Sign in to view
member only content

Spotted: Indian start-up Punaha Battery Renescance has developed a way to reduce the number of Lead Acid and Nickel Cadmium batteries that are discarded. The company uses a software-controlled ‘desulphation’ process to regenerate the batteries, allowing them to be used for up to twice as long.

Deep cycle batteries are used in a large variety of heavy industrial electric vehicles, such as forklifts and industrial cleaning machines. Over time, hard crystals of lead sulphate build up on the positive and negative plates, offering resistance to the flow of electric current and causing the battery to stop functioning. Punaha has found a way to remove this sulphur build-up.

Punaha’s process applies pulses of electric current, which vary in intensity and frequency, to down the lead sulphate crystals and restore the battery. The entire process is automated and can be used to provide regular maintenance on batteries that still work, or on batteries that have lost a significant portion of their capacity.

Waste from the manufacture and disposal of traction batteries is a huge problem, as proper disposal is very expensive. If not disposed of properly, the discarded batteries readily leach heavy metals and other chemicals into the ground and water. 

Punaha’s aim is to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in e-waste generation. Improving battery life-span would also help reduce the consumption of lead and other raw materials used in battery production, further reducing carbon emissions.

The company told Springwise that they “are trying to reduce the E-waste generation by at least half … With increased life of batteries by means of regeneration, use of new batteries will be reduced, thus resulting in lesser greenhouse effect and carbon emissions.”

Selected for our Positive Innovation Challenge, conducted in partnership with Startup India.