Batteries invention

Nickel-cadmium and nickel-iron are prime examples of rechargeable (secondary) batteries, invented in 1901 by Waldemar Jungner and Edison, respectively. In the 1920s and 1930s, such batteries powered radios prior to rural clectrificadnn. The sealed nickel-cadmium battery is now the most widely used battery in consumer products. 

Electrodes in a voltaic cell, however, are connected to circuits— paths by which electrons flow. Voltaic cells are sources of electricity, so they can be used to drive electrolytic reactions or perform other activities that require electricity. The term voltaic honors the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), a pioneer of electrochemistry. A simple voltaic cell can form a battery, invented by Volta in 1800. The unit of electric potential, the volt, also honors Volta. 

PROBLEM 10.5.8. If we use lead-acid storage batteries (invented by Plante24 in 1859), with discharge reaction Pb + 2 H2S04 + Pb02 —> PbSC>4 +... 

The battery invented by Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) in 1799 consisted of layers of Zn and Ag separated by cardboard soaked in brine. This voltaic pile on display at the Royal Institution in London was given by Volta to Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday when they visited Italy in 1814. Using electrolysis, Davy was the first to isolate Na, K, Mg, Ca, Sr, and Ba. Faraday used piles to discover laws of electricity and magnetism. 

Historically, the use of lead anodes resulted first from the widespread use of lead vessels in industrial manufacturing involving corrosive media such as the synthesis of sulfuric acid and later from the original studies in the lead-acid battery invented by Gaston Plante in... 

For instance, the nickel-iron battery, invented almost at the same time (Edison, 1901) as the nickel-cadmium battery, has a poor charge efficiency, which causes excessive heating and hydrogen release. Another example is nickel-zinc technology, for which further study seems necessary, because it is subject to the formation of dendrites which limit its lifetime. 

However, because of the toxicity of cadmium and the memory effect of nickel-cadmium batteries, this system was replaced by the MH-Ni battery invented later the total reaction for this battery during the charge and discharge processes is shown in Equation 1.3, whose open-circuit voltage is about 1.42 V. 

The poor efficiencies of coal-fired power plants in 1896 (2.6 percent on average compared with over forty percent one hundred years later) prompted W. W. Jacques to invent the high temperature (500°C to 600°C [900°F to 1100°F]) fuel cell, and then build a lOO-cell battery to produce electricity from coal combustion. The battery operated intermittently for six months, but with diminishing performance, the carbon dioxide generated and present in the air reacted with and consumed its molten potassium hydroxide electrolyte. In 1910, E. Bauer substituted molten salts (e.g., carbonates, silicates, and borates) and used molten silver as the oxygen electrode. Numerous molten salt batteiy systems have since evolved to handle peak loads in electric power plants, and for electric vehicle propulsion. Of particular note is the sodium and nickel chloride couple in a molten chloroalumi-nate salt electrolyte for electric vehicle propulsion. One special feature is the use of a semi-permeable aluminum oxide ceramic separator to prevent lithium ions from diffusing to the sodium electrode, but still allow the opposing flow of sodium ions. 

There were few applications of electricity (or of magnetism) before the invention of the battery by Alessandro Volta in 1800. A batteiy can cause charges to move for long periods of time. The movement or... 

French chemist Georges Lcclanchc invents the zinc-carbon battery, a precursor of the diy cell and the modern portable batteiy. 

The dry cell was invented by Leclanche in the 1860s. This type of battery was developed in the 19th century. In the 1940s, Rubel achieved significant progress in alkaline-zinc batteries, and manufactured zinc powder with high surface area to prevent zinc passivation. 

The nickel-cadmium battery was invented by Jungner in 1899. The battery used nickel hydroxide for the positive electrode, cadmium hydroxide for the negative electrode, and an alkaline solution for the electrolyte. Jungner s nickel-cadmium battery has undergone various forms of the development using improved materials and manufacturing processes to achieve a superior level of performance. 

