Mystery of car battery's current solved

Mystery of car battery's current solved
Starter turn: lead-acid battery is mysterious. Photo: Phil Parker

(PhysOrg.com) -- Chemists have solved the 150 year-old mystery of what gives the lead-acid battery, found under the bonnet of most cars, its unique ability to deliver a surge of current.

Lead-acid batteries are able to deliver the very large currents needed to start a because of the exceptionally high electrical conductivity of the battery , lead dioxide. However, even though this type of battery was invented in 1859, up until now the fundamental reason for the high conductivity of lead dioxide has eluded scientists.

A team of researchers from Oxford University, the University of Bath, Trinity College Dublin, and the ISIS neutron spallation source, have explained for the first time the fundamental reason for the high conductivity of lead dioxide.

A report of the research appears in this week’s Physical Review Letters.

‘The unique ability of lead acid batteries to deliver surge currents in excess of 100 amps to turn over a starter motor in an automobile depends critically on the fact that the lead dioxide which stores the chemical energy in the battery anode has a very high electrical conductivity, thus allowing large current to be drawn on demand,’ said Professor Russ Egdell of Oxford University’s Department of Chemistry, an author of the paper.

‘However the origin of in lead oxide has remained a matter of controversy. Other oxides with the same structure, such as titanium dioxide, are electrical insulators.’

Through a combination of computational chemistry and neutron diffraction, the team has demonstrated that lead dioxide is intrinsically an insulator with a small electronic band gap, but invariably becomes electron rich due to the loss of oxygen from the lattice, causing the material to be transformed from an insulator into a metallic conductor.

The researchers believe these insights could open up new avenues for the selection of improved materials for modern technologies.

Professor Egdell said: ‘The work demonstrates the power of combining predictive materials modelling with state-of-the-art experimental measurements.’

Journal information: Physical Review Letters

Provided by Oxford University

Citation: Mystery of car battery's current solved (2011, December 19) retrieved 28 March 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2011-12-mystery-car-battery-current.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

Car batteries powered by relativity

0 shares

Feedback to editors