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Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (UK: / ˈ v ɒ l t ə /, US: / ˈ v oʊ l t ə /; Italian: [alesˈsandro ˈvɔlta]; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian chemist and physicist who was a pioneer of electricity and power, [1] [2] [3] and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane.
Alessandro Volta's theory of contact tension considered that the emf, which drives the electric current through a circuit containing a voltaic cell, occurs at the contact between the two metals. Volta did not consider the electrolyte, which was typically brine in his experiments, to be significant.
A galvanic cell consists of two half-cells, such that the electrode of one half-cell is composed of metal A, and the electrode of the other half-cell is composed of metal B; the redox reactions for the two separate half-cells are thus: A n + + n e − ⇌ A B m + + m e − ⇌ B. The overall balanced reaction is: m A + n B m + ⇌ n B + m A n +
In 1842, Grove developed the first fuel cell (which he called the gas voltaic battery), which produced electrical energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen, and described it using his correlation theory. [3] In developing the cell and showing that steam could be disassociated into oxygen and hydrogen, and the process reversed, he was the first ...
Daniell cells, 1836. The Daniell cell is a type of electrochemical cell invented in 1836 by John Frederic Daniell, a British chemist and meteorologist, and consists of a copper pot filled with a copper (II) sulfate solution, in which is immersed an unglazed earthenware container filled with sulfuric acid and a zinc electrode.
In 1800, Volta invented the first true battery, storing and releasing a charge through a chemical reaction instead of physically, which came to be known as the voltaic pile. The voltaic pile consisted of pairs of copper and zinc discs piled on top of each other, separated by a layer of cloth or cardboard soaked in brine (i.e., the electrolyte ).
A 1919 illustration of a Leclanché cell. The Leclanché cell is a battery invented and patented by the French scientist Georges Leclanché in 1866. [1] [2] [3] The battery contained a conducting solution (electrolyte) of ammonium chloride, a cathode (positive terminal) of carbon, a depolarizer of manganese dioxide (oxidizer), and an anode (negative terminal) of zinc (reductant).
The cell was able to generate about 12 amperes of current at about 1.8 volts. This cell had nearly double the voltage of the first Daniell cell. Grove's nitric acid cell was the favourite battery of the early American telegraph (1840–1860), because it offered strong current output.