Electrochemical performance of lead acid battery using ammonium hydrogen sulphate with different alkyl groups

In this work, the application of ionic liquids (ILs)??mono-, bicycyclohexyl, monohexyl and tetrahexyl ammonium hydrogen sulphate??as electrolyte additives on the electrochemical performance of lead acid batteries is proposed. The electrochemical behaviour of Pb?C1.66% Sb?C0.24% Sn alloy in sulphuric acid solution is investigated in the presence of the mentioned ILs with different numbers of alkyl or cycloalkyl chains. Particularly, the hydrogen and oxygen evolution potential and anodic layer characteristics were studied using cyclic and linear sweep voltammetric methods. The obtained results indicate that hydrogen evolution overpotential of Pb/Sb/Sn alloy in the presence of ILs increases. This overpotential mainly depends on the concentration of ILs and the number of alkyl and cycloalkyl chains on the cations. Also, the difference between the oxygen oxidation potential in anodic and cathodic scans (?E) decreases using different ILs.