Replacing car batteries is a costly affair which can cost you hundreds of dollars.
When you are in a cash crunch or when you have pending bills to pay, you might want to save those hundred dollars for other essentials rather than spending on a car battery replacement.
In such cases, you may want to try reconditioning and rejuvenating your old batteries, because it saves you hundreds of dollars.
Yes, battery reconditioning works and you can bring back the old battery to full health and full charging capacity in some cases.
But when you think of reconditioning, you might have heard of some materials to use in this process. You might have heard of using magnesium sulfate which is called Epsom salt or even caustic soda.
But what about vinegar? Can vinegar be used in this process?
Is it possible to rejuvenate car battery with vinegar?
This article below answers you everything related to the usage of vinegar for reconditioning of an old car battery.
Rejuvenate car battery with vinegar- Does this work?
Before planning to recondition your car battery, it can be beneficial to understand the basics related to car battery functioning.
This can make you clearly understand, how to use vinegar in the process of rejuvenating a battery. You can also understand whether you can use vinegar at all in battery reconditioning.
I know this is not a chemistry class, hence I will explain to you all the basics in a simple way and there is no necessary to strain your mind.
Firstly what is vinegar?
Vinegar is nothing but a solution of acetic acid. In simple words, it is just a weak acid. It only contains 5-8% of acetic acid by volume.
So, how can this acid be used in rejuvenating an old battery?
To understand this, you have to know what is a car battery made of?
What is a car battery?
Car batteries are simply lead-acid batteries. Going by the name lead-acid, the battery consists of lead and acid in it.
Here, the lead plates are electrodes and they are immersed in an electrolyte solution of sulfuric acid and water. In simple words, because of the plates and acid present inside, electrons are released and current is generated.
As the battery itself consists of sulfuric acid, here comes the thought of using vinegar inside the battery as vinegar is also an acid.
You may plan to refill battery with vinegar. But does it work?
Using vinegar to rejuvenate a car battery
Do you know why your car batteries lose their efficiency and sometimes even fail?
One of the main reasons for the reduced efficiency of your car battery is due to the process called sulfation. This sulfation is the process of growth of sulfate crystals on the lead plates during the discharging mode of your battery.
These sulfate crystals reduce the area of plates and obstruct the flow of electricity. Thus the efficiency of your battery gets reduced.
General reconditioning process involves adding some chemicals to the lead-acid batteries to dissolve the buildup of those sulfate crystals and in turn improve the battery performance.
In simple words, this can be considered as a process of cleaning the lead plates.
What about adding an electrolyte to the battery?
The electrolyte used in the car batteries is sulfuric acid. Considering vinegar as an alternative to the existing electrolyte, you might think of adding acids like vinegar to the battery.
But, the only acid that should be added to a lead-acid battery is sulfuric acid.
What happens when you put vinegar in a battery?
Using other liquids such as vinegar can affect the lead plates by corroding them. Vinegar contains acetic acid and this acetic acid can react with the lead plates and sulfuric acid, thereby leading to the formation of lead acetate. This is also called sugar of lead.
This corrosion causes damage to the lead plates. This can reduce the capacity of the plates and finally effects the efficiency of the battery.
Hence using vinegar as an electrolyte is not a good idea.
Then how to use vinegar to improve your battery life?
One of the important things to do, to improve your car’s battery life, is taking care of its terminals.
Yes, corroded battery terminals are one of the reasons that can wear out your battery faster. Corroded battery terminals create more resistance in the battery circuit and the battery needs to work harder to transfer electricity.
Hence it is essential to keep the battery terminals clean and free from any kind of corrosion.
To deal with such issues like corrosion, baking soda is one of the most frequently used things that comes to rescue.
To remove this rust and corrosion, vinegar can also be used.
e how suggests using distilled white vinegar to clean the battery terminals for a better connection.
Take some vinegar and pour it over positive and negative battery terminals. Wait for 20 minutes and allow the vinegar to bubble. The bubbling represents the process of removal of accumulated corrosion.
Take a cloth to clean all the foam and crusty particles surrounding the terminal. Thus your car battery terminals can become free from rust and corrosion.
In some cases, bad condition of the battery terminals is one of the main cause for the underperformance of your battery.
Keeping the terminals clean can rejuvenate your car’s battery efficiency and keep its performance to the optimum.
Attention: Dead Simple Trick Brings any Battery Back to Life
