Primary Batteries—Introduction

Abstract

I do not intend to trace in this chapter the discovery and historical development of primary batteries. Those interested in these aspects will find a detailed authoritative account in books on this subject.(1,2) Some salient features are, however, worthy of note, since these indicate fundamental principles involved and ways in which basic problems have been approached, often by purely empirical methods. An outstanding feature of the primary battery is that its discovery around the turn of the eighteenth century was closely identified with the birth and the growth of the science of electrochemistry. This science and the power sources related to it will always be associated with the discoveries of the Italian scientist Volta (1800), who gave his name to the “voltaic pile” and the “volt.” The voltaic pile was constructed of disks of the electrochemically dissimilar metals silver and zinc, interleaved with absorbent paper saturated with the electrolyte, and provided the only source of direct current at that time. Devices of this kind enabled Nicholson and Carlisle to demonstrate the electrolysis of water (1800) and Faraday to derive his quantitative laws (1834) on which the whole science of electrochemistry is based. Using similar principles and the metals copper and zinc, Daniell (1836) produced his two-fluid cell, in which the cathode was immersed in copper sulfate solution and the anode in dilute sulfuric acid, the two electrolytes being separated by a porous partition.