Sulfation pulse treatment surprise

Related Article: Sulfation Remedies Demystified

There are roughly 60 billion dollar's worth of lead-acid batteries for starting automobile engines in use worldwide. Every one of them is destined to work for a certain number of years, then to stop working. This is bad PR at the most fundamental level but battery manufacturers are content to do nothing about it. Like it or not, the consumer is obliged by virtue of automobile ownership, to keep buying batteries. This is the reason - and there is no other reason - why the lead-acid battery has a limited life expectancy. We have been researching the entire spectrum of recorded know-how on the subject of making lead-acid batteries last longer. We have found that batteries that have suffered minor neglect can usually be resuscitated. Batteries that have become tired after many years in service are invariably beyond help. After careful investigation, we concluded that there is only one certain way battery service life can be improved and that is by starting treatment as early as possible, on batteries that are in service and are in good working condition. We liked the concept of sulfation pulse treatment and believed we understood it. We were very surprised on searching patent databases around the globe, to find 53 patents strung out like pearls on a necklace in time - all issued after 1991 - successively describing each and every previous invention as flawed, then each in turn going on to propose a radically different pulsing technique. Electrical, as well as magnetic and mechanical - from intense pulses lasting mere nanoseconds - pulses lasting milliseconds - to square wave on-off, at multiple-minute intervals. Pulsing at various states of charge, pulsing at a wide variety of rates, steady pulsing, patterned pulsing. Resonant and non-resonant pulsing. Some claim to pulse at a specific sulfur crystal resonance of 3.26 MHz - which is, of course, pointless and pure fiction. There is no sulfur in a lead-acid battery, only sulfate of hydrogen, (sulfuric acid), and of lead, (lead sulfate). Battery pulsing has been around a long time. Pulsing specifically to rid batteries of unwanted sulfation was invented by Carl Edward Gali, (1928-2009), US Patent 5,063,341, dated Nov 5, 1991. It appears his patent was easy to overcome and lead-acid battery desulfation pulse technology quickly became a item of commerce and began attracting large numbers of enthusiasts, manufacturers and distributors worldwide. The diversity among subsequent pulsing patents provides a convenient and surprisingly accurate way of determining the true level of understanding of the technology. The databases show the pulse technology patent subject matter is extraordinarily widely scattered, confirming there is definitely something not right with this technology. We believe it to be highly significant that pulsing began gaining popularity in the early 1990s, only after all the major battery manufacturers had introduced low-maintenance and maintenance-free automobile batteries. These batteries have lead-calcium alloy grids. Lead-calcium batteries overwhelmingly fail due to

something known in the trade as "passivation" or "open circuit". It has been described by battery technologists as the "antimony-free effect". Lead-calcium alloy develops an ultra-thin, very poorly conducting tetragonal lead oxide, (alpha-PbO), layer on the surfaces of the positive plate grids over time, leaving the positive active material in the positive plates isolated from the supporting positive grid structure. Battery manufacturers use tin to control this oxide layer. This is far from straightforward. Addition of more than 1.5% tin to the alloy reduces the passivation effect - critically, at 0.6%, tin actually provides a worsening of the effect. Tin is expensive, so as little as possible is used, with unpredictable results. There are more than 90 patents describing tin, as well as other metals, alloyed with, or plated onto positive grids - suggesting this too, is a highly problematic technology. Silver is even more beneficial but is excruciatingly expensive. Before leadcalcium, lead-antimony was the preferred alloy. Lead-antimony has always been absolutely 100% troublefree in this regard. Then why change? Very good question. Lead-calcium technology batteries use one-eighth the amount of water of lead-antimony, plus they can be made totally maintenance-free by hydrogen/oxygen recombination technology. Evidently maintenance-free is perceived as important, reasonable battery life is not. These Pinocchios like to say the batteries of today are better than ever before! Welcome to the throwaway society! The problem presents with the battery refusing to crank the engine. Then, when the battery is put on charge, its voltage rises almost immediately, as if it is already fully charged. All the external symptoms, (including low SG in flooded batteries), are identical to sulfation, yet this is definitely not sulfation. The application of strong, high frequency pulses, pulses with fast rise-times, acting substantially in the same direction as the battery charging current, breaks down the ultra-thin oxide insulating layer and in that way has been restoring battery ampere-hour capacity to a serviceable level. Our researchers ran a series of experiments to find out first hand what effect pulsing has on sulfated batteries. Our testing was performed on battery cells that we built in glass containers, so that we could see precisely, from the beginning to the end, what was happening to the battery plates. Fully charged, fully discharged and sulfated plates all have different colors that are not difficult to distinguish from each other. We had battery plates that had been carefully stored, unused, under battery acid for five years. The plates were 100% sulfated. We incorporated these plates in our test cells. We used a 100 MHz oscilloscope in our testing. Sharp, nanosecond pulses produce damped oscillations, (caused by resonance of the inductance of the pulsing coil and the circuit capacitance), that put most of the energy into the wiring instead of into the battery. Longer lasting millisecond pulses are far more efficient. The test cells were pulsed in every way it was possible to do so, for weeks on end. They did not, we repeat, they did not become nearly sufficiently enough desulfated. This kind of experiment goes a long way to explain why, when thousands of used batteries receive pulse treatment, on a commercial scale, only about 30% respond. Many pulse equipment manufacturers insist that the main cause of battery failure is due to sulfation buildup on the battery plates. This cannot be true. (1) Modern automobile batteries fail mostly due to overdischarging, corrosion of the positive plates, manufacturing defects, the "open circuit" problem, then finally sulfation. (2) The bulk of sulfation takes place deep down, inside the plates, not on their surfaces.

We are not suggesting pulsing does not work. It works very well on batteries that have become "tired" and have acquired a relatively mild form of sulfation diffused within their plates, and it works on "open circuit" batteries. It definitely does not work on heavily sulfated, worn out batteries. There are, of course, people who suggest this kind of in-depth technical analysis is superfluous desulfation product sales and testimonials, they like to say, have provided ample proof desulfation products work. They do not accept there is any lasting impact from the highly variable results - even downright poor performance - of desulfation technologies. They explain that negative perceptions and controversy simply come with the territory. Battery manufacturers claim that desulfation products do not work. They are, of course, wrong. Desulfation product manufacturers claim their products do work. They are also wrong. Taken over the entire spectrum of desulfation products on the market, we believe that on average, there is one happy customer for every two unhappy customers. These are uncomfortable figures. Preventative treatment, in sharp contrast, provides a positive outcome for every customer. (It might be useful to have a look at this on the technical and business pages of this website.) Pulsing in a battery recovery process causes the negative grids to gas profusely, the positives less so. This represents a waste of energy. Far more importantly, gassing blunts the work done by the pulsing, robbing it of its effectiveness where it is needed the most, inside the sulfated active material of the negative plates. Control of gassing from the negatives is our special area of expertise. Our Batteryvitamin L product helps to control gassing from the negative grids and thereby brings about a useful increase in the effective voltage of the pulses, which in turn helps to significantly multiply the effect of the pulsing. Our testing revealed that a combination of millisecond pulsing and Batteryvitamin can penetrate the farthest into sulfated plates, producing the best overall achievable success, in the short term, as well as in the long term. Ideal applications for this particular combination are large scale automobile battery recovery operations, golf-cart battery operations and in particular, industrial motive power battery rental operations. This page is intended, above all, to inform - hopefully thereby assisting readers to make informed decisions from which they will benefit.

Research by a group of eminent scientists, LT Lam, H Ozgun, OV Lin, JA Hamilton, LH Vu, DG Vella and DAJ Rand, (CSIRO), showed that pulse charging of lead-calcium grid alloy lead-acid batteries breaks down the non-conducting lead oxide barrier layer progressively into expanding islands of conduction with application of pulsing. "Pulsed-Current Charging of Lead-Acid Batteries -", Journal of Power Sources 53 (1995), pages 226-227.

Sulfation Remedies Demystified

There are numerous battery reconditioning and battery desulfator products on the market. The two questions most frequently asked by battery users are: (1) Do they work? (2) How do they work? Answers capable of standing up to scientific scrutiny can only be found by careful hands-on testing and investigation. Our researchers ran a series of detailed tests and found some surprising answers.

We kept sets of automotive lead-acid battery positive plates and negative plates from four different manufacturers loosely packed in a polyethylene plastic bucket of 1.285 SG sulfuric battery acid for five years. They were arranged to stand vertically and were free to move. The plates had all previously been formed and cycled between three and five times. There were two sizes, when new measured: Small - 9 A-h; Large - 15 A-h. After five years, some plates were buckled, some were not. The plates made with expanded diamond mesh grids were the least buckled. All the plates made with cast grids and pasted asymmetrically were severely buckled away from the pasted side. The thicker the over-pasting, the more buckled the plates. Sulfation in the positives is reversible by charging. Buckling is not reversible. Sulfation in the negatives tends to persist and can be difficult to impossible to reverse. Testing should therefore focus on the negative plates. Our researchers built test cells in glass jars using newly formed positives and proven sulfated negatives, buckled as well as unbuckled, from the bucket. Our researchers had a 100% unobstructed view of the battery plates from the beginning to the end of every experiment. (We believe running investigative tests on full sized batteries in opaque containers is like wearing a blindfold and earmuffs to the movies.) A first test cell was built and put on charge. Within minutes its voltage climbed beyond gassing potential and kept climbing. The potential finally settled at 2.95V at 130mA. The cell was left on charge for two days, then discharge tested. The sulfated negative plate delivered less than 10% of its original capacity. The test was repeated twice. The capacity did not rise. A few grams of cadmium sulfate was then introduced into the electrolyte and stirred. About an hour later, the cell began to slowly draw more current, its voltage fell. It was now accepting charge. The cell was cycled three more times. By the last cycle, the capacity of the negative had risen to 20% of its original capacity. Additional cycling did not improve this figure. A total of three negative plates were tested with cadmium sulfate. The amounts of cadmium sulfate were varied. It was immediately apparent that very little should be used to avoid severe dendrite growth of cadmium on the negatives. All three negative plates provided essentially the same 20% Ah results. A fourth and fifth test cell were built and put on a preliminary charge. Again, the voltage of each climbed to 2.95V. The cells were then connected in series to an industrial pulse charger and charged with 10%-on, 90%-off pulsing, at an average of 2.7A. An oscilloscope showed the peak voltage directly across each cell was 3.2V. After 8 hours the peak cell voltages had dropped to 3.05V. Thereafter the cell capacity tested at 10%. Two repeat charge-discharge cycles failed to raise this figure. Sixth and seventh test cells were built. Batteryvitamin at 200 parts per million was added to the sulfuric acid electrolyte and the pulse charge experiment was repeated. After 8 hours the cells gave 20% Ah. A second run of 8 hours gave 50% Ah. The type of pulsing we were using was hard on the cells. They became very hot. This would make it difficult to recover 100% sulfated cells but relatively straightforward to recover partially sulfated cells - using pulsing plus Batteryvitamin. Our researchers were able to visually monitor the changes by the color of the negative plates. It was clear there was only partial recovery. The color of the bulk of sulfate crystals inside the plates is charcoal, not white. [Please note: The lead sulfate inside the plates are crystals and appear nearly black because they do not reflect light. The lead sulfate precipitate that builds up around the plates is amorphous and white and reflects light. There are many different types of lead and basic lead sulfates. People attach far too much importance to the white precipitate. The real problem is deep inside the plates, not on their surfaces!] The conversion to lead metal crystals in the negative plates was evident by the appearance of matte metallic patches. A significant amount of the lead sulfate in the plates, however, remained unchanged.

