Paper about virgin vs. recycled lead in batteries?

re: Telephone Deka. Pennsylvania

They have their own lead smelter (one of the few manufacturers) and can answer your questions about Pb purity in the recovery process of recycling.

East Penn Manufacturing Company, Inc. Deka Road Lyon Station, PA 19536 USA Main Phone: 610-682-6361. Customer Service: 610-682-4231

Hmmmm...

If value-for-the-dollar is still with flooded cells, and given this evident problem with lead purity, what's the advantage of buying AGM's?

(Other than positioning- I understand that they can be oriented in other-than-straight-up ways)

I once thought that they were somehow immune from outgassing and could be used inside without sealing/venting, but a catastrophic failure thread on another site has recently educated me to the contrary!

Hi Francesca,

Flooded deep cycle batteries are deliberately "doped" to make the lead less pure. Starved acid batteries are a horse of a completely different color.

Value for the dollar, so far, always favors flooded batteries.

Because I tend to charge gently and do not use true deep cycle batteries I find that I need to add fluid but once per year. But then--I have more batteries than most class C folks.

Francesca Knowles wrote:
Please bear with me as a complete novice, but the way I read the paper is sorta the other way around- that flooded batteries don't CARE as much about virgin lead as AGMs do, so there isn't as great a loss of life/efficiency/whatever as seems to occur with the AGMs.

Seems like a question of value-for-the-dollar to me....

Please bear with me as a complete novice, but the way I read the paper is sorta the other way around- that flooded batteries don't CARE as much about virgin lead as AGMs do, so there isn't as great a loss of life/efficiency/whatever as seems to occur with the AGMs.

Seems like a question of value-for-the-dollar to me....

The upshot was that virgin lead is more pure than recycled. Not that it has to be, but that it is today. I bet the main reason is that for the most part flooded batteries don't benefit from more pure lead the way AGMs do, and the FLA volumes are much higher.

Jim

A search for Vrla brought it up rather quickly. :)

That's it!

Thanks, Don.... I'll go subscribe.

Now all I need is the brains to understand it! :B

Hi Francesca,

I believe this is the thread you want:

Lead purity in AGMs