Perspective and advanced development of lead–carbon battery for inhibition of hydrogen evolution

With the global demands for green energy utilization in automobiles, various internal combustion engines have been starting to use energy storage devices. Electrochemical energy storage systems, especially ultra-battery (lead–carbon battery), will meet this demand. The lead–carbon battery is one of the advanced featured systems among lead–acid batteries. The key limitation of lead–carbon battery is the sulfation of negative plates under a partial state of charge, which reduces the charging capacity and cycle life. To solve this problem, carbon as a kind of suitable materials is proposed to incorporate into the negative plates of the active materials for working under partial state of charge (PSOC) and high rate partial state of charge (HRPSOC) conditions. In this review, we discuss the properties of carbon materials and their function towards the inhibition of hydrogen evolution. Furthermore, the influence of grid composition, separator, and binder content on the electrochemical performance of the lead–carbon battery is also elaborately described. The main challenging issues of hydrogen evolution on lead–carbon batteries are discussed in different ways and perspective views to higher performance on future energy storage applications have also been presented.