The invention discloses a method for converting lead sulfate in a waste lead-acid storage battery into lead tetraoxide, comprising the following steps of: firstly, reacting the lead sulfate, excessive soluble sulfide salt and a small amount of ammonia water, and converting the lead sulfate into lead sulfide; then filtering out the lead sulfide, adding the lead sulfide into hot dilute nitric acid, and fully reacting; then steaming solution, continuously heating to be certain temperature, after reactants are decomposed completely, putting residues into a stirring ball mill for grinding, simultaneously, introducing oxygen-nitrogen mixed gas with certain oxygen content, and obtaining a final product, namely the lead tetraoxide. The method is simple and practical, high temperature is not needed, the energy consumption is low, the pollution is less, the prepared lead tetraoxide can be used as an active substance which is reused in a lead-acid storage battery.