A best-fit explanation for all of this is most likely to be as follows. Lead-acid battery negative plates are made with a paste that is comparable, physically, to cement mortar used by builders. The paste consists of finely ground lead oxides mixed with dilute sulfuric acid. This is half pressed, half rubbed into the grids on a conveyor belt in a process called pasting and the plates are then cured. Cured plates are very porous, not unlike a natural sponge or leavened bread at a microscopic level. The negative plates then undergo a process called formation prolonged charging - to turn the hardened paste into lead metal crystals. Then, when a battery is discharged, the lead crystals nearest the outside of the porous material are turned into lead sulfate crystals. The deeply underlying lead, amounting to roughly half of the total, is not changed. It provides millions of tenuous interconnected electrical conduction paths that are needed for the battery to work. Recharging the battery converts all the lead sulfate crystals back into lead metal crystals. This process can be repeated many times. However, if a battery is for any reason not fully recharged, the deeply underlying lead conductive paths themselves start to become sulfated. Lead sulfate is not a good conductor of electricity. This leaves the lead crystals on the outside in a precarious situation. The electrical conduction needed to charge the lead crystals nearest the outside is no longer sufficient and the lead crystals are turned into lead sulfate crystals more or less permanently. This seems to be by far the simplest, the most likely correct explanation that everyone seems to have overlooked. Cadmium sulfate offers the advantage of providing an enhanced visual picture of what is happening, valid for cadmium sulfate as well as for pulsing. When cadmium sulfate is put into a battery or pulsing is applied to the battery, they go to work on the sulfated areas that are meant to provide conduction, slowly improving their conductivity, which in turn reactivates the surface crystals. The makers of desulfation remedies and equipment insist, however, it is the enlargement of the sulfate crystals and the sulfate deposits that cover the plates with an impermeable insulating layer, that are the cause of the problems. They look bad, therefore, they are saying they must be bad. We are convinced these are opinions, oversimplifications and incorrect. Cadmium sulfate can be seen to electroplate out as spindly, conductive cadmium dendrites on the metal of the negative grids when the cell voltage is driven sufficiently above its gassing potential. Cadmium on the negatives has the effect of temporarily increasing the electrochemical potential of a lead negative plate from -0.1262V to the electrochemical potential of cadmium at -0.4030V. The effect is to artificially raise the fully charged open circuit voltage of a 12 volt auto battery from about 12.75V to over 14.2V - but the benefit lasts only for a few hours, (cadmium easily redissolves). The electroplated cadmium overflows slightly into the underlying sulfated active material, making it sufficiently conductive to be converted into lead crystals. Repeated charging and discharging causes conduction due to the cadmium to migrate into the sulfated active material, which helps to progressively convert it into conductive lead metal crystals. Pulsing provides a high voltage that can assist in overcoming the poor conductivity of the underlying material, in much the same way, helping to convert some of the lead sulfate back into lead metal crystals. It takes far more energy to desulfate a battery, than it does to charge a battery. That is why pulse units that are claimed to use power from the battery itself are far more likely to be doing something else altogether inside the battery. Fully sulfated batteries are very difficult to impossible to desulfate by pulsing. Batteries that are only mildly sulfated respond well to pulsing. Batteryvitamin was not purpose designed to desulfate batteries. Its unique ability to control gassing makes it an ideal dual purpose battery supplement that can help to recover heavily sulfated batteries, in addition to providing corrosion control in motive power batteries.

We tried aluminum sulfate, magnesium sulfate, sodium sulfate and zinc sulfate. They appeared to do no harm, provided no benefit - charging with or without was equally effective. EDTA damages the battery. We have developed an entirely new approach to desulfation that does not use pulsing, does not use cadmium sulfate, does not use Batteryvitamin. The process takes a month, uses preprogrammed charging, metal oxide, electroplatingstyle additives and desulfates batteries 100% successfully - but is unfortunately not commercially viable. A combination of pulse charging and cadmium sulfate treatment is commonly used by commercial lead-acid battery reconditioning specialists. It takes almost a week and is known to provide a 30% recovery rate on reclaimed scrap batteries. Reclaimed batteries are known statistically to include about 10% undamaged, functioning batteries. Reconditioned auto batteries usually sell between $29.95 and $39.95, on a trade-in basis. There are, of course, people who suggest this kind of in-depth technical analysis is superfluous - desulfation product sales and testimonials, they like to say, have provided ample proof desulfation products work. They do not accept there is any lasting impact from the highly variable results - even downright poor performance - of desulfation technologies. They explain that negative perceptions and controversy simply come with the territory. Battery manufacturers claim that desulfation products do not work. They are, of course, wrong. Desulfation product manufacturers claim their products do work. They are also wrong. Taken over the entire spectrum of desulfation products on the market, we believe that on average, there is one happy customer for every two unhappy customers. These are uncomfortable figures. Preventative treatment, in sharp contrast, provides a positive outcome for every customer. (It might be useful to have a look at this on the technical and business pages of this website.) It is surely far more sensible, from a technical perspective, to provide treatment to batteries while they are still in good working condition? Sulfation treatment of automobile batteries often involves a considerable amount of frustrating technical uphill. Motive power battery treatment, in contrast, benefits enormously from the practical working knowledge motive power battery users have of their batteries. We have worked with motive power battery users for many years. We understand by what mechanisms batteries wear out. We understand exactly how every battery service life prolonging technology works. This page is intended, above all, to inform - hopefully thereby assisting readers to make informed decisions from which they will benefit.

Basic Technical Information

INTRODUCTION
The Batteryvitamin supplement material is made of large, purpose-shaped, carbon rich molecules, (75% carbon, by weight), manufactured from dye and oil feed-stocks, soluble in water and soluble in sulfuric battery acid. Batteryvitamin technology is based on physics, not chemistry. It operates at a 3 - 10 nanometer scale, at the surface of the negative plates. This helps to produce a reaction at the positive plates that has a powerful anticorrosion effect on the postive grids.

WATER
Assists batteries while in use. Batteryvitamin L is designed to be put into battery filling water. No need to measure out for individual batteries. Water consumption is proportional to battery size and workload. A fixed

percentage Batteryvitamin in the filling water lets each battery regulate its own optimum Batteryvitamin intake by virtue of its water consumption. Added, poured or injected - 0.8% by volume = 1 : 125 dilution = 1 fl ounce in 1 US gallon, into the battery filling water. Thereafter, dilution of the filling water in the battery acid electrolyte brings Batteryvitamin to its working concentration.

CONVENIENT
Users can select the most convenient "hands off" dosing method we know - an in-line, line pressure powered dosing pump that adjusts automatically for variations in flow and pressure, to maintain the injection ration at exactly 1 : 125. Batteryvitamin and single point battery watering can provide a partnership with unbeatable dollar and labor savings.

LAYER
The Batteryvitamin effect relies on a one-molecule-thick layer on the surfaces of the negative plates, supplied by Batteryvitamin dissolved in the electrolyte. A concentration no more than a few tens of parts-per-million in the electrolyte helps to establish and to maintain this layer. At this concentration Batteryvitamin remains chemically benign.

USED UP
It is, however, a slightly wasteful process and Batteryvitamin L is used up in the battery. It is easy to build up to a working concentration and to make up for the wasting by including the recommended, concentration of Batteryvitamin L in the filling water. It is not permissible to increase the concentration of Batteryvitamin L with a view to providing batteries with a once and be done with it form of treatment. This is because Batteryvitamin L in the electrolyte becomes susceptible to chemical breakdown at the positive plates at high concentration, with attendant risk of complications.

ENTHUSIASTIC
There can be no denying battery operators have, initially, been mostly sceptical and suspicious. Manufacturers have been inclined to be dismissive. That is all to be expected. So far the hundreds of battery operators that have gone ahead, have also become very enthusiastic users.

ROAD AHEAD
The lead-acid battery industry has been around a long time and is justifiably confident it has seen it all. That is why it processes new information associatively rather than abstractively. What this means is that new information is filtered through a reliable screen of previous experience, rather than judged on the basis of a more tenuous evaluation of its potential. There can be no doubt this has been the smart way of maintaining product integrity for a long time. But times are changing and the industry must take into account the rising threat of alternative chemistries and therefore be prepared to include more new technologies in the product, or risk going the same way as Betamax and vinyl.

The following Chapters explain in detail how Batteryvitamin goes to work. Batteryvitamin is available in two versions: Batteryvitamin L, (liquid), for use by battery operators on in-use motive power batteries, and; Batteryvitamin S. (solid), for use by the battery industry for insertion into the negative plates for all types of batteries during manufacture.

MOTIVE POWER BATTERIES

TREATMENT FROM NEW PROVIDES BEST RESULTS.

Actual recorded cycling performance of two sets of batteries. Testing according to BCI specification.

TESTING: KAN LABORATORIES, CHICAGO, USA, (INDEPENDENT). Testing procedure according to Battery Council International: Charging at 30A, up to per-cell potential of 2.55 V and until 130% of previous ampere hours are returned. Discharge at 75 A down to 1.75 V per cell. Using Bitrode LCN System Test Modules.

It is generally recognized that the life of motive power lead-acid batteries can be shortened by a variety of factors relating to service conditions, yet the best made and the most conscientiously used batteries still only have a relatively modest life expectancy Every time a lead-acid battery is charged, a tiny amount of lead metal finds its way from the positive grids to the negative electrodes. Given enough time, (3-8 years), this results in the battery losing ampere-hour capacity and in its eventual failure. Battery charger design affects battery life: Aggressive overcharging above 80% state-of-charge / charging above 2.60 V per cell, significantly reduces battery life.

Specialist Technical Information

THE METAL ION BARRIER

A functional portion of the Batteryvitamin molecules dissolved in the battery acid electrolyte becomes attached end-on to the negative plate - covering the entire surface of the negative plate with bristles, generally as shown below. (The scale of the illustrations represents a magnification of about ten million times.) The ends closest to the surface are in adsorption equilibrium, subject to attractive and repulsive electrostatic forces that act between the Batteryvitamin molecules and the surface, meaning there remains a tiny gap, (Reference 1). This allows the battery related chemical reactions to proceed at the surface unimpeded and for the molecules to "ride" over the charging and discharging surface formations.

The barrier remains inactive while the battery is at rest, when it is discharging and is being charged - but not quite fully charged. The spacing between the individual bristles will be wide enough for the battery process ions to move to the negative plate -15 and from the negative plate -16, and for the hydrogen ions to pass freely in both directions -17 , (E). (The mechanism of hydrogen ion migration being proton transfer, from water molecule to water molecule, a different proton being passed on very rapidly each time.)

When the battery is being charged and is nearing full state of charge, there is the usual sharp increase in voltage and onset of gassing at 2.35 volts per cell. This increase also activates the barrier. At about 2.45 volts per cell the free ends of the bristles grow larger and increase in diameter, which results in the pathways between the electrolyte and the underlying negative plate becoming very much narrower, ( F). The barrier remains porous. As charging nears completion, the last few remaining battery process ions emerge 18. The individual pathways achieve their optimum size by "squeezing down" until a minimum sustainable threshold of hydrogen ion migration is reached. It happens across the entire barrier, ensuring the billions upon billions of pathways are all kept exactly uniform in size - large enough to allow hydrogen ions to pass -19 and for nanobubbles of hydrogen gas to emerge - 20, but too small for migrating metal ions to reach the negative plate -21. This is what causes the concentration of metal ions in the battery acid electrolyte to rise to saturation and, in turn, helps to preserve the positive plate. (Metal ions do not exist in solution by themselves but are encased by a small cloud of water molecules, making them effectively much larger and easy to stop, (Reference 2.) The barrier can operate only when the battery is on charge and is near or at full state of charge. It significantly increases the on-charge negative electrode (plate) potential, resulting in less gassing and a reduction in water consumption. Saturation of the bulk of the battery acid electrolyte with metal ions provides a small reduction in the relative potential of the positive electrode (plate) which can sometimes help reduce charging times.

Electrical testing and teardowns confirmed the essential spongy pore texture of the active mass in the negative plates to be unaffected by the low dosage Batteryvitamin substance.

REFERENCES: PAUNOVIC, M and SCHLESINGER, M. "Fundamentals of Electrochemical Deposition", The Electrochemical Society, Inc., (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1998), Reference 1, Chapter 10 section 2; Reference 2, Chapter 2 section 8.

BATTERYVITAMIN: CUTTING DOWN ON POSITIVE GRID CORROSION

The metal ion barrier can pave the way for thinner positive plates without attendant loss in battery life. The following is a more detailed explanation of the sequence of electrochemical and physical interactions that began with the formation of the electrochemical barrier over the surfaces of the negative plates - and ends up helping to reduce positive grid corrosion. The working potential required to bring about electroplating of lead is very low, a potential of only 0.1 to 0.5 volts per cell is typically all that is required for the operation of lead electroplating baths of the type used by the electrorefining and electroplating industries. In electroplating, metal of a positive electrode is progressively dissolved into a suitable electrolyte and is plated out onto a negative electrode under the influence of an electric current. Since in principle, there is very little that distinguishes electroplating cells from lead-acid battery cells, this would seem to imply that at over 2.0 volts per cell, electroplating should be taking place in every lead-acid battery cell at a veritable hurricane force rate. It is well known that this simply does not happen. It does not happen mainly because the solubility of lead in sulfuric battery acid is extremely low. The electric field that is trying to "drag" lead metal away from the surface of the positive plate grids is in no way diminished by this low solubility, however. Electrolysis, (gassing charge), is an essential participant but solvation of the lead is the initiator of corrosion. Corrosion quickly covers the surfaces of the lead conductors and support structures of the positive plates with a protective layer of lead dioxide, Pb02. The layer has semi permeable properties.

For batteries used on float duty, the layer is sufficient to further reduce electroplating to an imperceptible level. During overcharging significant amounts of lead metal underlying the lead dioxide layer become partially dissolved, thus able to migrate via the semi permeable layer of lead dioxide, to the surface of the protective layer, whereupon most of the lead becomes fully solvated and converted to lead dioxide which precipitates onto the protective layer. Over time this results in failure of the positive plates through plate growth, grid disintegration and sludging of the active mass. The balance electroplates out onto the negatives, causing mossing and "leading" through, (Pb-ing).

