From the mobile phone to the remote control, from the tablet to the gamepad of various video games: if the battery (or battery if you prefer) had never been invented, our life today would be decidedly different.
It was our Alessandro Volta , back in 1880, who made one of those inventions that changed the life of human beings.
In spite of its importance, however, few people know the history of the battery and how it works. That is why today we try to discover everything together.
The birth of the electric battery
As mentioned, its invention is due to Alessandro Volta who, based on the studies carried out by several scientists before him, succeeded in creating the first artificial generator of electricity, the battery.
From the end of the 1860s, Volta began writing memoirs and letters on his research activities, questioning some of the most accredited interpretations of electrical phenomena at the time. In 1775 he developed his first notable invention: the perpetual electrophorus . It was an instrument consisting of a disc with a perpendicular handle to hold it and used together with an insulating surface and a woolen cloth to obtain an electric charge to be used in particular experiments.
Starting from the studies of several contemporaries, Volta also invented the capacitor, the electricity capacitor which represents the first prototype of the electric cell.
All the discoveries of the Lombard scientist made it possible to exploit electrical phenomena and to measure electricity in a more scientific and accurate way, with the proposal to introduce standard measures.
The real turning point came between 1799 and 1800 , when Volta created and perfected the invention that would make him famous all over the world: the battery.
As mentioned, it was not a sudden discovery, but a discovery resulting from long years of previous studies and observations, based in particular on animal electricity and the related theories of another Italian, Luigi Galvani who, simplifying, claimed that animals were crossed by an "electrical fluid" and that this electricity was produced by the brain and then carried by the nerves to the muscles where it was stored.
Alessandro Volta took his cue from Galvani's hypothesis but, at the same time, disputed it, arguing that the animal could not be the direct cause of the current passage. This insight was fundamental to the development of the battery. Volta elaborated several experiments to produce a battery that was capable of producing a constant electric current.
The final version consisted of a column of zinc disks alternating with copper disks, with an intermediate layer of cardboard soaked in salt water (or made acid). In the system, each disk creates a potential difference between the metal and the solution, in the case of zinc and copper it is the first to assume the most negative potential. Therefore, by connecting the two poles with an electrical conductor, a circuit was created in which direct current passed.
Alessandro Volta's battery was the first system capable of generating electricity with a constant current over time . The name derives from the fact that the metal discs that made it work were “stacked” one on top of the other.
It was Volta himself, on March 20, 1880, who communicated his invention to the Royal Society of London with a letter that gave him great fame.
Until 1869 - the year of the invention of the dynamo - the battery was the only means of producing electricity (then mainly used for the telegraph).
The system on which the electric cell was based in the nineteenth century was quite simple and, as mentioned, consisted of a single column built from various voltaic elements. This type of battery could be charged and held electricity for a limited period of time.
Nowadays the electric cell is very different from that of the 1800s - both from an aesthetic point of view and from the point of view of its functioning - and it works by converting chemical energy into electrical energy.
The batteries on the market today are called dry cells because the liquid solution, that is the electrolyte, is replaced by pasty substances in which a cylindrical carbon stick is immersed which replaces the copper. The whole is placed in a zinc container which also serves as a negative pole.
In addition to the dry cell, there are also other batteries on the market such as alkaline cells that are made differently from that of the dry cell and that have greater performance in terms of duration and efficiency.
