Alum Pb batteries

I hope some of you are still watching this thread. I have been working on the chemistry of Alum and Epson Salt with lead for quite awhile now. Unfortunately I am NOT a chemist. It is rare that the entire internet doesnt have a SINGLE SENTENCE on this subject!! I have read a couple places where a chemist states that "another sulfate should work as well as H2SO4. Now as far as actual physical results, I do have some information in this regard. I have built 5 different sorts of ALUM/LEAD batteries both from my own cast lead plates and from factory plates I have scavenged from various near new batteries. I am on an island in Alaska and H2SO4 is hard to find for building "normal" LABs to use as a control or at least for a comparison. I have several batteries charging right now. I am posting here because this is the ONLY place I have read a word of logic on this subject and I want help with this chemistry right now.... both because I have an interest in lead technology fvor years now, and because I am entered in a science fair only 10 days from now LOL. I will post back here with resluts from my currently charging cells, pls if anyone is interested pls contact me. My email is earthboundeagle10@gmail.com.  Or call me at 907 617 0733 or 907 225 0733. Thankyou all for your time.

There seems to be an awful lot of negativity around this, the sheer effort that must go into some of these comments is incredible, without actually having anything to add to the subject, anyone who has actually tried this has seen results, why can't we simply find out why? Instead of putting so much effort into stating in ignorance why it can't possibly work. Nobody seems actually able to explain the results, but there Are results which need to be looked into, that is for sure, if there was a simple explanation, surely it would be easy enough to come across.
I'm  personally trying this out at the moment, and having some incredible results (yes I myself am incredulous, despite seeing it before my very eyes). I'm working on a dirty shed floor with a range of nasty old dead batteries, this method will not fix a shorted or disintegrated cell, but with a battery that will take a charge and shows 12v it does seem to work.
With a four year old heavily sulphated 110AH from my solar battery bank, which will show a full charge in a matter of minutes, and when connected to load meter shows 12.5V, but immediately bottoms out to 0 when put under load. I have dumped out the acid, used distilled water to rinse out some of the lead particles ( plenty left in there, but who cares? this won't work anyway ). Refilled immediately with 1:15 solution of potassium aluminium sulphate. Voltage reads 12.4V. Put on charge until 14.4v, resting voltage 12.6V, load tested not great 100cca. Discharged down to 0V using DC filament type bulb. Recharged again to 14.4V, load tested at 400cca, placed into a Ford Capri with no fuel, and turned over strongly for over 2 minutes until no more crank. Recharged again to 14.4V, resting at 12.6 load tested at 700cca. Measured while under load with clamp meter 100Amps. Element glowing orange on the back for a few minutes, got bored, hooked up 500watt inverter with plug in energy meter and 350watt halogen bulb, came back a few hours later and inverter had low voltage shut down, energy meter had not saved any result, tested again with load tested, 500cca, glowing orange element. Recharged to 14.4V, resting 12.6V, load tested 900cca.  I'm going to try hooking up a DC energy meter this week with the DC filament type bulbs and observe.  If anyone has any testable explanation for this, let me know, I'm driven by curiosity and maybe a little want for a cheap battery bank.

I don't think you can take an old battery with damaged plates and restore it to it's former glory using alum. But I've been converting older lead acid batteries to alum for several years now, and the ones I have are very useful for low draw led lights. I can run a 5 watt camping LED bulb 24/7/365 with a 30w solar panel hooked to an old converted car or lawn tractor battery. 

The biggest issue is most of the batteries I've converted to alum electrolyte weren't in great shape to begin with. I'm planning to eventually use a newer battery or possibly a brand new one just to see what it will do and how long it will last. The alum conversions I've done that had all good cells after conversion have lasted for some time. In fact I have a few that I've been running lights off of for several years with nothing but normal maintenance (just keeping the water topped up).

I've also used alum batteries with dead cells. The problem with this is that the dead cells will heat up if you draw too much from them or charge them too fast. But I have still been able to employ them with very low watt LED lights, some that I just made from Light Emitting Diodes and resistors. Of course I only use 5 or 10 watt (or less) solar panels to charge them, but they are useful for having a night light for navigating my camper at night. I've also used them in my house and find them very useful. They actually have a lot of storage capacity, but unfortunately you can't utilize all of that because of the bad cells. You have to make sure you only use an alum battery with bad cells with very low current. I never use more than maybe a watt or less. Usually about a quarter watt LED bulb and I never charge one like this with more that 10 watts.

But if you don't have any bad cells, you can actually draw quite a bit of power and recharge it on a consistent basis. The voltage is always slightly lower than lead acid. Where a lead acid cell is typically about 2.1v, a good lead alum cell is typically about 1.9v and after being used for awhile sometimes gets a little lower yet. So they're not really very good for use with an inverter. The discharge curve of an alum battery looks more like that of a NiCad or similar battery. My good ones usually tend to run around 9 to 11 volts when drawing 2 or 3 amps. I haven't drawn much more than that except under closely observed test conditions and during forming sometimes I will quickly charge and discharge a few times. 

One solution I'm considering for the inverter issue is to create an alum battery that has an extra cell. For example I'm thinking of possibly using 13 forklift battery cells, instead of 12, for a 24 volt system. I believe I could probably run a refrigerator and much more with a system like that. 1.9v times 13 cells is 24.7v which should run a 24v inverter for quite some time. With the right solar input I believe I could my refrigerator and my freezer on a permanent basis and it would function well. But it would be nice if I could get an inverter designed to drain down more than usual. Say to maybe 16 volts. But not being an electronics whiz, I'm not sure how low you could go with inverter input before it would cause too much heat and perhaps even damage the inverter. But my guess is that 13 electric forklift cells would work to run at least a fridge and freezer. Another thing I may try is using a couple of 8v golf cart batteries with alum as a 12v battery. The bank would never be charged to it's full capacity, but with the alum electrolyte I don't think that would cause any damage to the batteries. This is the experiment I'm currently looking forward to trying most right now. As soon as I find a good deal on some 8v golf cart batteries.