Car Battery Essentials
Although there is a solid science behind car mechanics, it is not that complicated to understand how your car battery functions. Once you know better, it would definitely be easier to maintain and to correctly service your favorite car.
Car Battery’s main purposes are:
1.To provide electrical power that can start the engine.
The amperage of the battery depends mainly on the engine size and capacity. Besides the amp-hour (AH), a car battery’s size is also rated on cold cranking amps (CCA). The amp-hour is the ability of the battery to deliver electricity for an extended period of time, whilst the cold cranking amps measures the produced current in low temperature.
2.To supply additional current when the electrical system can’t cope with the electrical demand.
This is a secondary function and it usually happens when you run the engine on a lower gear, though it isn’t necessarily going to happen. All other electrical components such as lights, fuel pump, ignition fuel injection system use most of the charging system’s capacity. Especially if after-market accessories have been added, the charging system may not be able to sustain through all of the additional currents and this is where the battery’s additional supplies begin to function
3.To stabilize the voltage for the charging system
Last but not least is the function of a charging system voltage stabilizer. Vehicle charging systems need something to push against to keep from producing excessive voltage. Also, high voltage spikes may be produced when turning on or off certain electrical currents. These voltage fluctuations are being absolved by the battery.
Car Battery Structure:
The most common battery type used in the car industry is the SLI type. Many people also refer to it as “starting, lightning, ignition” battery due to the fact that it has been constructed to supply strong electrical burst, for a shorter period of time that can start up a car engine
A standard 12 Volt car battery consists of 6 cells connected in series. Each cell produces approximately 2 Volts and the cells are filled with an electrolyte. And here is what every battery cell is made of:
- Positive plate made of lead oxide that is sinked in electrolyte;
- Positive grid which consists of lead alloy and is used to hold the active material and it also functions as current collector;
- Negative plate, which is pure lead that is also sinked in electrolyte The electrodes with different charges are separated by a separator bag.
The electrolyte is a mixture of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and distilled water. This electrolyte can be in liquid form (as in conventional wet batteries or in the enhanced EFB technology), in gel form, or bound in a glass mat (as in AGM technology for newer start-stop applications). Several positive electrodes form a positive plate set and several negative electrodes form a negative plate set. Together, a negative and a positive plate set form a plate block. A plate block is a battery cell.
Car Battery Chemistry
The car batteries store energy in chemical form and convert it into electrical energy. In this process, there are four elements which cooperate with each other and those are Hydrogen, Oxygen, Lead and Sulfur. We will save you from the science talk, but in short, this substance is what causes a chemical reaction to release electrons and thus allowing them to flow through conductors in order to produce energy. As the battery discharges, the acid of the electrolyte reacts with the materials of the plates, changing their surface to lead sulfate. When the battery is recharged, the chemical reaction is reversed: the lead sulfate reforms into lead dioxide and lead. They are constructed of many thin plates with thin separators between the plates and may have a higher specific gravity electrolyte to reduce internal resistance.
Latest Technologies: AGM and Lithium Ion
At present, conventional lead-acid batteries own a really good share of the market. However, the market is changing rapidly and innovative battery technologies for start-stop vehicles such as AGM use acid which is connected in a mat to provide higher cycle stability and guarantee reliable performance in vehicles with increased power demands. A further advantage of AGM: Acid layering is no longer possible due to the bound acid. A new generation of car batteries for micro-hybrid vehicles operates at 48V and uses cells with lithium ion technology.
