Elaboration and Mechanical-Electrochemical Characterisation of Open Cell Antimonial-lead Foams Made by the “Excess Salt Replication Method” for Eventual Applications in Lead-acid Batteries Manufacturing

Abstract

In this study, open cell 25 % antimony-lead alloy foams are fabricated for possible use to lighten thick plates of lead-acid batteries. A new inexpensive and simple variant of the salt replication process is developed and explored. Different morphology and shapes have been successfully obtained with “excess salt replication” method (abbreviated as ESR method). Best porosity of about 68 % is obtained with salt particles size of about 3 mm. SEM and EDXS investigation of the composite salt/antimony alloy before NaCl leaching revealed the presence of the lead oxides microfilm coating cell walls and becoming lead carbonates after salt removal. Uniaxial compressive behaviour of the resulting cellular materials is studied for foams with porosities between 45 % and 70 %, and salt grain size ranging between 2.5 and 5 mm. A higher plateau stress is reached compared to the results obtained in the literature working on the aluminium foams. The reproducibility of the process is proved along samples.

Characteristics of Porous Aluminium Materials Produced by Pressing Sodium Chloride into Their Melts

“…In addition, it is also important to ensure a uniform distribution of sodium chloride particles throughout the volume of metal materials and the thermal preparation of the sodium chloride itself. A similar method for the production porous materials (lead alloys with antimony) using sodium chloride was carried out by the authors of [20]. Results concerning the production of samples of porous aluminium materials with the same shape (from aluminium alloy AlSi12 and four sizes of sodium chloride particles: 1 to 3 mm, 3 to 5 mm, 5 to 7 mm and 8 to 10 mm) confirmed that the proposed and verified methodology is suitable for production.…”

“…The most common method is infiltration of the metal melt, also known as the replication process [18]. The authors of [20] applied sodium chloride to produce lead-based porous materials with some amount of antimony (25 wt%) for the purpose of producing grids for electric batteries. The authors refer to this method used to produce porous materials as the Excess Salt Replication Method (ESR method).…”

Experimental Investigation of Fluid Flow through Zinc Open-Cell Foams Produced by the Excess Salt Replication Process and Suitable as a Catalyst in Wastewater Treatment

“…Figure 1 represents the ESR process steps to produce zamak 5 foams with porosities ranging from 58% to 65% and a salt grain size between 2.5 mm and 4.5 mm. This process has been attempted successfully with alloys of good fluidity and low melting temperature (below that of salt), such as a 25% antimony-lead alloy [11] and the zamak 5 alloy of this study. The four steps of this method are: metal fusion, excess salt compaction, cooling, and salt leaching.…”

“…In this paper, the air flow through open-cell foams resulting from a new variant of the salt replication process was used in order to gain insight on their morphology (mesostructure). This process, which belongs to the space holder technics, was named "excess salt replication process" (abbreviated as ESR Process) [11]. Different forms and shapes of cellular materials with different alloys have been successfully fabricated with this process.…”

Optimising Lead–Air Battery Performance through Innovative Open-Cell Foam Anodes

“…These foams were made available through a new variant of the space holder replication technique developed using salt (NaCl) as a removable preform. This variant was named the Excess Salt Replication process (ESR process) [41]. In order to obtain samples of good quality, metals and alloys of good castability are highly recommended, like the 25% antimonial lead alloy (25% Sb-Pb), among others, which can give samples of porosity between 46% and 66%.…”