PbO nanoparticles anchored on reduced graphene oxide for enhanced cycle life of lead-carbon battery

Abstract

The composites of PbO nanoparticles anchored on reduced graphene oxide (PbO@rGO) are prepared by electrostatic interaction and ostwald ripening strategy to enhance cycle life of lead-carbon battery under high-rate partial-state-of-charge (HRPSoC). By occupying the hydrogen evolution reactive sites on the rGO surfaces, the PbO@rGO composite exhibits better inhibition for hydrogen evolution behavior than the rGO. Thus, introducing the composite additives to negative plates can effectively inhibit the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and alleviate the aggregation of PbSO4 crystals simultaneously, resulting in their HRPSoC cycle life show 2.6-fold enhancements compared with negative plates without any carbon additives (extend from 3501 to 12,885 cycles). The chemical bond between the rGO and PbO nanoparticles can not only help solve the "floating carbon" phenomenon, but also effectively avoid the separation of the additive and the negative active material (NAM) during the cycles. In addition, the PbO@rGO additives can act like a miniaturized stereo plate grid, which refines and expands the conductive network on the plate and provides deposition sites for Pb/PbSO4 redox couple. Outstanding performance of the batteries containing composite additives indicates that the composites have potential application value in the lead-carbon battery while providing a new idea for preparing lead-carbon composite.