A D V E N T U R E S   in   C Y B E R S O U N D

Most historians date the invention of batteries to about 1800 when experiments by Alessandro Volta resulted in the generation of electrical current from chemical reactions between dissimilar metals. The original voltaic pile used zinc and silver disks and a separator consisting of a porous nonconducting material saturated with sea water

A voltage could be measured across each silver and zinc disk. Experiments with different combinations of metals and electrolytes continued over the next 60 years. Even though large and bulky variations of the voltaic pile provided the only practical source of elecricity in the early 19th century They were the original primary battery.

Johann Ritter first demonstrated the elements of a rechargeable battery in 1802, but rechargeable batteries remained a laboratory curiosity until the development, much later in the century, of practical steam-driven dynamos to recharge them.

During the first half of the 19th century experiments continued with a variety of electrochemical couples (combinations of positive and negative electrode materials and electrolyte). Finally about 1860, the ancestors of today's primary and secondary batteries were developed.

On the primary side, in the 1860's George Lecianche France developed a form of the carbon-zinc battery. The original version was a wet cell with the electrodes immersed in a pool of electrolyte. It became popular because it was rugged, easy to manufacture, and had a good shelf life. The original design was improved to incorporate the electrolyte into a wet paste. As a result the cell could be produced as a sealed unit with no free liquid electrolyte. The carbon-zinc dry cell is still the mainstay of the primary battery market.

Lead Batteries

Secondary batteries date back to 1860 when Raymond Gaston Plante invented the lead-acid battery His cell used two thin lead plates separated by rubber sheets. He rolled the combination up and immersed it in a dilute sulfuric acid solution. Initial capacity was extremely limited since the positive plate had little active material available for reaction.

About 1881, Faure and others developed batteries using a paste of lead oxides for the positive plate active materials. This allowed much quicker formation and better plate efficiency than the solid Planteplate. Although the rudiments of the flooded lead-acid battery date back to the 1880's, there has been a continuing stream of improvements in the materials of construction and the manufacturing and formation processes.

Since many of the problems with flooded lead-acid batteries involved electrolyte leakage, many attempts have been made to eliminate free acid in the battery German researchers developed the gelled-electrolyte, lead-acid battery in the early 1960's which was a major improvement. Working from a different approach, Gates Energy Products developed a sealed-lead battery which represents the state of the art today.

Source: http://www.batterypro.com/batthist.htm

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