Positive electrode active material development opportunities through carbon addition in the lead-acid batteries: A recent progress

Although, lead-acid battery (LAB) is the most commonly used power source in several applications, but an improved lead-carbon battery (LCB) could be believed to facilitate innovations in fields requiring excellent electrochemical energy storage. Idle, Stop and Go (ISG) systems in automobiles have exhibited superior fuel performance and pollution control, but their sudden degradation due to sulfation during discharging and positive electrode grid corrosion restricts their evolution. LCBs holds the key to improvise various properties of ISG systems via carbon-based additives that contribute to enhanced interactions, regulating the crystallite size of PbSO4 and increased electrical conductivity at the electrode's surface with reduced permanent sulfation and grid corrosion. This review puts forward the generic principles applied while incorporating carbon as an additive in PAM. Major issues in positive active materials (PAM) originating from sulfation and active material shredding has been addressed. Carbon in diverse forms is known to enhance the structural properties through effective diffusivity in inter-networked carbon-pores. The factors that influence the charge-transport properties are strongly observed to depend on the porosity, and diffusive mass transport. A quantitative comprehension with respect to these factors and mechanism of these carbon additives in PAM is studied. [Display omitted] •Efficient lead-acid batteries are essential for future applications.•Importance of carbon additives to the positive electrode in lead-acid batteries.•Mechanism underlying the addition of carbon and its impact is studied.•Beneficial effects of carbon materials for the transformation of traditional LABs.•Designing lead carbon batteries could be new era in energy storage applications.