The negative plates act as powerful scavengers during overcharging. They extract lead ions from the electrolyte and thereby reduce the already low lead concentration to a very low concentration. This helps the electric field to draw lead away from the conductors and support structures of the positive plates during overcharging. Flat plate pasted positives are especially prone to this effect. In the case of tubular positives, the volume of lead dioxide active material that surrounds the spines helps to attenuate migration of the lead out of the underlying metal spines. When the metal ion barrier is present, the lead ions that would otherwise have been electroplated onto the negative plates, are no longer able to do so as before. The concentration of lead in the bulk of the electrolyte is able to rise to saturation. Importantly, there is not enough lead to return to the positives to make a difference. The upshot is that the negative plates, which had been behaving as powerful attractors to the lead ions, albeit via a difficult-to-negotiate path, would no longer be able to exert their previous influence. This would be followed by a steep decrease in the rate of dissolution of the structural lead and a corresponding reduction in the precipitation of lead dioxide. In a nutshell, regulation of a few ions that are flowing via a difficult-to-negotiate path and subject to a powerful electric field provides control over the flow of numerous partially dissolved ions that are following an easy-tonegotiate route. This amounts to a form of amplification. The ions can include lead, antimony, tin, etc.

The benefits can be very significant. The rate of corrosion during moderate overcharging can be brought in line with float duty corrosion. The severe corrosion that accompanies excessive overcharging is unlikely to result in premature failure of the battery. The onset of positive plate growth and sludging can be delayed. The unusual combination of materials and interactions appears to have contributed to the metal ion barrier having been long overlooked in the context of lead-acid batteries. This is not about a theory but a technology that has undergone field trials. It is about extensive Faraday-style investigative experimentation that positively identified the mechanism at work and helped to develop the best materials for the job. It has taken the convergence of knowhow in such diverse fields as battery and electroplating technology, plus semiconductor experience, against a background of physics to recognize what it is, what it can do and how to harness it.

BATTERYVITAMIN: RESEARCH NOTES.

More than half a century ago when lead-acid battery manufacturers switched from wood veneer separators to synthetic materials, the changeover inadvertently caused battery life to crash. While the solution was found in

the use of ligno-sulfonates, other than empirically re-formulating these substances, it seems hardly any investment has been made in the utilization of organic materials to purposefully continue to enhance battery performance. Batteryvitamin is designed to put organic technology back in the running so as to better equip the lead-acid battery industry to meet the inevitable difficult commercial challenges that lie ahead. Our ongoing R & D has produced a solid version that is a functional equivalent to liquid Batteryvitamin - for building into batteries - giving manufacturers who are able to use it a significant advantage in the market place. Batteryvitamin S, (solid), can help to achieve calcium-like low water consumption from antimony alloy batteries - but to do so a formation catalyst in the electrolyte has to be used. New antimony alloy positives give off a surge of antimony during formation that is deposited immediately on the negatives, causing the characteristic high water consumption of antimony alloy batteries. This is likely to be masked if the negatives also contain antimony in the grids but shows up clearly with calcium alloy negatives. The catalyst has a half-life roughly equal to the duration of the formation charge - disappearing without a trace after only a few days. The advantage of Batteryvitamin S plus formation catalyst are obvious. The use of recycled lead carrying a large impurity burden is facilitated. Batteries can be provided with long lasting antimony alloy positives and low water consuming calcium alloy negatives - resulting in the best of both worlds in service. For example, the way would be cleared for industrial motive power batteries and golf cart batteries to be watered no more than once a year (!). Hybrid and electric automobile batteries could be made very inexpensively, yet provide a highly satisfactory battery life. (The activation voltage of Batteryvitamin S is different to the activation voltage of Batteryvitamin L. During formation the activation voltage of Batteryvitamin S begins at 2.45 V/cell, then falls slowly over a period of a few weeks down to 2.22V/cell.) The following diagrams provide details of the test procedure.

The two cells received formation charging connected in series and were subsequently deep cycled twice to ascertain their ampere-hour capacities. The antimony positive cell appeared to have about 7% more capacity than the calcium positive cell - likely due to its positive plate being fractionally thicker. The antimony's end-ofcharge dV/dt had been considerably speeded up and more sharply defined.

The cells were reconnected as shown above and the potentials across both cells were carefully adjusted to match each other using a high resolution Hewlett-Packard digital voltmeter. The currents via the cells were measured with a specially constructed differential shunt resistor network having a matching accuracy batter than 0.1% . The current of the Ca-Ca cell was measured across A - B, the current of the Sb-Ca cell was measured across C D and the differential was monitored across B - D, again using the H-P instrument. (In previous testing an untreated antimony cell had drawn more than six times the electrolysis current of a calcium cell. An antimony cell containing Batteryvitamin S in the negative but no formation catalyst in the electrolyte drew roughly three times the electrolysis current of the calcium cell.) Subsequent cycling of the cells in parallel was performed. Discharging at the 5 hour rate down to 1.50 V/cell and charging at the 20 hour rate up to an average of 2.60 V/cell - holding this voltage for 5 hours and then lowering it to 2.36 V/cell for 24 hours to measure the electrolysis current. After 10 cycles the electrolysis current of the Ca-Ca cell had fallen from 4.7 mA down 1.8 mA, while that of the Sb-Ca cell had remained at 5.2 mA. While implying an improvement in the Ca-Ca cell, individual cell capacity testing showed the Ca-Ca cell capacity had fallen from 14 A-H to 5 A-H, while the Sb-Ca cell capacity had risen slightly from 15 A-H to 17 A-H.

The positive plate of the Ca-Ca cell was replaced with an identical freshly formed and precycled plate, resulting in the electrolysis current rising to 4.6 mA and the capacity being restored to 14 A-H. Had the Ca-Ca cell been defective? To find out, two more Ca-Ca cells were built, formed and tested in the same way. Both suffered similar capacity loss. Indeed, numerous publications have described this kind of capacity loss and therefore it must be accepted that lead-calcium alloy technology might well prove to be an evolutionary dead-end. Since treatment assists in increasing battery life, the upsurge in water consumption at the end of the useful service life of a motive power battery is delayed. In this context battery leasing, once a year maintenance, at a fixed price - no watering hassles in between - seems to look set to become a reality.

THE CARBON-BATTERYVITAMIN SUPER BATTERY

The previous test showing the advantages of Batteryvitamin S in automotive battery application was repeated using motive power battery components and a substantial amount of carbon additive, plus Batteryvitamin S. A high concentration of carbon in the negative active material can enhance battery performance significantly, although the relatively low hydrogen overpotential of this material can lead to excessive gassing. The test shows this nuisance can not only be entirely eliminated, the end-of-charge current of the treated cell can be reduced by a factor of four compared to a conventional cell by the use of Batteryvitamin S. The test plates were obtained by disassembling a 6 volt, 150 ampere-hour golf-cart battery that had not yet been formed. The plates were cut down to the required size. The procedure has been used for many years and can provide excellent quality plates down to one or two ampere-hour capacity. The negative active material was removed from the grids and ground to a fine powder. This powder was then mixed with 2 percent by weight of activated carbon powder and 1 percent by weight of Batteryvitamin S. The mixture received a small quantity of dilute sulphuric acid, sufficient to produce a paste of the requisite consistency. This paste was pressed, while still hot from the acid reaction, into suitably sized metal grid sections. The plates were cured and the active material appeared to be mechanically similar to the active material of the plates that had been sacrificed.

The cells were assembled and formed. The treated cells provided an initial rate of gassing following formation that was disappointing. After two deep cycles the end-of-charge rate of gassing fell dramatically - measuring a quarter of the untreated cell after ten cycles. Battery purists might feel uncomfortable with the plate making technique yet the deep cycling runs confirmed the ampere-hour capacities of the test cells closely matched each other and closely matched the original negative plate cell capacity. The two-plate construction provides a simple, accurate and efficient test bed, although the internal impedance of the cells is likely to be sub-optimal. This disadvantage is negated by comparing like with like. The treated cell exhibited a vastly superior voltage stability compared to the untreated cell when subjected to 2C, 5C and 10C discharge and charge surges. Experiments of this type apply the scale-it-down and speed-it-up research technique used by bridge builders and ship builders to lead-acid technology. They are easy to repeat and therefore easy to verify. This experiment has shown that the beneficial properties of carbon and of Batteryvitamin can be combined, implying that this combination can help to pave the way to a new era of super batteries.

Batteryvitamin L, (liquid), and Batteryvitamin S, (solid), provide exactly the same function in lead-acid batteries, although chemically distinct from each other. Batteryvitamin L is soluble and goes to work via the battery filling water and the electrolyte, while Batteryvitamin S is insoluble and is able to diffuse through being incorporated into the negative active material during manufacture. SUMMING UP Ongoing research has shown Batteryvitamin has many more qualities or facets than the one that extends battery life. Take for example improvements in maintenance-free and thin-plate technology, optimization of automotive and opportunity charged batteries, reducing water consumption and administering water treatment. The underlying mechanism is always the same, yet the benefits can be wide and varied. What Batteryvitamin does inside the battery helps to overcome major battery shortcomings. This can offer battery manufacturers a direct route to improving battery performance and assuring customer satisfaction. Batteryvitamin L has been in use for over half a decade on tens of thousands of motive power batteries. It is available "over the counter". Batteryvitamin S is new, availability and use may be subject to terms and conditions. Research enquiries e-mail: research@batteryvitamin.net

Batteryvitamin and Business: Enduring, Practical

EXTENDING BATTERY LIFE INDUSTRIAL MOTIVE POWER, TRACTION, DEEP CYCLING BATTERIES TECHNOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS - BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
o o o o The rational mind knows that the only way for any form of treatment to successfully extend battery life, the batteries must still work. Waiting until batteries are completely worn out, before attempting to breathe life into them again, is as irrational as watering dead plants. Consumers have too long been persuaded to put preparations into worn out batteries, (perception - no risk); rather than into still-working batteries, (- valuable). We are absolutely serious about making batteries last longer. We are determined to stay well away from bad science. We are bucking the trend.

40 MWh - BIGGEST BATTERY IN THE WORLD, 1988, CHINO, NEAR LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.
Load-leveling battery - reinforcement of local electricity grid network. Eight strings, each string 1032 lead-acid cells, each cell rated 3250 ampere-hours. Extra long life materials were used, including micro-porous rubber separators and special lead-antimony-arsenic positive grid and lead-calcium negative grid alloys - to give a designed cell life expectancy of 4000 and a guaranteed cycle life expectancy of 2000 deep cycles. We designed and manufactured the automatic watering valve - stibine/ arsine trap - flame arrestor units (ASF) that were installed on this giant battery. Without these units, the battery could never have been operated. The Chino battery is seen as an important milestone, not only in terms of electricity management but in terms of battery life management. This is the catalyst that persuaded the directors of our company to invest in R&D, for a technologically sound,(and safe!), technology: Giving motive power battery users hands-on control over the life expectancy of their valuable batteries. It took twelve years. We named it Batteryvitamin. Batteryvitamin L is designed to greatly slow down the wearing-out process that occurs specifically in industrial motive power batteries, (positive grid corrosion accompanied by sludging of the positive active mass, followed by loss in ampere-hours). Batteryvitamin works by physics at a nanoscale level, (explained in detail, in plain language on other pages). Batteryvitamin typically adds 40% to the service life of hard working industrial motive power batteries. One part of Batteryvitamin concentrate in 125 parts battery refill water. New and in-use batteries. Why do motive power batteries deliver only about 1500 deep cycles, yet load leveling batteries seem to be able go on and on for 4000 deep cycles? There does not appear to be that much difference in their design and construction. Nevertheless, they are not identical. The separators preferred by knowledgeable battery operators for load leveling batteries possess a unique property - known in the trade as an ability to reduce antimony poisoning of the negative plates. We investigated this in some considerable detail, using a variety of solvent extraction techniques to isolate the material contained in the antimony inhibiting separators. This has obviously been done many times before. Therefore, instead of the usual chemical analysis, we tried a different approach. The antimony that was poisoning the negatives had migrated there from the positives, so we reasoned that we should be looking at battery cells as electroplating cells - albeit very, very inefficient electroplating cells. After that, everything fell into place. We knew that additives in electroplating baths migrate to and are adsorbed onto the negatives. We analyzed the material's physical properties and synthesized an equivalent material with the same physical properties, although not chemically related. Finally, we developed an improved version, superior in every way to the material we had isolated, able to cut down grid corrosion to a bare minimum.

Actual recorded cycling performance of two sets of batteries. Testing according to BCI specification.

Lead-acid battery users perceive batteries as commodities, battery manufacturers perceive their market as saturated. Therefore, for argument's sake, if batteries are made to last twice as long, only half the original quantity is likely to be sold. Whether right or wrong, it does create a climate that impresses on every person with realistic expectations of a lasting career in the battery industry never to become involved in anything that can make batteries last longer. This is the long and the short of why our company is promoting this technology and battery manufacturers are not.

- FEATURES
o o o o controls gassing; reduces stand self-discharge; protects the positives against corrosion; improves battery life expectancy 40 - 60 percent. On average 2 out of every 3 lead-acid batteries that go into service are replacements for worn out batteries.

- FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

John Fetter, (white overalls), CEO of F & H believes the operational and financial challenges that face industrial battery users can only be properly understood by going to the places where the batteries are used. Five ton locomotive battery in charging bay goldmine in South Africa, 8600 feet below ground, 3000 feet below sea level. Temperature of surrounding rock, 55 C

Motorists strapped for cash can be relied upon to want to consider the alternative to buying a new battery reviving their old battery. This is what kick-started sulfation (Brit. sulphation) cures in the first place and has been sustaining multitudes of bring-back-to-life remedies for as long as the lead-acid battery has been an item of commerce. There are thousands of desulfation merchants competing for a finite pool of customers who do not have enough money to buy a new battery. Desperation leads to sales spin - describing an old battery that has been charged as 'battery rejuvenation'; a battery that has been charged and can then start an engine as 'battery life extension'. The industrial motive power battery business is very different. The users of these batteries are very different. The money involved is very different. The average retail price for a full-plate-count, non-discounted automobile battery is $110, (68). The average price for an industrial motive power battery is $3500, (2200). Selling industrial motive power batteries is potentially 32 times more attractive, per battery, than selling automobile batteries. The total value of automobile batteries in use worldwide was $57 billion in 2010 and industrial motive power batteries $11 billion. The automobile market appears to be 5.18 times more attractive than the industrial motive power battery market. Automotive is, however, a hotly contested line of business, subject to aggressive price cutting. These are, nevertheless, useful numbers that can be used to calculate a figure of merit for an industrial motive power battery related business start-up. Divide 32, the sales price advantage of motive power batteries, by 5.18, the market value advantage of automobile batteries. Less than one means best left untouched. Greater than one speaks of opportunity. Six is excellent.

Fleet operations, Batteryvitamin at work, Sydney, Australia.

Motive power batteries are rarely used alone or in small groups - are mostly used in groups of sixty, four hundred, a thousand batteries, per facility. In the UK, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose together have over 120 distribution warehouses, each has in the order of 200 motive power batteries powering forklift trucks, stackers and other types of vehicles. In the USA, Walmart alone employs as many as 140 distribution warehouses. Logistics operators, industrial concerns, food and beverage manufacturers, etc. run many hundreds of similar large operations. In 2001, Batteryvitamin was installed for the first time at a large facility, a 950 battery auto manufacturer parts distribution warehouse. A typical, smaller 400-battery warehouse can account for an investment in batteries of 400 X $3500 = $1.4 million, (875 thousand). Extra 40% service life represents a saving of $560 thousand, (350 thousand). The price the customer would be asked to pay for the service can be a ten-twenty percent portion of the saving. Multiple installations, repeat business, minimal overheads - a potentially handsome line of business. A people oriented, marketing and sales, slightly actuarial, technical service line of business. As an astute business person, you already know we have provided details of only the seeds of the business - a basic measure of its life blood, and that: o o o o The cutting-edge technology is, in fact, the beating heart of this kind of business; It is not difficult to verify marketing information but background technology searches often turn out to be tedious and unproductive; Sectors of the sulfation cure business have dragged the reputation of battery aids down to the brink of self destruction; Glowing product endorsements have long provided advertisers with an easy way of diverting attention away from questionable details. We therefore considered it essential that we provide you with comprehensive, easy to read, technical disclosures. Our technical pages probably carry more straight technical information than any other battery product website. Our INTRODUCTION page provides Batteryvitamin application highlights. Our TECHNICAL INFORMATION page provides precise details of the technology. There are a total of 21 pages with technical information on this website. What we propose is a very simple business model. No upfront payments, no franchising fees. We provide technical support and product - you provide marketing and distribution - under an exclusive-territory distribution/licensing agreement.

Introduction to Batteryvitamin
Batteryvitamin provides industrial battery users with the most up to date tool for extending the service life of their hard working batteries. Batteryvitamin is easy to use and a little goes a long way. It is added as a concentrate to the battery filling water. Every time the batteries are watered the required amount is delivered and distributed together with the water to every cell. Batteryvitamin can be used to treat new and in-use batteries and is suitable for hand watering as well as single point battery watering.

Batteryvitamin is responsibly formulated to guard carefully against compromising the benefits of purified battery water.

Actual recorded cycling performance of two sets of batteries. Testing according to BCI specification.

In a blind field trial run in a large automobile manufacturing materials handling facility, nearly 1,000 industrial motive power batteries received Batteryvitamin from their sixth service year onwards by automatic dosing and by automatically controlled single point battery watering. After 10 years of service, about 52% of the original batteries were still in use, equivalent to a conservatively calculated increase in service life of 65%. Despite running about 26% batteries short at 10 years, Batteryvitamin ensured there was always enough power for all the vehicles.

Data from supplier battery register, historical battery usage and battery replacement patterns.

When battery life is extended it translates directly into dollar savings. The total number of batteries that remained in use represented a value of around 2 million dollars that became available as working capital or as money that could have been banked. Batteryvitamin is a hitherto unexplored form of nanotechnology for extending lead-acid motive power life. The following is a schematic representation of what it can do inside the battery:

According to Dr Hans Bode, Research Director (retired) Varta Batterie AG, Hanover, Germany, organic substances can help to reduce sludging of the positive plates when constantly resupplied. "Lead Acid Batteries", (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1977) p 335.

For more details of a technical nature, please refer to How is the Nanobarrier formed? Batteryvitamin represents a major breakthrough that evolved out of research into substances that have been encoded or keyed with selected chemical and physical characterizations, to be carried by water to appointed areas of use and to carry out pre-assigned tasks.

The unique properties of Batteryvitamin can help to hold back previously inevitable corrosion of battery plates. It can be used by repeated application in combination with single point battery watering - thereby providing a refresher service to the battery.

As motive power battery cells age they use more water, some more than others. By using the replenishment water as the carrier, the cells that appear to need Batteryvitamin the most, beneficially receive the most. Batteryvitamin falls into a similar category as the ligno-sulfonates, extracted from wood, that must be included in the negative plates by battery manufacturers to preserve negative plate activity. The nature of Batteryvitamin makes it a powerful disinfectant - acting to prevent the Legionella, biofilm/slime and algae build up in the water supply in conformity with heath regulations. Batteryvitamin can work best at a very low concentration. At about 5-30 parts per million, (ppm), in electrolyte, it appears to have a purely physical effect, without any really significant chemical interaction with the battery cells. Above 1,500 ppm tests showed a discernable chemical interaction can be expected. Batteryvitamin is typically slowly and harmlessly drawn in by the plates from the electrolyte, but above the recommended concentration is likely to be taken in increasingly faster - which therefore precludes an extra amount of Batteryvitamin as storage in the electrolyte of the cells. This is why it is necessary to replenish the battery cells with diluted Batteryvitamin at regular intervals.

Specifications
Solubility: Soluble in water in all proportions, soluble in sulfuric battery acid at recommended concentration. Specific Gravity: 0.998 Dilution Factor: Volume concentrate : Volume battery water = 1: 125 or 1 fl. oz : 1 US gallon In Electrolyte:

Batteryvitamin concentration will not rise with successive waterings since Batteryvitamin is consumed in batteries within 2 weeks. Concentration varies, typically 20 parts per million. Environment: Batteryvitamin is biodegradable. For disposal dilute concentrate 1 : 1,000 with water. Patented world-wide
Batteryvitamin is not suitable for treatment of a battery that begins when the battery is almost worn out. Batteryvitamin should not be used in an attempt to revitalize a defective, neglected or spent battery. As Batteryvitamin is used outside our control, we cannot accept liability for damages.

100 MPG Electric Car?

Attempts by established automobile manufacturers to design and produce practical, economically viable battery powered cars have so far all failed and will most likely continue to fail. The reason is simple. The vast majority of people in this industry, tasked to design, produce and sell battery powered cars, believe in their hearts they are being coerced into advancing an inferior product. Hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius, etc., are aimed at armchair environmentalists. They represent good PR but otherwise serve no useful purpose. Running gasoline engines over a wide rpm range is grossly inefficient. A diesel is more efficient than a hybrid and has less overall impact on the environment. The Chevrolet Volt is about 50% on the right track, the remaining 50% is horribly wrong. It is a sheep in wolf's clothing. Designing electric in terms of simply adapting conventional automobile technology is narrow minded. These are the same people who used the EV1 project from 1996 to 1999 to "prove" electric cars don't work. Lithium batteries will become more, not less expensive. Moore's Law applies only to semiconductor chips. Lithium technology has been incubating too long. Governments of producing countries, commodity traders and arbitrageurs are expecting demand for lithium to go up and will sink their teeth inexorably into every facet of its supply. It is popularly believed that the main drawback of electric car batteries is technical - insufficient energy storage capacity. Surprisingly, this is not so. Their principal disadvantage is commercial. The trade-in value of pure-electric cars will always be far below that of equivalent gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. The reason is as follows. Batteries do not last very long compared to automobiles. Used car dealers are well aware that battery powered car owners are most likely to want to trade in their cars just before the batteries wear out. A replacement battery for pure-electric automobiles costs, on average, $15,000. Secondhand batteries have only scrap value on the open market. Prospective second hand buyers would obviously insist on a very sizable reduction in the price of the car to help pay for a new battery. The makers of pure-electric cars are doing everything in their power to disguise

this. Extended payment terms and leasing are smokescreens designed to hide the real costs. Subsidies are stopgaps that will inevitably run out. If we are not careful, we could end up with car lots filled with rusting, unsold, very unwanted, pure-electric cars. The type of vehicle proposed below uses a lead-acid (!) battery costing no more than $2,000, which would help it to maintain a competitive resale value. This, in turn, would help to create not only a successful item of commerce but would help to put an energy efficient, environmentally sound vehicle on the road. Consumers instinctively prefer user-friendly technologies that strike a good balance in every way possible. What we need are economical people carriers. Perhaps somewhat "boxy", like a small utility vehicle or mini-van, obviously electric, definitely not futuristic looking, above all practical, easy to get into and out off, inexpensive to manufacture - not to compete but to co-exist with conventional internal combustion engined cars. Intended specifically for private "second car" use, seating the equivalent of four adults definitely not for mini-bus or taxi duty. With air conditioning. Powered by specially developed lead-acid batteries, driven by specially developed alternating current electric motors. This type of vehicle would use regenerative braking - controlled exclusively via the accelerator pedal. Push down to go faster and release to provide excellent "overrun" braking all the way to standstill. This is onepedal driving - an absolutely brilliant concept. The position of the accelerator pedal no longer merely controls the speed but tells the vehicle at what rate it should accelerate, maintain an even speed and at what rate it should decelerate. It takes only a few minutes to master. The brake pedal is used only for emergency braking and to hold the vehicle when at standstill. Maximum speed of at least 70 miles per hour and a range of 25 miles. Perhaps less but not more! Yet there won't be any "range anxiety". The vehicle would have a superbly well developed, 40%-plus efficient, constant speed, scientifically silenced, internal combustion engine driving an alternator, that would be started only when the vehicle begins to run out of range, to recharge the batteries, to go another 800 miles, at a fuel consumption approaching 80 miles per US gallon - which equals 96 miles per imperial gallon, 2.94 liters per 100 kilometers. (Alternatively, an ideal opportunity for the industry to finally successfully adapt the gas turbine to the automobile!) The electric motor would be rated at 100% - but the internal combustion engine would only be rated at about 50% of the power of a conventional automobile engine, with not the slightest reduction in performance during acceleration and climbing hills. A battery can very easily accommodate these types of peak energy demands. It would be possible to define this kind of vehicle as: o o o Driven by internal combustion engine, with extra efficient electrical transmission; Battery powered, with extra efficient internal combustion engine range extender; Focused primarily on fuel economy by a careful blending the natural strengths of internal combustion and the natural strengths of electric technologies. This constitutes a genuine groundbreaking, eco-friendly, next-generation technology, better than comparable diesel-electric locomotive, very large mining truck and most of today's ocean liner propulsion systems. Varying the speed of gasoline engines makes them less than 20% efficient while electric motors

remain more than 80% efficient. The battery would, out of necessity, need to be at least 180 volts. The motor rated at least 125 volts, threephase. Battery current at least 250 amps. The motor control unit would typically employ digital/microprocessor three-phase, "six-pack" modular IGBT inverter technology. The master controller would include an analog current limiting and speed control combination, automatically adjusting the current flowing to, or coming from the drive motor, tailored to respond to the position of the accelerator pedal. It is essential for the battery to be a liquid electrolyte type, (also known as flooded), with lead-antimony positive grid and lead-calcium alloy negative grid technology. The negative plates would be of a special high-carbon/ Batteryvitamin design. This combination permits high discharge/recharge currents, makes the lead-acid battery abuse resistant, keeps the price down and at the same time provides roughly four times longer life than comparable maintenance-free batteries. Battery lids would include integral water refill control valves, fed via a single water supply connector. (Maintenance-free lead-acid has a limited life expectancy when deep cycled and is a bad choice for electric cars. It is available, it is being used - it owes its existence to perceived market demand and engineering compromise, not to technical ingenuity. If tire pressures, oil and radiator water need to be checked from time to time, why not battery water?) The switch-on routine would include engine preheat. The electric motor would be water cooled and the heated water from the electric motor would be circulated via the internal combustion engine, bringing it up to operating temperature before engaging the cooling radiator. The cooling system would be controlled by valves so that with the engine running, the cooling system would switch to separate the electric motor and the internal combustion engine cooling circuits. This would mean no more cold weather starting problems, help to cut down emissions and maximize engine life. The engine would charge the battery up to 80% state-of-charge, running at constant speed and delivering constant power at maximum efficiency, then stop. This helps to reduce engine emissions and reduce battery water consumption. The battery would be charged from 80% up to 100% from the electricity network. The vehicle would normally be plugged into a 240 volt ac outlet overnight and left plugged in until the vehicle is needed. Days, weeks, months, without the slightest risk of overcharging. Charging from 120 volts is possible but would take significantly longer than overnight. Fast recharging stations and hydrogen powered cars are impractical concepts dreamed up by people who cherry pick specifications without the benefit of actually understanding the technologies in question. The writer built a battery powered car in 1980, by converting a Renault 5 to electric power. The car had a 20 hp (15 kW) electric motor, had regenerative braking, carried 550 lbs (250 kg) of batteries and had a range of 47 miles, (76 km). Absolutely magnificent to drive, especially in heavy stop-start traffic. People were not ready for electric cars at that time and the project was shelved. The knowledge gained lives on. Evolution is a relentless force not simply confined to biology. Countries evolve. Economies evolve. Businesses evolve. Technologies evolve. Evolution is subject to the simplest of all rules - survival of the fittest. All of us receive invitations to come along for the ride, yet none of us will ever receive permission to occupy the driver's seat.

