydrogen battery and lithium-ion battery are mostly small batteries with complex composition, high regeneration cost and difficult recovery, so it is difficult for the recycling industry to realize market-oriented operation. At present, the global average recovery rate of the above-mentioned batteries is less than 20%, especially the lithium-ion batteries. Most countries have not yet achieved effective recovery and regeneration.
