This post introduces Active Battery Acid Recycling (ABAR) as electricity generation method. I found a way to employ biomass gasifiers in this process.
I’ve wanted to have my own power plant with the intent to sell green electricity to the utilities for a long while and after reviewing resources I’ve decided, for now, that building large 1MW lead acid batteries that are recharged via chemical batch mixing produces much more efficient results than traditional electrical charging.
Lead Acid Batteries (LAB) don’t need electricity for recharging*.
There are two halves to the lead acid battery; lead plates and battery acid. The acid part is 80% of the load and the plates are the remaining 20%. The acid half recycles quickly while renewing the plates part is much more tedious* and I recommend use of traditional recharging to renew the plates during charging.
Battery Acid is 60% water and 40% Sulphuric Acid H2SO4. After discharge the battery acid changes to 63% water and 37% H2SO4 and these two chemicals must be reset to their original concentrations to call the battery acid “recharged”.
There are two recycle cycles. 1 acid recycle and 2 plate discharge.
Acid recycling is done by boiling water out of the discharged acid* and adding 3% H2SO4.
The plates are discharged to distilled water which then becomes battery acid in low concentration that gets more concentrated with each charge cycle. After charging becomes too slow because the H2SO4 is more concentrated, this battery acid must have all of the water boiled off where it can be used at the 3% needed to renew the battery acid
*H2SO4 gives off poisonous fumes at 625F so a protection layer i.e. using a double boiler is necessary to keep the boiling temperature below the H2SO4 gaseous threshold. The entire amount of battey acid does not need to be boiled, just about 10% of the mass.
This process drops LAB charge time from ten hours to two and the electricity can come from green fuels in an internal combustion engine (ICE).
This process can boost the productivity of commercial solar plants by 300% - 500% where the solar panels are used for plate discharge rather than selling electricity to the grid.
This process can be completed with evacuated solar tubes rather than heat from biomass gasifiers however thousands of tubes are needed along with lots of plumbing and expensive electric valves.
I estimate 8 tons of lead are needed to make a 1MW LAB. Market lead is $2.00 per pound and Galena Ore is $1.00 per pound. All of the lead must be melted into 1mm plates. Eight tons can be towed with a pickup truck excluding the weight of the acid.
Surprisingly, the chemical constituents of Galena are the same as pre discharged lead plates. This lead is mixed with sulphur so there is an opportunity to get more sulphuric acid.
The material needed is HDPE which is referred to as milk jug plastic. HDPE doesn’t do well in the sun and must be coated. HDPE is sold in bulk at recycling centers very inexpensively and it molds easily like lead does.
I recommend charcoal making to make the biomass needed for boiling. The charcoal is better fuel than wood. However, for boiling this is unnecessary.You’ll still get distillates needed to run an ICE.
Producing methanol from wood is is a known practice but the high yield methanol tree species are fewer in nature and shouldn’t be harvested for this reason alone.
Yea so good luck with that.
Phillip Manske
Sulphuric Acid is corrosive and dangerous but it’s not a whole body melt and burn injury that you get with other acids like Hydrochloric Acid. It’s not safe so use PPE and caution.Sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive chemical that can cause severe chemical burns to the skin, eyes, nose, and throat:
Skin: Sulfuric acid can cause mild to severe burns, depending on the concentration of the acid. Symptoms include severe pain, redness, blisters, and permanent scarring.
Eyes: Sulfuric acid can burn the eyes and potentially cause blindness.
Nose and throat: Sulfuric acid can irritate the nose and throat and cause breathing difficulties if inhaled.
Stomach: Sulfuric acid can burn holes in the stomach if swallowed.