The biggest battery manufacturer in the world and the biggest automobile manufacturer in the world were forced to apply for Chap. 11 bankruptcy protection, yet their managements seemed curiously oblivious they were actually paying an evolutionary penalty for failing to properly update their century-old technologies in line with the rising cost of fuel and raw materials, and for wantonly misunderstanding the consumer. This presentation attempted to provide an outline of a new way of looking at automobile design, in touch with the consumer, in touch with the environment, in touch with technical feasibility and in touch with economic reality.

Complement to existing technology

Lead-acid remains the most economical and practical type of battery for materials handling and other battery powered vehicles. Up to the 1940s batteries were generally being fitted with plate separators made out of thin wood veneer - but it became necessary for manufacturers to switch to new types of synthetic materials. This, however, caused batteries to perform less efficiently through loss of capacity and it was only then realized for the first time that wood actually contains a substance essential for proper lead-acid battery functioning. The substance was identified as the structural ingredient in the darker parts of wood, called lignin. Ever since this discovery manufacturers have been finding it necessary to include a small percentage of suitably processed form of wood lignin, called ligno-sulfonate, also known as an expander, as a supplement to the negative plates of the batteries, (References 1,2,3,4 below.) Batteryvitamin can be described as an extension to ligno-sulfonate technology and is also able to go to work at the negative plates - generally at a much lower concentration. The raw materials that go into the making of Batteryvitamin are mainly obtained from common dye feedstocks, combined with suitable vegetable oils and processed in a way to make Batteryvitamin soluble in water and in battery acid. In order to work, Batteryvitamin needs to be applied on a regular basis and it is convenient to do this in combination with the normal filling-up water to achieve this requirement. Treatment can help to significantly extend battery life, (see Graphs 1 & 2 , 3 & 4. )

REFERENCES: 1. VINAL, GW, "Storage Batteries", (John Wiley & Sons, New York, Third Edition 1940), p26, pp 45-54. 2. BODE, H "Lead Acid Batteries", (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1977), pp 243, 313, 337. 3. BARAK, M, "Handbook of Batteries", (The Institution of Electrical Engineers, London & New York, 1980), p 231. 4. COSGROVE, J P, "Lignin and Lignosulfonates", (109 Convention - Battery Council International, May, 1999.)

Copyrights, Designs & Patents

The right of F & H (Proprietary) Limited, Associates, to be identified as the Proprietors of Described Technology has been asserted according with Copyright, Designs and Patent Acts. The Proprietors, authorized

distributors and valued clients hereby let it be known disclosure of information via this website is intended solely to promote satisfactory understanding of this Technology. No part of this website disclosure may be reproduced in any form for the purpose of trade or promotion of any kind of technology or product without the written permission from the proprietors. Registered names, trademarks and patents, even when not specified as such, are not to be considered unprotected by law. Disclosure constitutes our offer to sell and consents to use of products and treatments, purchased by the distributor/consumer, generally as herein described. Disclosure does not constitute concession to acquire or dispose of by way of trade, nor consent to any use of related technology as herein described. Authorization to acquire, dispose or use of related technology must be so confirmed in writing, undersigned and dated by the proprietors. All rights to enforce patents are reserved. Authorization to acquire or dispose, in terms of distribution, must be so confirmed in writing, undersigned and dated by the Proprietors. Permission will not be unreasonably witheld. Authorization to use described material or treatment in any battery must be so confirmed by way of invoicing, as issued by an authorized distributor. Pricing for goods and services is designed to be fair in terms of recognized trading practice.

Corrosion Control - The key to extending lead-acid battery life.

Batteryvitamin is designed to slow down the rate at which batteries wear out and in that way help motive power battery users get years of extra service life out of their batteries. Batteryvitamin does this extraordinarily effectively by preventing the waste produced by corrosion of the positive plates, that inevitably finds its way into the sulfuric acid electrolyte, from electroplating out onto the negative plates.

40 MWh - BIGGEST BATTERY IN THE WORLD, 1988, CHINO, NEAR LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.
Load-leveling battery - reinforcement of local electricity grid network. Eight strings, each string 1032 lead-acid cells, each cell rated 3250 ampere-hours. Extra long life materials were used, including micro-porous rubber separators and special lead-antimony-arsenic positive grid and lead-calcium negative grid alloys - to give a designed cell life expectancy of 4000 and a guaranteed cycle life expectancy of 2000 deep cycles. We designed and manufactured the automatic watering valve - stibine/ arsine trap - flame arrestor units (ASF) that were installed on this giant battery. Without these units, the battery could never have been operated. The Chino battery is seen as an important milestone, not only in terms of electricity management but in terms of battery life management. This is the catalyst that persuaded the directors of our company to invest in R&D, for a technologically sound,(and safe!), technology: Giving motive power battery users hands-on control over the life expectancy of their valuable batteries. It took twelve years. We named it Batteryvitamin.

BREAKTHROUGH. Battery corrosion has long proved frustratingly difficult and expensive to overcome, causing corrosion treatment to be ignored and cast aside as a commercial no-no. But technology has moved on. The Chino battery gave us valuable information about corrosion control. We discovered that the electrochemistry behind corrosion in lead-acid batteries has much in common with the electrochemistry behind electroplating. The convergence of these two acted as the catalyst we needed to make the breakthrough. Ideas like Batteryvitamin are created by practical need. Corrosion treatment of lead-acid motive power and deep cycling batteries has now been fully developed into a practical and successful battery servicing routine. INTRODUCTION, a comprehensive applications overview. VALUABLE. Battery life extension has obvious market appeal - every 1% increase in lead-acid battery life, on a world-wide basis, has an estimated value of $0.9 billion per year. BUSINESS. We commissioned an independent battery laboratory to test our technology. The laboratory used comparative testing based on a national (USA) battery deep cycle testing procedure. Field trials were run over six years in four different countries. We thoroughly investigated the technology right down to its basic underlying interactive molecular level and have included all this detailed information on the pages of this website. We are supremely confident Batteryvitamin has excellent business potential. BUSINESS, an outline of corrosion treatment in terms of a new service business concept, plus financial analysis. BATTERYVITAMIN. Our corrosion treatment is purpose designed to treat corrosion of the positive plate grids of batteries that are in service, while in service. It took a long time to develop because the mechanism involved is very complex. It does not work directly on the positive plates. It is an indirect process that starts when the dissolved metal portion of the waste produced by positive grid corrosion is held back at the surfaces of the negative plates. When this happens, the corrosion of the positive grids automatically ends up being suppressed - and as a consequence the positive plates last much longer. The process requires a corrosion inhibiting substance to be put into the battery to help hold back the dissolved metal portion produced by corrosion. Batteryvitamin contains such a substance and is thereby uniquely suited to extend battery life. TECHNICAL-INFO, a precise step-by-step, detailed technical explanation right down to molecular level. CORROSION TREATMENT EXTENDS BATTERY LIFE.

Testing was performed on 100 A-h Group CG-2 batteries according to Battery Council International Deep Cycling Test Procedure 5/93. Batteries charged at 30A, to a limit of 2.55V per cell, until 130% of the previous discharged capacity had been returned. Discharge at 75A down to 1.75V per cell. Batteries were rested until the discharge time + the period of inactivity = 4 hours, before commencement of the next cycle. Each battery was deep cycled until its individual discharge capacity fell below 80% of the manufacturer's stated A-h rating. Testing by independent Kan Laboratories, Inc., Hoffman Estates, Chicago, USA. BACKGROUND. The battery industry likes to say that the purpose of battery testing is making sure batteries conform with the high standards of prescribed specifications. The consumer believes that testing is done to find the best way of maximizing battery life. The unkind truth is that battery specifications describe the lowest acceptable standards required of manufacturers. Many battery manufacturers around the world test their motive power batteries according to International Electrotechnical Commission specifications IEC 60254-1, (DIN EN 60254-1). Testing procedures are stringent yet curiously, 60254-1 does not require the same cells of a battery, comprising a battery assembly of individual cells, to be used from start to finish of test procedures. It seems as if consumer expectations have long been purposefully dashed by illusions of excellence. Our testing was directed at finding a practical, fundamentally sound way of extending battery life and thereby help to fulfill consumer expectations. We did not simply test the batteries, we closely monitored the batteries throughout the entire testing procedure. We ran several tests. Each test was begun with 12 batteries. Two batteries - one untreated and one treated - were torn down at intervals for careful analysis during the course of testing, giving us a step-by-step factual picture of (1) the wearing out process and (2) the counteracting process, as they unfolded, from the beginning to the end.

Example: Hand-made transparent test cells, two totally independent sealed containers including gas evolution monitoring, comparing a new technology with an existing technology.

We followed up with hundreds of additional tests on hand-made battery cells and succeeded in verifying every technical detail at work. It is a rich, new technology, fully explained on the pages of this website. SULFATION. Battery reconditioning specialists insist the vast majority of failed batteries they receive are sulfated. That may be - but so what. These batteries failed due a wide variety of causes - thereafter will not have been on charge for some time - not surprisingly, they ended up sulfated. It is important to note that sulfation occurs almost exclusively in automobile, truck, golf cart and, in particular, marine batteries because these batteries are so very often not properly charged. CORROSION. Telephone exchanges around the world have 24 cell lead-acid batteries, kept on float charge at 52-54 volts. Typically last 20 years. Millionsof forklift truck lead-acid batteries in use world-wide are repeatedly deep cycled, (very stressful for batteries). Typically last 5 years. When these standby and motive power batteries finally wear out, it is because their positive plates have, over time, developed a variety of defects, predominantly as a result of positive grid corrosion. This represents hard evidence: Corrosion, not sulfation causes batteries to wear out. MAJORITY. An argument consistently put forward is that desulfation has been used "to extend battery life" for such a long time, by so many, it is simply impossible for everybody to have been wrong all along. That line of reasoning has already received its comeuppance at the highest professional level. The following example is based on fact. At a time when the total world population of doctors was 8.4 million, there were two doctors who refused to believe stomach ulcers were caused by stress and lifestyle. In 1984 Dr. Barry Marshall and Dr. Robin Warren of Perth, Australia demonstrated stomach ulcers were, in fact, caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori. No operations required - simply take an antibiotic! They were awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology in 2005. INFORMATION. Some people see new ideas as disruptive and as threatening the existing order of things. Others see them in terms of opportunity, as beneficial transformers of economic and social life. Opinions vary. All we can do here is to present the best information at our disposal. Two out of every three batteries sold are replacement batteries. Unsurprisingly, the battery industry is not enthusiastic about making batteries last longer. While consumers definitely want batteries to last longer, the persisting controversy that surrounds sulfation cures has made consumers apprehensive. Taking away the reason for their apprehension is the key to creating a near-unstoppable commercial demand for a genuine battery life extending product.

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Openness and up-front descriptions explaining exactly how the new battery treatment works are absolutely essential. Doing what is right prevents ideology prevailing over evidence, blind faith triumphing over reason o o o

How is the Nanobarrier Formed?

Please refer to "Life Expectancy A,B,C,D" before reading this section. Batteryvitamin is a metasymbiont. Introducing it into a battery enables it to acquire nanoparticle properties which, in turn, benefits the battery. ( meta, change in state; symbiosis, benefit to each other) A functional portion of the Batteryvitamin molecules dissolved in the battery acid electrolyte becomes attached end-on to the negative plate - covering the entire surface of the negative plate with bristles, generally as shown below. (The scale of the illustrations represents a magnification of about ten million times.) The ends closest to the surface are in adsorption equilibrium, subject to attractive and repulsive electrostatic forces that act between the Batteryvitamin molecules and the surface, meaning there remains a tiny gap, (Reference 1.) This allows the battery related chemical reactions to proceed at the surface unimpeded and for the molecules to "ride" over the charging and discharging surface formations.

