Voltaic piles

Viking Lander, 355 vinyl chloride, 764 virial coefficient, 168 virial equation, 168 viscosity, 186 visible light, 4, 6 vision, 113 vitamin, 74 vitamin C, F48 volatile, 310 volt, 492, A4 Volta, A., 483 voltage, 490 voltaic cell, 490 voltaic pile, 483... 

Achim von Armin. Production of a sour smelling product (acetic acid) after dipping the ends of a voltaic pile into beer or wine [3b], cf. also [3a] Faraday reduction of acetic acid... 

In 1800 William Nicholson and Sir Anthony Carlisle discovered electrolysis and initiated the science of electrochemistry. In their experiments they employed a voltaic pile to liberate oxygen and hydrogen from water. They discovered that the amount of oxygen and hydrogen liberated by the current was proportional to the amount of current used. 

Arfwedson and Gmelin tried in vain to isolate lithium metal After faffing to reduce the oxide by heating it with iron or carbon, they tried to electrolyze its salts, but their voltaic pile was not sufficiently powerful (14). W. T. Brande succeeded in decomposing Iithia with a powerful battery and obtained a white, combustible metal, and Davy also obtained a small amount of hthium in the same manner (14,15, 31, 32, 33). 

When the news of Davy s isolation of the alkali metals reached Paris in 1808, Napoleon provided Gay-Lussac and Thenard with a powerful voltaic pile. Before it could be set up, however, they showed that these metals can be obtained without a battery simply by reducing the caustic alkali with metallic iron at a high temperature, a method which... 

Although Sir Humphry Davy felt certain that silica is not an element, he was unable to decompose it with his powerful voltaic pile, and was also unsuccessful in his attempts to isolate silicon by passing potassium vapor over red-hot silica. Gay-Lussac and Thenard observed that silicon tetrafluoride and potassium react violently when the metal is heated, and that a reddish brown, combustible solid is obtained. This was probably very impure amorphous silicon (37, 39). 

The first crystalline silicon was prepared by Henri Sainte-Claire Deville in 1854 ( 9,31). In the course of his researches on aluminum, he decomposed an impure sodium aluminum chloride with the voltaic pile, and obtained a gray, brittle, granular melt containing 10.3 per cent of silicon. When he dissolved away the aluminum, some shining platelets remained. 

Wohler was always greatly interested in new elements. Soon after Berzelius discovered selenium in Swedish sulfuric acid, Wohler found that the Bohemian acid also contained it. Soon after Professor F. Stromeyer discovered cadmium, young Wohler sent him some that he had prepared from zinc. Wohler s great ambition was to make potassium, but since his voltaic pile made of alternate layers of Russian copper coins and zinc... 

In his original design Volta stacked couples of unlike metals one upon another in order to increase the intensity of the current. This arrangement became known as the "voltaic pile." He studied many metallic combinations and was able to arrange the metals in an "electromotive series" in which each nielal was positive when connected to the one below it in the series. Volta s pile was the precursor of modem batteries. 

In 1800. William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle decomposed water into hydrogen and oxygen by an electric current supplied by a voltaic pile. Whereas Volta had pruduced electricity from chemical action these experimenters reversed the process and utilized electricity to produce chemical changes. In 1807. Sir Humphry Davy discovered two new elements, potassium and sodium, by the electrolysis of ihe respective solid hydroxides, utilizing a voltaic pile as the source of electric power. These electrolytic processes were the forerunners of the many industrial electrolytic processes used today to obtain aluminum, chlorine, hydrogen, or oxygen, for example, or in die electroplating of metals such as silver or chromium. 

And now we must endeavour to find some additional proof of the general character and composition of water and for this purpose I will keep you a little longer, so that at our next meeting we may be better prepared for the subject. We have the power of arranging the zinc which you have seen acting upon the water by the assistance of an acid, in such a manner as to cause all the power to be evolved in the place where we require it I have behind me a voltaic pile, and I am just about to shew you, at the end of this lecture, its character and power, that you may see what... 

A book describing the development of chemistry in Britain over the period 1760-1820 in relation to the contemporary social context makes repeated reference to analytical chemistry. One of the themes developed is that chemistry in general, and analytical chemistry in particular, was seen as a means to social improvement through its applications in agricultural chemistry and mineral analysis. The availability and relative simplicity of much of the apparatus (e.g. the portable laboratories referred to earlier) meant that the appropriate analyses could be widely performed. Chemical analysis also held out the prospect of advances in medicine by applying both simple techniques and the latest technology, especially the voltaic pile, to attempts to analyse body fluids.335... 

His "Voltaic pile", a stack of zinc and silver disks separated by a wet cloth containing a salt or a weak acid solution, was the first battery known to Western civilization. 

Humphry Davy and the Voltaic Pile Laws and Order... 

Since 1803, when Ritter invented the voltaic pile, rechargeable batteries have been known to exist [5]. The big breakthrough came in 1859, when Plante introduced the lead-acid battery [6]. Until today, this kind of secondary battery has been the most well-known electrochemical device. It is omnipresent in every car as a starter battery and also plays an important role in stationary energy storage (e.g. for uninterruptable power supplies). 

After earlier experiments with static electricity and with Franklin128 fishing for thunderbolts, electrochemistry was born with Galvani s129 electrostatic stimulation of deceased frog muscles in 1791 and Volta s130 development of the "voltaic pile." The methodical and routine study of current versus voltage... 

Soon this boy added chemistry to hie list of hobbies. Through his father he met a friend who had a rich library and a private chemical laboratory where he obtained permission to work. He built voltaic piles out of zinc plates and some old Russian copper coins he had collected. The master of the German mint presented him with an old furnace in which, with the aid of his sister to blow the bellows, he would build a roaring fire. And while he experimented he burned his fingers with phosphorus, and on another occasion was almost killed when a flask containing poisonous chlorine cracked in his hands. 

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