The effect of temperature on VRLA reaction rates and the determination of battery state of charge. II. Fundamental considerations

When in float service, the lead-acid battery must remain charged at all environmental temperatures and service applications. For the VRLA cell, this requirement can be exceedingly difficult to satisfy. The reaction rates and their dependence on temperature must be known for all the reactions if this goal is to be realized. In this paper, the authors experimentally determined the above values for a VRLA cell. The test temperatures were 0 to 50°C. Once determined, the kinetic data is used to calculate plate potentials and the float voltage mode(s) necessary to maintain batteries in a full state of charge at all practical operating temperatures