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The barrier remains inactive while the battery is at rest, when it is discharging and is being charged - but not quite fully charged. The spacing between the individual bristles will be wide enough for the battery process ions to move to the negative plate -15 and from the negative plate -16, and for

the hydrogen ions to pass freely in both directions -17 , (E). (The mechanism of hydrogen ion migration being proton transfer, from water molecule to water molecule, a different proton being passed on very rapidly each time.)

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When the battery is being charged and is nearing full state of charge, there is the usual sharp increase in voltage and onset of gassing at 2.35 volts per cell. This increase also activates the barrier. At about 2.45 volts per cell the free ends of the bristles grow larger and increase in diameter, which results in the pathways between the electrolyte and the underlying negative plate becoming very much narrower, (F). The barrier remains porous. As charging nears completion, the last few remaining battery process ions emerge -18. The individual pathways achieve their optimum size by "squeezing down" until a minimum sustainable threshold of hydrogen ion migration is reached. It happens across the entire barrier, ensuring the billions upon billions of pathways are all kept exactly uniform in size - large enough to allow hydrogen ions to pass -19 and for nanobubbles of hydrogen gas to emerge -20, but too small for migrating metal ions to reach the negative plate -21. This is what causes the concentration of metal ions in the battery acid electrolyte to rise to saturation and, in turn, helps to preserve the positive plate. (Metal ions do not exist in solution by themselves but are encased by a small cloud of water molecules, making them effectively much larger and easy to stop, (Reference 2.) The barrier can operate only when the battery is on charge and is near or at full state of charge. It significantly increases the on-charge negative electrode (plate) potential, resulting in less gassing and a reduction in water consumption.

Saturation of the bulk of the battery acid electrolyte with metal ions provides a small reduction in the relative potential of the positive electrode (plate) which can sometimes help reduce charging times. Electrical testing and teardowns confirmed the essential spongy pore texture of the active mass in the negative plates to be unaffected by the low dosage Batteryvitamin substance. REFERENCES PAUNOVIC, M and SCHLESINGER, M. "Fundamentals of Electrochemical Deposition", The Electrochemical Society, Inc., (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1998), Reference 1, Chapter 10 section 2; Reference 2, Chapter 2 section 8.

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Lead-Acid & Internal Electroplating

It is generally recognized that the life of motive power lead-acid batteries can be shortened by a variety of factors relating to service conditions, yet the best made and the most conscientiously used batteries still only have a relatively modest life expectancy. Why is this so and what can be done about it? Every time a lead-acid battery is charged, a tiny amount of lead metal finds its way from the positive grids to the negative electrodes. Given enough time, (3-8 years), this results in the battery losing ampere-hour capacity and in its eventual failure. The underlying mechanism behind this metal migration is electroplating. (Also see Why do batteries inevitably wear out?) Batteryvitamin has a very specific functionality and is thereby able to cut down on electroplating and to extend battery life. (Also see Life Expectancy A B C D.) Realising that it is not easy for the visitor to our web site to distinguish the data we have presented as fake or genuine on the basis of a first impression, we have chosen to round off our disclosure with movies that were shot of some of our experiments. The particular experiments shown are of a type that can easily be duplicated by technically minded persons using a minimum of materials, providing what amounts to a "shorthand" verification of the potential of Batteryvitamin.

Click on the appropriate picture below to select the movie page.

1. Lead Electroplating onto Copper

2. Dendrite "Tree" Growth

3. Difference in Electroplating (Plain electrolyte vs Batteryvitamin electrolyte)

4. Growth of Material through Battery

Reduces water consumption

Batteryvitamin is able to provide a surprising second benefit - while working to extend battery life it will also be helping to reduce the water consumption of the battery. A saving of up to 50 percent can be achieved. Tests have been suggesting there is an empirical relationship between the two which holds that a battery in a given situation uses the same amount of water during its lifetime and if taken as fixed, on application of the Batteryvitamin substance, the resulting reduced percentage in water consumption will be matched by an equivalent percentage in extended battery life, according to the expression:

For example, with the water consumption down to 66.7 percent, then:

Simply record the battery water consumption right from the start of treatment and note the fall in water consumption over the successive battery waterings that follow. The photograph below shows how an enterprising battery user in the Netherlands arranged a highly effective and inexpensive way of recording the water consumption by marking off the level of the water / Batteryvitamin mixture on the semi-transparent plastic tank after each successive watering.

The recordings confirm that it takes roughly 10 weeks for Batteryvitamin to build up to its full working potential inside the battery. Batteryvitamin is able to reduce water consumption through its effect on the negative plates of the battery. The barrier forming on the surface of the negative plates acts like an ionic sieve which, besides providing an obstacle to the larger metal ions is able to restrict, although not stop the small electrolysis producing ions, reducing gassing and hence reducing water consumption - also see "Life Expectancy".

Research Notes
More than half a century ago when lead-acid battery manufacturers switched from wood veneer separators to synthetic materials, the changeover inadvertently caused battery life to crash. While the solution was found in the use of ligno-sulfonates, other than empirically re-formulating these substances, it seems hardly any investment has been made in the utilization of organic materials to purposefully continue to enhance battery performance. Batteryvitamin is designed to put organic technology back in the running so as to better equip the lead-acid battery industry to meet the inevitable difficult commercial challenges that lie ahead. Our ongoing R & D has produced a solid version that is a functional equivalent to liquid Batteryvitamin - for building into batteries - giving manufacturers who are able to use it a significant advantage in the market place.

In automobile batteries solid Batteryvitamin exhibits the facility of "holding down" the on-charge potential of the electrochemical couples until the battery is fully charged, and then rather dramatically reducing the electrolysis current when the potential remains above 2.30 volts per cell. This transition appears to be connected to a "barrier off - barrier on" change in orientation, relative to the surface, of the Batteryvitamin molecules that have been adsorbed onto the negative plates (liquid Batteryvitamin transitions at 2.45V and solid Batteryvitamin at 2.30V.) The upshot is that the battery is able to retrieve the energy used to start the engine and to make up for the persistent current draw of tracking devices, sound equipment, computers, fans, etc., more quickly, before settling down to an exceptionally low float current. This can help reduce warranty claims related to conditions where vehicles are left unused for extended periods or are used 24/7. Cranking performance is slightly better. Solid Batteryvitamin consists of synthesized predominantly hydrocarbon material currently in limited production, thus perhaps relatively expensive in automotive component terms until volumes pick up.

Batteryvitamin S, (solid), can help to achieve calcium-like low water consumption from antimony alloy batteries - but to do so a formation catalyst in the electrolyte has to be used. New antimony alloy positives give off a surge of antimony during formation that is deposited immediately on the negatives, causing the characteristic high water consumption of antimony alloy batteries. This is likely to be masked if the negatives also contain antimony in the grids but shows up clearly with calcium alloy negatives. Batteryvitamin L, (liquid), unfortunately interferes with the formation process, causing an excessive loss in negative plate capacity and therefore does not offer a solution against the initial antimony surge.

The catalyst has a half-life roughly equal to the duration of the formation charge - disappearing without a trace after only a few days. The advantage of Batteryvitamin S plus formation catalyst are obvious. The use of recycled lead carrying a large impurity burden is facilitated. Batteries can be provided with long lasting antimony alloy positives and low water consuming calcium alloy negatives - resulting in the best of both worlds in service. For example, the way would be cleared for industrial motive power batteries and golf cart batteries to be watered no more than once a year (!). Hybrid and electric automobile batteries could be made very inexpensively, yet provide a highly satisfactory battery life. Batteryvitamin S does not dissolve in water or in battery acid. A suitable organic solvent is used to dissolve Batteryvitamin S material. The negative plate receives solution by carefully pouring over the surface of the plate, while held horizontally, and allowing to soak in. The plate is gently warmed to drive off the solvent. Weighing before and after confirms 0.1 to 0.2 percent concentration in these ready-made plates. The following diagrams provide details of the test procedure.

The two cells received formation charging connected in series and were subsequently deep cycled twice to ascertain their ampere-hour capacities. The antimony positive cell appeared to have about 7% more capacity than the calcium positive cell - likely due to its positive plate being fractionally thicker. The antimony's end-ofcharge dV/dt had been considerably speeded up and more sharply defined.

The cells were reconnected as shown above and the potentials across both cells were carefully adjusted to match each other using a high resolution Hewlett-Packard digital voltmeter. The currents via the cells were measured with a specially constructed differential shunt resistor network having a matching accuracy batter than 0.1% . The current of the Ca-Ca cell was measured across A - B, the current of the Sb-Ca cell was measured across C D and the differential was monitored across B - D, again using the H-P instrument. (In previous testing an untreated antimony cell had drawn more than six times the electrolysis current of a calcium cell. An antimony cell containing Batteryvitamin S in the negative but no formation catalyst in the electrolyte drew roughly three times the electrolysis current of the calcium cell.) Subsequent cycling of the cells in parallel was performed. Discharging at the 5 hour rate down to 1.50 V/cell and charging at the 20 hour rate up to an average of 2.60 V/cell - holding this voltage for 5 hours and then lowering it to 2.36 V/cell for 24 hours to measure the electrolysis current. After 10 cycles the electrolysis current of the Ca-Ca cell had fallen from 4.7 mA down 1.8 mA, while that of the Sb-Ca cell had remained at 5.2 mA. While implying an improvement in the Ca-Ca cell, individual cell capacity testing showed the Ca-Ca cell capacity had fallen from 14 A-H to 5 A-H, while the Sb-Ca cell capacity had risen slightly from 15 A-H to 17 A-H.

The positive plate of the Ca-Ca cell was replaced with an identical freshly formed and precycled plate, resulting in the electrolysis current rising to 4.6 mA and the capacity being restored to 14 A-H. Had the Ca-Ca cell been defective? To find out, two more Ca-Ca cells were built, formed and tested in the same way. Both suffered similar capacity loss. Indeed, numerous publications have described this kind of capacity loss and therefore it must be accepted that lead-calcium alloy technology might well prove to be an evolutionary dead-end. Since treatment assists in increasing battery life, the upsurge in water consumption at the end of the useful service life of a motive power battery is delayed. In this context battery leasing, once a year maintenance, at a fixed price - no watering hassles in between - seems to look set to become a reality.

Batteryvitamin L, (liquid), and Batteryvitamin S, (solid), provide exactly the same function in lead-acid batteries, although chemically distinct from each other. Batteryvitamin L is soluble and goes to work via the battery filling water and the electrolyte, while Batteryvitamin S is insoluble and is able to diffuse through being incorporated into the negative active material during manufacture. The previous test showing the advantages of Batteryvitamin S in automotive battery application was repeated using motive power battery components and a substantial amount of carbon additive, plus Batteryvitamin S. A high concentration of carbon in the negative active material can enhance battery performance significantly, although the relatively low hydrogen overpotential of this material can lead to excessive gassing. The test shows this nuisance can not only be entirely eliminated, the end-of-charge current of the treated cell can be reduced by a factor of four compared to a conventional cell by the use of Batteryvitamin S. The test plates were obtained by disassembling a 6 volt, 150 ampere-hour golf-cart battery that had not yet been formed. The plates were cut down to the required size. The procedure has been used for many years and can provide excellent quality plates down to one or two ampere-hour capacity. The negative active material was removed from the grids and ground to a fine powder. This powder was then mixed 2 percent by weight of activated carbon powder and 1 percent by weight of Batteryvitamin S. The mixtue received a small quantity of dilute sulfuric acid, sufficient to produce a paste of the requisite consistency. This paste was pressed, while still hot from teh acid reaction, into suitably sized metal grid sections. The plates were cured and the active material appeared to be mechanically similar to the active material of the plates that had been sacrificed.

The cells were assembled and formed. The treated cells provided an initial rate of gassing following formation that was disapointing. After two deep cycles the end-if-charge rate of gassing fell dramatically - measuring a quarter of the untreated cell after ten cycles. Battery purists might feel uncomfortable with the plate making technique yet the deep cycling runs confirmed the ampere-hour capacities of the test cells closely matched each other and closely matched the original negatiive plate cell capacity. The two-plate construction provides a simple, accurate and efficient test bedm although the internal impedance of the cells is likely to be sub-optimal. This disadvantage is negated by comparing like with like. The treated cell exhibited a vastly superior voltage stability comparent to the untreated cell when subjected to 2C, 5C and 10C discharge and charge surges. Experiments of this type apply the scale-it-down and speed-it-up research technique used by bridge builders and ship builders to lead-acid technology. They are easy to repeat and therefore easy to verify. This experiment has shown that the beneficial properties of carbon and of Batteryvitamin can be combined, implying that this combination can help to pave the way to a new era of super batteries.

