Abstract: Porous electrodes are provided for lead-acid storage batteries without supporting plates or grids. The electrodes are porous, self-supporting, structurally integral and electrically continuous. Lead-acid batteries incorporating such electrodes exhibit improved performance characteristics as compared to conventional lead-acid batteries. The electrodes are made by forming a molten mixture of a metal (e.g. lead) and a pore forming component (e.g. cadmium), cooling and forming the molten mixture into a solid electrode with the pore forming component distributed therethrough, removing the pore forming component from the solid electrode to leave a network of voids defining the pores, and oxidizing the metallic walls within the pores to form a coating of electrochemically active material (e.g., lead dioxide) on the walls within the pores.