Alkaline batteries were introduced in the early 1960s they last two to five times longer than Zn-carbon cells on continuous discharge and command two or three times the price in the USA (far more in Europe and the East). Alkaline cells became a necessary invention and they succeeded as a result of the requirements of the electronic devices. The essential improvement was the change from ammonium chloride and/or zinc chloride electrolyte to alkaline (KOH) electrolyte, the steel can construction, the outside cathode, and the zinc powder (large surface) anode. A main low-cost feature is that they use pressed cathodes and do not need to follow "jellyroll"... 

In 1899, the nickel-cadmium battery, the first alkaline battery, was invented by a Swedish scientist named Waldmar Jungner. The special feature of this battery was its potential to be recharged. In construction, nickel and cadmium electrodes in a potassium hydroxide solution, it was the first battery to use an alkaline electrolyte. This battery was commercialized in Sweden in 1910 and reached the Unites States in 1946. The first models were robust and had significantly better energy density than lead-acid batteries, but nevertheless, their wide use was limited because of the high costs. 

The lead-acid cell was invented by Plante in 1859, and has remained more-or-less unchanged since Faurd updated it in 1881. The lead-acid cell is the world s most popular choice of secondary battery, meaning it is rechargeable. It delivers an emf of about 2.0 V. Six lead-acid batteries in series produce an emf of 12 V. 

Nevertheless, it must be taken into account that the development of hydrogen fuel cells also depends on how competitive technologies develop (for details see Chapter 7). If batteries for electric cars are invented that, e.g., have twice the energy density and... 

While the enthusiasts can legitimately call hydrogen the ultimate fuel , it is also legitimate to see hydrogen as a compromise it is more cumbersome to distribute and use than liquid fuels it is less efficient than electricity, even when used in a fuel cell. Consequently, hydrogen would not have a significant role as an energy carrier, if the scope for biofuels were unlimited , or if the elusive better battery were invented. However, it is prudent to consider the case that neither of these will come to pass. 

In this connection, Servos mentions, among others, Robert Bunsen at Heidelberg, who invented the carbon-zinc battery and the spectroscope H. H. Landolt at Bonn, later Berlin, who studied the refractive power of the molecule in relation to the refractivities of its atoms Heinrich Rose at Berlin, who followed up on Berthollet s theory of mass action and Cato Guldberg and Peter Waage in Norway, who did so more thoroughly. See John W. Servos, Physical Chemistry from Ostwald to Pauling, 1115. 

Fig. 12.2 A foldable, bendable battery paper invention which can be inserted under the skin as a pacemaker and powered in part by bodily fluids, (a) A postage-stamp-sized battery as thin as paper, (b) the flexible nanocomposite film battery used to glow a red light-emitting diode (LED)...

The )5-aluminas are described in some detail in Chapter 2, only a few specific features are noted here. In the "-aluminas, the spinel blocks are stacked in such a way that the energetically equivalent sites occupied by Na" ions are ideally just half-filled in the -aluminas the spinel blocks are stacked so as to distinguish two types of Na" -ion sites of different potential energy, the Beevers-Ross (BR) and anti-Beevers-Ross (aBR) sites. In the Na-O planes, the shortest bottleneck distance 2.7 A is just a little greater than the sum of the ionic radii, 2.4 A, at room temperature, so a small value of AH can be anticipated. The discovery of fast Na -ion conductivity in the Na j5-aluminas (Yao and Kummer, 1967 Kummer and Weber, 1967) led to the invention of the Na/S battery that triggered extensive interest in the solid-electrolyte problem. 

It has been a long time since the invention of the lead-acid battery, but it still represents the most important secondary chemical power source—both in number of types and diversity of application. The lead-acid battery has maintained its leading role for so many decades due to its competitive electrical characteristics and price and due to its adaptability to new applications. It is manufactured in a variety of sizes and designs, ranging from less than 1 to over 10 000 A h.206... 

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