Summing Up
Ongoing research has shown Batteryvitamin has many more qualities or facets than the one that extends battery life. Take for example improvements in maintenance-free and thin-plate technology, optimization of automotive and opportunity charged batteries, reducing water consumption and administering water treatment. The underlying mechanism is always the same, yet the benefits can be wide and varied. What Batteryvitamin does inside the battery helps to overcome major battery shortcomings. This can offer battery manufacturers a direct route to improving battery performance and assuring customer satisfaction. Batteryvitamin L has been in use for over half a decade on tens of thousands of motive power batteries. It is available "over the counter". Batteryvitamin S is new, availability and use may be subject to terms and conditions. Research enquiries e-mail: research@batteryvitamin.net

Types of Plates
BATTERYVITAMIN IS A PREMIUM GRADE POSITIVE GRID CORROSION INHIBITOR

FLAT PLATE AND TUBULAR PLATE

Flat-pasted positive construction is typical for deep cycling batteries built in the United States, while in the rest of the world batteries for deep cycling are built with tubular or gauntlet-type positive plates. The events that led up to the discovery of Batteryvitamin took place in the United States and original battery testing was done in United States, hence the data relates to flat-pasted positive batteries. Despite the obvious difference between flat plate and tubular plate batteries, importantly, Batteryvitamin does not go to work at the positive plates but at the negative plates of the batteries and since both types of battery employ essentially the same kind of flat-pasted plate negatives, the Batteryvitamin effect that is reflected on the cycling life of both types of battery will follow exactly the same pattern, (also see Life Expectancy A B C D .) The tubular positive design experiences slower corrosion of the underlying metal structure of the positive plates by virtue of the metal being embedded in the positive active material. While this undeniably reduces, it cannot overcome corrosion. By the time the battery is about half way through its useful life the tubular concept loses its edge over flat plate and thereafter both types undergo exactly the same rate of wear and tear. The construction of their positive plates may be different, yet the mechanism responsible for the progressive disintegration of the positive plates is the same in both. Additional testing on tubular batteries has shown the benefit provided by Batteryvitamin is the same in both. Batteryvitamin can be used in batteries that have high, low and zero antimony content, calcium, tin - and even silver - alloy, as well as copper negative technology.

SUBMARINE BATTERIES
Diesel-electric submarine batteries are deep cycling batteries made with non-antimonial lead grids to avoid generation of the relatively poisonous stibine gas in the closed environment. The composition of these grids can make these batteries more susceptible to the effects of corrosion, hence Batteryvitamin would provide an ideal solution to extending battery life.

Western Economies

WESTERN INDUSTRIAL DEVOLUTION

By John Fetter Western nations were once powerhouses in manufacturing. Germany still is, comparatively speaking, while the rest appear to have lost interest in making things people want to buy. In the past quarter century the West, (US and EU), has relinquished its leadership in manufacturing, in large part because it was decided - intentionally or unintentionally - that the service and financial sectors are sufficient to sustain their economies. But they are not. The service and financial industries do not create articles of trade and therefore cannot maintain, let alone raise, a nation's standard of living. Today's Western economists and politicians unwittingly confirm they are content to disregard the essential fundamentals that sustain modern societies when they unblushingly blurt out that manufacturing accounts for only about 10-15% of their GDP, therefore it represents nothing special. They come across as genuine when they explain that consumer spending, which amounts to two-thirds of GDP, is more important. A point of view that has helped Western business leaders maintain an untarnished image whenever they have closed down factories in their hometowns and established new ones abroad, so that they can make the same products more cheaply, which are then offered for sale to the people back home. They all seem gripped by a curious lack of wanting to know whether this way of doing things could be responsible for raising current unemployment levels and taking away the future employment opportunities of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The German approach is very obviously different. German society places considerable emphasis on the nurturing of industrial production and runs high quality vocational training in significantly more than 300 distinct trades, enabling it to continue to grow manufacturing and to keep exporting products with remarkable efficiency. Western business managers are being taught a myriad of ways of sharpening their accounting skills, coached how best to snare customers, exhorted again and again to maximize profits and bullied into pleasing their shareholders, (later, when tasked to achieve these objectives, a significant number go on to excel only at improving their personal wealth). Few, if any, appear to receive even two cents worth of motivation on how develop new products. The result is that down the line, making cheaper products is what they put on their agendas, making better products is not. Inventors are viewed as eccentrics by this group-think establishment. The only glimmer of light is shown when independent, out-of-the-box thinking, entrepreneurial creators are successful in business, they are lauded as heroes by the public at large. Unemployment in the Western world currently averages well over 10% and unless manufacturing tangible articles of commerce is reinstated, this figure looks set never to come down again. Unemployment is not only likely remain the norm during the lifetimes of our children, it will continue to grow and will continue growing inexorably during the lives of our grandchildren and great grandchildren. The workforce in the West seems to have been subscribing to the belief there is little point in being involved in any kind of work that dirties the hands. Entitlement is put before participation. Young workforce entrants are not interested in becoming artisans, engineers or scientists. They all want to become bankers, lawyers and are thronging to take business administration courses. The system has gone of kilter to such an extent that, for example, there are now probably a hundred activists who want to stop oil exploration, stop nuclear power stations - but who still want to enjoy the benefits of modern amenities - for every person qualified to actually carry out such developments. No one wants to look at the bigger picture anymore. Business is looking only as far as the next financial report, the political establishment the next election, the workforce the next vacation. There is a growing danger that if the lights should go out and stay out, not only will no one in authority have anticipated it, no one will have the vaguest idea why it happened nor will anyone know how to fix it!

Democratically elected governments are voted into power by promising to do and seeming to do things that are popular among the citizens at large - but they rarely achieve their stated objectives. Remarkably, Western governments did manage to deliver on one promise - housing mortgage subsidies. They made it possible for nearly everyone to purchase a home. Interest rates were kept down. Mortgage repayments were made tax deductible. Borrowers were able to secure loans of up to 100% of the purchase price. Home owners were even permitted to pay off only the interest owing. So massive has been the the increase in demand for home ownership that, over time, real estate prices have been pushed way beyond rational affordability. (Yes, prices fell post 2008 but only marginally.) Money that could have been used to develop new products, train personnel, renovate and build new factories was directed to chase after real estate paper profits instead. The 2008 sub-prime crisis was brought on by loans given to home buyers when they were demonstrably not earning sufficient to repay their loans, and selling-on the debt to unsuspecting investors elsewhere. It was underpinned by a quantitative analytical mindset that considered mathematical financial models such as the Black-Scholes-Merton and El Karoui equations invincible - ignoring the fact that these models overlook human unpredictability. A much bigger crisis is brewing. Today's average prospective home owners are finding it almost impossible to buy housing at realistic prices. There is currently an astronomically large private debt owed on exorbitantly overpriced real estate. Unemployment is slowly and insidiously infiltrating the ranks of even the most conscientious mortgage repaying homeowners. Government debt in the European Union just keeps growing and is currently at an average of 80% of GDP. In 2012 US government debt shot up to 120% of GDP, the biggest it has ever been in peacetime, of which 50% is owned by countries that are big exporters to the USA. Globalization provides outstanding advantages when trading partners are specialists in their own right and are able to exchange raw materials, goods and services of roughly equal aggregate value. Globalization looks destined to backfire on Western countries that bring in endless waves of shipping containers filled with consumer goods, supertankers filled with crude oil, without the essential counterbalancing effect of equivalent export volumes to maintain at least a reasonable balance of trade. Western democracy is an arrangement designed to put a select few, whose only discernible qualification was to be able to garner a requisite number of votes, in positions of authority over a highly sophisticated free market system, bestowing them the freedom to tinker and hopefully thereby achieve short term objectives that please the people who voted for them. Corporate propriety lofts captains of large Western public corporations ever upwards until contact is lost with the echelons that engender the corporate lifeblood. Together, by way of analogy, their organized machinery appoints generals with dispensation to lead the charge from entrenchments located far from the battlefield. Add the insulating properties of the golden handshake to complete the biggest leadership disconnect of all time. The notabilities in charge of Western economies have been saying they are doing everything in their power to get the situation under control. They were happy to oversee manufacturing being abandoned during their watch now, they must find a solution. Hint No 1 - put manufacturing on top of the list. Problem - they do not understand manufacturing. Suggestion - ask the Germans. Bigger problem - they are unlikely to do so. Reason emotional baggage. (Opinion expressed, no allegiance.) Hint No 2 - lead from the front not from behind. Hint No 3 - get rid of the absurd government regulations that are strangling the life out of manufacturing. The majority of Western nations have capable, mature value-add workforces that can help to make their economies robust again. However, trade unions have created an unsustainable situation by the extent to which they succeeded in minimizing working hours and maximizing worker benefits. As result, there has simply not been enough financial throughput at the manufacturing level to sustain and buttress these grassroots generators

of wealth. Among the notabilities, conservatives propose austerity, socialists increased spending. Why not do something productive, like helping industry to get stuck into making a healthy abundance of clever stuff and selling it at a profit? Western communities are suffering from a lack of common purpose among the hierarchies that constitute their economies. The system overall is highly capable but there is not enough cohesive effort being put into making it work properly. The people living in Western societies have, collectively, been throwing away their futures. In contrast, there are two and a half billion people across the oceans who are extraordinarily enthusiastic about manufacturing just about anything. It is precisely this enthusiasm that looks increasingly likely to be the catalyst that will help to push the West right off the economically significant portion of the map.

What is electroplating?
Electroplating is an industrial process in which an electric current is applied in a special bath to coat suitable articles with a thin layer of metal. It has been in use since the early 1840's. A familiar example of electroplating is "chrome plating", in which the metal chromium is deposited over the surface of metal and plastic articles. An article to be plated is made the negative electrode in a bath containing a solution of chemical compounds with requisite properties. The positive electrode in the bath is typically made of metal of the type to be plated onto the negative electrode. In practice it requires considerable technical resourcefulness to obtain an evenlycoated electroplating finish. The diagram below shows an animated schematic representation of an electroplating process at work. For the sake of simplicity, the source of the electric current is a battery. Electric current in a wire circuit consists of a flow of electrons from the negative terminal to the positive terminal of the source of electricity.

Article LisThe nature of the current changes as it is made to flow through the electroplating bath. Electrons
are taken out of metal atoms at the surface of the positive electrode, causing these atoms to be converted into positively charged ions, which promptly become dissolved in the liquid or electrolyte of the bath. Metal ions, being positively charged, are attracted to the negative electrode and are deposited securely onto its surface, receiving electrons from the circuit on the negative side in the process. The ease with which metal atoms can be made to give up electrons on leaving the positive and to receive electrons on arriving at the negative electrode is what makes electroplating possible.

Why do batteries inevitably wear out?

Research that led to the discovery of Batteryvitamin identified a specific mechanism inherent in lead-acid motive power batteries responsible for batteries wearing out - at the same time provided a solution to defeat the wearing out process. Besides being effective at storing electrochemical energy, when operated long term, surprisingly, battery cells additionally behave as ultra low efficiency electroplating cells.

In an electroplating cell, metal at a positive electrode becomes dissolved and is electrolytically deposited on a negative electrode. In a battery cell this results, over time, in disintegration of the vital metallic grid structures of the positive plates, causing the active material to lose its support and to fall out. The way in which lead-acid battery cells work causes the grids of the positive electrodes to be subjected to quite severe corrosion. Consequently, the outer layer of the lead metal of the grids becomes converted to a lead oxide which, fortunately, slows down the effects of corrosion. The lead metal of the grids is usually alloyed with a little antimony, to form a passivating layer over the lead metal, in turn significantly improving the resistance against corrosion. Comparative testing based on Battery Council International Deep Cycling Battery Test Procedure (5/93), in which specific batteries were dosed with the Batteryvitamin substance and the remainder received none, (see Graphs 1 & 2), and subsequent teardowns and examinations, convincingly demonstrated that electroplating had been behind the wearing out process. The only way electroplating could have occurred is for some of the lead metal in the positive grids to have become dissolved in the battery acid electrolyte, despite the protection provided against corrosion at the positive grids. This aspect appears to have been subject to a great deal of conjecture within the battery industry for many years. It appears to have been argued that since lead is a comparatively insoluble metal in the context of lead-acid batteries that, therefore it will not electroplate. In fact, electrolytic refining of lead is well established using a lead hexafluorosilicate electrolyte. Lead is commercially electroplated using lead tetrafluoroborate, lead methanesulfonate and lead pyrophosphate electrolytes, (reference 1) The solubility of the electrolytic lead is in the order of 600 grams per liter and that of the battery lead in sulfuric acid 4 milligrams per liter, (reference 1 & 2.) From an electroplater's technological point of view, anodic lead will become dissolved in an acidic electrolyte in the presence of oxygen. Oxygen is given off by the positive electrodes during normal overcharging, (ironically, a degree of overcharging is necessary to prevent sulfation), resulting in lead (as well as antimony at 15 milligrams per liter solubility), becoming progressively solubilized at the end of each successive charge. Has the industry perhaps been too conservative in the past to follow through on this aspect? What it all boils down to is that even though battery lead may be about 150,000 times less soluble than electrolytic lead, after about 3-8 years in service, a lead-acid motive power battery will have been exposed to an amount of electroplating at least comparable to the work performed by electrolytic refining and electroplating cells over a period of several hours. Batteryvitamin has a very specific functionality and is thereby able to cut down electroplating and to extend battery life without otherwise significantly affecting battery operation, (see Life Expectancy A B C D.) REFERENCES: SCHLESINGER, M and PAUNOVIC, M, "Modern Electroplating", The Electrochemical Society, Inc., (John Wiley & Sons, New York, Fourth Edition 2000), References 1, pp 362 - 365; 3, pp 355 - 367.

