Preparation of lead sulfide-lead carbon black composites by microwave method to improve the electrical properties from recycled lead powder

Lead oxide to obtained from lead paste of overall electrical performance is still not satisfactory compared with ball milled lead powder, because the recovered lead powder does not contain pure lead which is often critical to the performance of the resulting battery. Herein, in order to improve the electrical performance, a composite of PbS/Pb@CB-3 (PSC3) was achieved by simple activation and rapid microwave heating reaction method in this work. Generated Pb metal in situ in PSC3 by microwave could overcome disadvantage due to the absence of pure lead in recycled lead oxide powder. Simultaneously, PSC3 composite as additive can significantly increase the electrochemical activity of lead electrode based on the recycled lead oxide powder, which is attributed to a macroporous and mesoporous multistage pore structure in carbon black. In electrochemical characterization, the high-rate partial charge state (HRPSoC) life (19291) with PSC3 composite is 6.5 times that of blank battery (2960) from recycled lead powder. Discharge capacity (0.2C) of composite battery (1.15 Ah) is 3.96 times that of blank battery (0.29 Ah) from recycled lead powder. Cycle retention rate could still keep 99% after 50 cycles.

Automated summary

Through the microwave-induced in-situ generation of lead metal, a PbS/Pb@CB-3 (PSC3) composite material is achieved, which overcomes the disadvantage of the absence of pure lead in the recycled lead oxide powder and significantly improves the electrochemical activity of the lead electrode.