Enqin Gao

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Bio


Enqin Gao is Director of Research and Development at Hammond Group USA.  Hammond is a global manufacturer of paste additives and lead oxides with manufacturing facilities in Malaysia, England, and the United States. 




Enqin earned his master’s degree in physical chemistry from Peking University and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Wuhan University. He also studied materials science and engineering as a PhD student at Iowa State University.




With over 20 years of experience in lead-acid battery working for Trojan Battery and Camel Group, Enqin is passionate in improving battery performance.



Methods of modifying structures of lead acid battery active materials
Enqin Gao, Director of Research & Development, Hammond Group, United States

In 2021, CBI published the updated Technical Roadmap, in which set out the most challenging KPIs that lead battery industry had ever proposed. For example, extreme high cycle life (6,000 cycles at 80% DoD), very long calendar life (15-20 years) and high energy efficiency (88-92% energy storage efficiency) were assigned for ESS application. Since then, many scientist and engineers from lead battery industry all over the world started to working on how to make those goals a reality. The active material of lead battery, as the energy absorbing and delivering part of battery, plays the principal role. Modifying the structure of active material is one of the most effective approaches to meet these goals. In this presentation we report how we designed and selected additives based on their thermodynamic and kinetic properties. Some additives can increase the solubility of lead ions in the paste and reduce the time, temperature, energy and cost of curing process. Some additives can change the formation process, improve formation efficiency, modify after formation active material composition and pore structures. Careful selection of these additives will contribute to lower cost and more efficient of manufacturing, longer calendar and cycle life, higher energy efficiency. Together with other improvement in lead battery industry supply chain, those most difficult KPIs in CBI’s Technical Roadmap will come true in the near future.