BODE, H, "Lead Acid Batteries", (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1977), References 2, pp 25 - 32; 4, pp 238 242 & 338 - 345. Basic Technical Information

Business Opportunity

John Fetter, (white overalls), CEO of F & H believes the operational and financial challenges that face industrial battery users can only be properly understood by going to the places where the batteries are used. Five ton locomotive battery in charging bay goldmine in South Africa, 8600 feet below ground, 3000 feet below sea level. Temperature of surrounding rock, 55 C

Motorists strapped for cash can be relied upon to want to consider the alternative to buying a new battery reviving their old battery. This is what kick-started sulfation (Brit. sulphation) cures in the first place and has been sustaining multitudes of bring-back-to-life remedies for as long as the lead-acid battery has been an item of commerce. There are thousands of desulfation merchants competing for a finite pool of customers who do not have enough money to buy a new battery. Desperation leads to sales spin - describing an old battery that has been charged as 'battery rejuvenation'; a battery that has been charged and can then start an engine as 'battery life extension'. The industrial motive power battery business is very different. The users of these batteries are very different. The money involved is very different. The average retail price for a full-plate-count, non-discounted automobile battery is $110, (68). The average price for an industrial motive power battery is $3500, (2200). Selling industrial motive power batteries is potentially 32 times more attractive, per battery, than selling automobile batteries. The total value of automobile batteries in use worldwide was $57 billion in 2010 and industrial motive power batteries $11 billion. The automobile market appears to be 5.18 times more attractive than the industrial motive power battery market. Automotive is, however, a hotly contested line of business, subject to aggressive price cutting. These are, nevertheless, useful numbers that can be used to calculate a figure of merit for anindustrial motive power battery related business start-up. Divide 32, the sales price advantage of motive power batteries, by 5.18, the market value advantage of automobile batteries. Less than one means best left untouched. Greater than one speaks of opportunity. Six is excellent.

Fleet operations, Batteryvitamin at work, Sydney, Australia.

Motive power batteries are rarely used alone or in small groups - are mostly used in groups of sixty, four hundred, a thousand batteries, per facility. In the UK, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose together have over 120 distribution warehouses, each has in the order of 200 motive power batteries powering forklift trucks, stackers and other types of vehicles. In the USA, Walmart alone employs as many as 140 distribution warehouses. Logistics operators, industrial concerns, food and beverage manufacturers, etc. run many hundreds of similar large operations. In 2001, Batteryvitamin was installed for the first time at a large facility, a 950 battery auto manufacturer parts distribution warehouse. A typical, smaller 400-battery warehouse can account for an investment in batteries of 400 X $3500 = $1.4 million, (875 thousand). Extra 40% service life represents a saving of $560 thousand, (350 thousand). The price the customer would be asked to pay for the service can be a ten-twenty percent portion of the saving. Multiple installations, repeat business, minimal overheads - a potentially handsome line of business. A people oriented, marketing and sales, slightly actuarial, technical service line of business. As an astute business person, you already know we have provided details of only the seeds of the business - a basic measure of its life blood, and that: o o o o The cutting-edge technology is, in fact, the beating heart of this kind of business; It is not difficult to verify marketing information but background technology searches often turn out to be tedious and unproductive; Sectors of the sulfation cure business have dragged the reputation of battery aids down to the brink of self destruction; Glowing product endorsements have long provided advertisers with an easy way of diverting attention away from questionable details. We therefore considered it essential that we provide you with comprehensive, easy to read, technical disclosures. Our technical pages probably carry more straight technical information than any other battery product website.

Our INTRODUCTION page provides Batteryvitamin application highlights. Our TECHNICAL INFORMATION page provides precise details of the technology. There are a total of 21 pages with technical information on this website. What we propose is a very simple business model. No upfront payments, no franchising fees. We provide technical support and product - you provide marketing and distribution - under an exclusive-territory distribution/licensing agreement. - FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

About Batteryvitamin
Batteryvitamin provides industrial battery users with the most up to date tool for extending the service life of their hard working batteries. Batteryvitamin is easy to use and a little goes a long way. It is added as a concentrate to the battery filling water. Every time the batteries are watered the required amount is delivered and distributed together with the water to every cell. Batteryvitamin can be used to treat new and in-use batteries and is suitable for hand watering as well as single point battery watering.

Batteryvitamin is responsibly formulated to guard carefully against compromising the benefits of purified battery water.

Actual recorded cycling performance of two sets of batteries. Testing according to BCI specification.

In a blind field trial run in a large automobile manufacturing materials handling facility, nearly 1,000 industrial motive power batteries received Batteryvitamin from their sixth service year onwards by automatic dosing and by automatically controlled single point battery watering. After 10 years of service, about 52% of the original batteries were still in use, equivalent to a conservatively calculated increase in service life of 65%. Despite running about 26% batteries short at 10 years, Batteryvitamin ensured there was always enough power for all the vehicles.

Data from supplier battery register, historical battery usage and battery replacement patterns.

When battery life is extended it translates directly into dollar savings. The total number of batteries that remained in use represented a value of around 2 million dollars that became available as working capital or as money that could have been banked. Batteryvitamin is a hitherto unexplored form of nanotechnology for extending lead-acid motive power life. The following is a schematic representation of what it can do inside the battery:

According to Dr Hans Bode, Research Director (retired) Varta Batterie AG, Hanover, Germany, organic substances can help to reduce sludging of the positive plates when constantly resupplied. "Lead Acid Batteries", (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1977) p 335.

For more details of a technical nature, please refer to How is the Nanobarrier formed? Batteryvitamin represents a major breakthrough that evolved out of research into substances that have been encoded or keyed with selected chemical and physical characterizations, to be carried by water to appointed areas of use and to carry out pre-assigned tasks.

The unique properties of Batteryvitamin can help to hold back previously inevitable corrosion of battery plates. It can be used by repeated application in combination with single point battery watering - thereby providing a refresher service to the battery.

As motive power battery cells age they use more water, some more than others. By using the replenishment water as the carrier, the cells that appear to need Batteryvitamin the most, beneficially receive the most. Batteryvitamin falls into a similar category as the ligno-sulfonates, extracted from wood, that must be included in the negative plates by battery manufacturers to preserve negative plate activity. The nature of Batteryvitamin makes it a powerful disinfectant - acting to prevent the Legionella, biofilm/slime and algae build up in the water supply in conformity with heath regulations. Batteryvitamin can work best at a very low concentration. At about 5-30 parts per million, (ppm), in electrolyte, it appears to have a purely physical effect, without any really significant chemical interaction with the battery cells. Above 1,500 ppm tests showed a discernable chemical interaction can be expected. Batteryvitamin is typically slowly and harmlessly drawn in by the plates from the electrolyte, but above the recommended concentration is likely to be taken in increasingly faster - which therefore precludes an extra amount of Batteryvitamin as storage in the electrolyte of the cells. This is why it is necessary to replenish the battery cells with diluted Batteryvitamin at regular intervals.

Specifications
Solubility: Soluble in water in all proportions, soluble in sulfuric battery acid at recommended concentration. Specific Gravity: 0.998 Dilution Factor: Volume concentrate : Volume battery water = 1: 125 or 1 fl. oz : 1 US gallon In Electrolyte:

Batteryvitamin concentration will not rise with successive waterings since Batteryvitamin is consumed in batteries within 2 weeks. Concentration varies, typically 20 parts per million. Environment: Batteryvitamin is biodegradable. For disposal dilute concentrate 1 : 1,000 with water. Patented world-wide
Batteryvitamin is not suitable for treatment of a battery that begins when the battery is almost worn out. Batteryvitamin should not be used in an attempt to revitalize a defective, neglected or spent battery. As Batteryvitamin is used outside our control, we cannot accept liability for damages.

Corrosion Control - The key to extending lead-acid battery life.

Batteryvitamin is designed to slow down the rate at which batteries wear out and in that way help motive power battery users get years of extra service life out of their batteries. Batteryvitamin does this extraordinarily effectively by preventing the waste produced by corrosion of the positive plates, that inevitably finds its way into the sulfuric acid electrolyte, from electroplating out onto the negative plates.
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o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Basic Technical Information Batteryvitamin and Business: Enduring, Practical Introduction to Batteryvitamin 100 MPG Electric Car? Complement to existing technology Copyrights, Designs & Patents Corrosion Control - The key to extending lead-acid battery life. How is the Nanobarrier Formed? Lead-Acid & Internal Electroplating Reduces water consumption Research Notes Sulfation pulse treatment surprise Sulfation Remedies Demystified Types of Plates Western Economies What is electroplating? Why do batteries inevitably wear out?

Fleet operations, Batteryvitamin at work, Sydney, Australia.

Introduction to Batteryvitamin
Batteryvitamin provides industrial battery users with the most up to date tool for extending the service life of their hard working batteries. Batteryvitamin is easy to use and a little goes a long way. It is added as a concentrate to the battery filling water. Every time the batteries are watered the required amount is delivered and distributed together with the water to every cell. Batteryvitamin can be used to treat new and in-use batteries and is suitable for hand watering as well as single point battery watering. Batteryvitamin is responsibly formulated to guard carefully against compromising the benefits of purified battery water.
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Batteryvitamin and Business: Enduring, Practical

EXTENDING BATTERY LIFE INDUSTRIAL MOTIVE POWER, TRACTION, DEEP CYCLING BATTERIES TECHNOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS - BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
o o o o The rational mind knows that the only way for any form of treatment to successfully extend battery life, the batteries must still work. Waiting until batteries are completely worn out, before attempting to breathe life into them again, is as irrational as watering dead plants. Consumers have too long been persuaded to put preparations into worn out batteries, (perception - no risk); rather than into still-working batteries, (- valuable). We are absolutely serious about making batteries last longer. We are determined to stay well away from bad science. We are bucking the trend.
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40 MWh - BIGGEST BATTERY IN THE WORLD, 1988, CHINO,

NEAR LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.

Load-leveling battery - reinforcement of local electricity grid network. Eight strings, each string 1032 lead-acid cells, each cell rated 3250 ampere-hours. Extra long life materials were used, including micro-porous rubber separators and special lead-antimony-arsenic positive grid and lead-calcium negative grid alloys - to give a designed cell life expectancy of 4000 and a guaranteed cycle life expectancy of 2000 deep cycles. We designed and manufactured the automatic watering valve - stibine/ arsine trap - flame arrestor units (ASF) that were installed on this giant battery. Without these units, the battery could never have been operated. The Chino battery is seen as an important milestone, not only in terms of electricity management but in terms of battery life management. This is the catalyst that persuaded the directors of our company to invest in R&D, for a technologically sound,(and safe!), technology: Giving motive power battery users hands-on control over the life expectancy of their valuable batteries. It took twelve years. We named it Batteryvitamin.

Technical Information
Find out more about this exciting new battery supplement.

Batteryvitamin - Designed to provide the biggest savings in motive power battery history
Lead-acid motive power batteries, like all batteries, eventually wear out. Deep cycling constitutes the most arduous type of work for batteries. Repeatedly discharging and recharging inevitably causes - (1) the grids of the positive plates to become corroded - (2) shedding of the active material from the positive plates. Shedding begins at about 50% of motive power battery service life, resulting in a progressive reduction in ampere-hours as batteries age. Batteryvitamin has a unique capacity to suppress this corrosion, to cut down shedding, to conserve ampere-hours and, consequently, to extend battery life. Lead-acid motive power battery manufacturers are unanimous. It is corrosion, not sulfation, that causes industrial motive power batteries to wear out and eventually become unserviceable. (Sulfation affects, from most common to least, recreational marine, military vehicle, automotive and rental batteries - occasionally golf-cart batteries - very rarely industrial batteries.) The positive plates of batteries have traditionally been at the focus of anti-corrosion research by the battery industry. An independent battery research group and an industrial process research group, working collaboratively, discovered that by directing anti-corrosion treatment at the negative plates, instead of at the positive plates, corrosion of the the positive plate grids can be dramatically reduced!

Batteryvitamin treatment prevents the waste given off by the positive grid corrosion - that inevitably finds its way into the battery sulfuric acid electrolyte - from electroplating out onto the negative plates. Solubility of this corrosion waste in battery acid is extremely low, thus the acid quickly becomes saturated by even the tiniest amounts of waste. It is this saturation that chokes off the corrosion that would otherwise have taken place at the positives. Batteryvitamin has been designed to help motive power battery operators obtain at least 40% extra service life out of their batteries. It has the integrity needed to trail-blaze a switch-over to the most effective battery user cost saving procedure in motive power battery history. o