New battery electrolyte is said to offer longer life and less toxicity than sulfuric acid.

Charles Murray

September 17, 2018

3 Min Read
Startup Proposes Novel Electrolyte for Lead-Acid Batteries

A Michigan-based startup wants to breathe life into the venerable lead-acid battery by offering a less toxic, drop-in replacement for the sulfuric acid electrolyte that has been a staple for more than a century.

Tydrolyte sees its new electrolyte serving in applications ranging from stop-start auto batteries to forklifts and golf carts. “The main difference is that batteries with sulfuric acid tend to degrade fairly rapidly,” Paul Bundschuh, CEO of Tydrolyte, told Design News at the recent Battery Show. “Whereas, batteries with our material tend to degrade much more slowly.”

The new electrolyte chemistry is also reported to have lower charge resistance, enabling it to charge more quickly. And it’s less reactive with plants and animals. At the company’s booth at the show, Bundschuh demonstrated the liquid’s low toxicity by splashing some on his face and placing it on his tongue. That low toxicity would serve as a safety benefit in manufacturing facilities where lead-acid batteries are made, Bundschuh said.

At The Battery Show, Tydrolyte representatives demonstrated a new electrolyte with a pH similar to that of sulfuric acid (approximately 1.0). The company’s chief executive also splashed the liquid on his face to show its low toxicity. (Image source: Design News)  

Tydrolyte declined to detail the chemistry of the new material at this point, saying only that it is novel and that a patent is pending. The company said only that the material has a pH similar to that of sulfuric acid (between 0 and 1) and uses sulfates to react with lead and lead dioxide plates in a manner similar to that of common lead-acid batteries.

If suppliers adopt the startup’s new technology, it would represent a major departure for the battery industry. Lead-acid batteries, invented in 1859, have used sulfuric acid as an electrolyte throughput much of their history.

To be sure, industry reaction to the new chemistry is an unknown. But Tydrolyte executives are optimistic. Independent test engineers from Electric Applications, Inc. showed that batteries using the new electrolyte had similar capacity and cold-cranking amps numbers as those employing sulfuric acid with similar specific gravity. The tests also showed less water loss, better pulse charge acceptance, higher charging efficiency, and longer life at high operating temperatures. The life factor could translate to longer cycle life, calendar life, or shelf life, Bundschuh said.

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If successful, the new technology could offer a shot of innovation for a very large market. Although lead-acid’s use is largely taken for granted, it’s still a $36 billion market that accounts for about 80% of the industry on a capacity basis.

“There’s a lot of life left in the lead-acid battery,” Bundschuh said. “It’s not talked about much in the media because it’s mature. But it’s still the dominant player out there and there’s a lot of room left for innovation.”

Senior technical editor Chuck Murray has been writing about technology for 34 years. He joined Design News in 1987, and has covered electronics, automation, fluid power, and auto.

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About the Author(s)

Charles Murray

Charles Murray is a former Design News editor and author of the book, Long Hard Road: The Lithium-Ion Battery and the Electric Car, published by Purdue University Press. He previously served as a DN editor from 1987 to 2000, then returned to the magazine as a senior editor in 2005. A former editor with Semiconductor International and later with EE Times, he has followed the auto industry’s adoption of electric vehicle technology since 1988 and has written extensively about embedded processing and medical electronics. He was a winner of the Jesse H. Neal Award for his story, “The Making of a Medical Miracle,” about implantable defibrillators. He is also the author of the book, The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer, published by John Wiley & Sons in 1997. Murray’s electronics coverage has frequently appeared in the Chicago Tribune and in Popular Science. He holds a BS in engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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