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I have a battery conditioner/charger fastened up to a 80 ah leisure battery on my boat for the winter.
The boat is covered.
Is there any significant risk of a build up of hydrogen whilst it slowly charges?
Could it go bang?
That's pretty standard thing to do - walking round the boatyard most winters and around half, if not more, boats will be plugged into shorepower for dehumidifiers / keeping batteries topped up.
Never seen one or heard of one going KaBOOOOOOM, Recon you be reet.
Also - if your not running a dehumidfier then you want the boat to be very well ventilated to stop damp and mould - that too will help disperse any Hydrogen to the atmosphere.
Correct me if I'm wrong but, 0.
It produces hydrogen and sulphate ions which remain in solution as sulphuric acid, it doesn't vent hydrogen gas. If It did your battery would be useless after a few charge cycles as the battery would cease to have the h+ required to produce the electrochemical reaction?
(It's a long time since i did any of this stuff at school)
Hydrogen is both very floaty and very leaky isn’t it? (Technical terms😉) reckon you’d be VERY unlucky to have an issue.
It produces hydrogen and sulphate ions which remain in solution as sulphuric acid, it doesn’t vent hydrogen gas. If If did your battery would be useless after a few charge cycles as the battery would cease to have the h+ required to produce the electrochemical reaction?
If you charge it too quickly it will vent leaving sulfur behind on the plates. H2 is lighter than air though and will even permeate through fairly thick metal, so unless you go over 8A in a completely sealed box you're fine.
[edit] as the article says, cheap chargers are often the problem, they tend to have far too high a float voltage (or even just stay at the charging voltage), and even if used infrequently some (even quite expensive ones) default to a bulk charge current to start with so if you plug them into an already charged battery they will overcharge it until the timer kicks in after an hour or so.
ISTR it's overcharging that creates free hydrogen, no?
I've got a 12v 225ah battery (actually two 6v's) charging from 200w of solar via a good charge controller. On float charge on a very sunny day they will generate enough hydrogen to trigger my carbon monoxide detector, was quite worried at first until I worked out it was the hydrogen and that carbon monoxide detectors are very sensitive to hydrogen.
Obviously doesn't happen at night and only needs a tiny bit of ventilation from a rooflight to avoid it on hot sunny days, apparently I can get different battery caps that will take tubing to direct the gas outside.
My Dad managed to blow up a 12v car battery that he was charging off the car. He simply pulled one of the charger clips off one of the battery terminals!
The sparks that action generated ignited the Hydrogen inside and around the battery - splitting the case wide open and spraying him and the garage with Acid. He survived with minor injuries 😮
Don’t convince yourself this doesn’t or can’t happen 😕
<pedant>Technically it doesn't create any hydrogen - it just releases it from a compound</pedant>
Deep cycling the batteries would be a bigger concern than float charging them
I've seen a couple of cases of exploded batteries, just like JAG. One was a guy jump starting his car, the battery exploded when he removed the jumper cables (which is why you should connect the earth cable to the chassis, not the battery and remove that first). The other was a guy who was too lazy to turn off a battery charger when he removed a battery. Both times it burst the battery case and blew acid everywhere. Luckily, no serious injuries, both guys got splattered with acid but got to a tap and washed it off pronto.
Q=IT Q x 6.05x10^23 then half that number of H2 molecules.
It's been a while since I've had to do cell electrolysis.