History of Batteries

There are some clues that batteries may have been used in the ancient world , particularly in Baghdad around two thousand years ago . There have also been some finds in Egypt dating back to the ancient period, but none of these have been categorically proven to be batteries.

The first documented battery of the modern era is attributed to the American Benjamin Franklin in the middle of the 18^thCentury. He made capacitor out of charged glass plates that was able to produce powerful electric shocks hence the word “Battery”  as in  “Assault and Battery “ came into general use.

Some 50 years later at the very beginning of the 19^thCentury the Italian Alessandro Volta made the first chemical battery using copper and zinc discs in brine.  This discovery sparked off all sorts of new scientific advances across Europe during the early 19^th century as it was now possible to produce electricity reliably.

The next major advance came when the Frenchman Georges Leclanché produced an entirely new form of cell using carbon / zinc . This proved to be the basic technology behind  non rechargeable or Primary batteries still in use today.

Another Frenchman  , Raymond Gaston Planté made the first rechargeable battery or Secondary Battery  using lead plates in a mild solution of sulphuric acid in the 1860’s.  This invention has continued in use for nearly 150  years  has gone on to be the type of battery still used in cars and golf trolleys today.

In the last 120 years the pace of new inventions  hoted up.  All the various types of battery we now use were developed during this period. It an intriguing thought that the technology needed  to develop these new types of cells depended on the advances in chemistry and physics which had happened after Volta’s cell of 1800. This allowed for the discovery of the new metals and materials necessary for the designs of these new batteries.

The Milestones are:-

1881     Lead oxide battery by Emile Faure

1897     Oxygen Hydrogen by Nikola Tesla

1900     Nickel Storage by Thomas Edison

1905     Nickel Iron also Thomas  Edison

1942     Mercury Cell by Samuel Ruben & Mallory

1947     Neumann develops first practical NiCd cells

1959     Lew Urry patents primary alkaline battery

1960     Lithium Primary battery developed

1964     GP Batteries Founded