4 Storage technologies

[Skvez]

Skean wrote
> The typical wet type battery, ignoring efficiencies, is not that difficult to build.

I have to disagree there.
You need Sulphuric Acid, very pure sulphuric acid, this is difficult to "make" from raw materials.
You need a container that won't get eaten by said acid.
Although we talk about the 'plates' of a battery they are not simple plates. If you use (smooth) plates the surface area is very small and the battery is very weak. The plates are actually a complex shape to maximise the surface area.
Pure lead plates are weak and break easily due to vibration (and age), this might be OK for fixed storage but mobile applications need a complex reinforcement strategy using something that doesn't either pollute the acid or get dissolved by it.

A modern battery has a number of other enhancements to promote the lead to dissolve and re-crystallise, we could probably skip these if we were willing to accept the reduction in performance.

I won't be building a PbH+ battery any time soon!

Yes you can get current from fruit (enough to power an LCD clock) but it's miniscule, remember you can power the same clock from a tiny watch battery for years.