Firefly’s technology specifically addresses all three critical areas for improvement.  Let’s take each issue individually:

Corrosion
The electrode material that Firefly has developed is not reactive in the lead acid environment and so does not corrode.  There are several reasons for this.  One is the inherent stability of the base material, and the other is the formation process used which maximizes exposure of the most chemically resistive surfaces and minimizes exposure of chemically less stable surfaces.  This ability to configure the material in the formation process yields an excellent resistance to corrosion even in over-charging situations.  Finally, since the carbon-graphite foam dissipates heat so effectively, and enables the chemistry to operate more uniformly, the battery operates cooler and more consistently and therefore the corrosion process is minimized in the 3D design and eliminated in the 3D2 design.

Sulfation
As we have seen, sulfation is caused by the precipitation of sulfite compounds that then coat the plates and block the conductive path required for recharging.  Firefly’s patented foam plates contain specific amounts of active material, which are in balance with the electrolyte and are localized within a very specific area.  In other words, the largest that a sulfate crystal can grow is related to the available amount of active material.  Even if the entire amount of active material within any single restriction were converted into a single sulfate crystal, it would be small enough and close enough to the carbon-graphite electrode to convert back during recharge.  In short, the composition and configuration of Firefly’s plates yield a much higher resistance to the effects of sulfation.

Energy Density
As we have indicated, the real quest for performance improvements in lead acid batteries is about surface area, the ability of the positive plates to capture the maximum number of electrons from the chemical reaction taking place and conduct them toward the positive terminal.  The overwhelming restriction to lead acid battery chemistry has always been the lack of interface area between the active chemistry and the electrodes.  Because of the corrosion issues that we discussed, there’s a severe limitation to the amount of surface area that can be made available on a positive grid without compromising its structural integrity.

Firefly technology increases surface area enormously and efficiency is greatly increased.  Not only does this yield higher power output in Whr/kg, but there are other advantages as well.  Charge and discharge times can be faster, and a higher percentage of active material is accessible so overall efficiency goes up.  An additional benefit to the larger surface areas is greatly improved cold weather performance, where (depending on discharge rate) capacity improvements with the Firefly 3D technology are 3 times that of a classic lead acid battery.

Firefly’s 3D2 battery technology has three to four times better energy density than a conventional lead acid battery.  In other words, a Firefly-type 3D2 battery could have three to four times the power as similar size and weight conventional battery.  Or, a Firefly 3D2 battery could be one third to one quarter the size and weight of a conventional battery of similar energy capacity.