Gaston Planté
Gaston Planté is the inventor of the lead-acid battery. It was in 1859 when this French physicist invented this first rechargeable battery which is also one of the most commercially available batteries today. His invention is regarded as the most successful secondary cell of all ages.
Life as a Scientist
Gaston Planté was born on April 22, 1834 in Ortez, France. It was in 1854 when he began his career as an assistant lecturer in physics at the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Paris, France. Six years later, he became a Professor of Physics at the Polytechnic Association for the Development of Popular Instruction. A year after his invention of the lead-acid battery, Planté presented a more improved nine-cell lead-acid battery model to the Academy of Sciences. In 1879 he published the book entitled Recherches sur l’Electricité.
Planté’s scientific research and experiments on lead-acid battery further lead him to the discovery of the Rheostatic Machine, a mechanical device that uses a bank of capacitors arranged in series capable of producing higher DC voltages.
About His Invention
His original version of the lead-acid battery consisted of two sheets of lead (used as electrodes), separated by cloth which is rolled into a spiral (used as separator), and immersed in a 10% sulfuric acid 90% water solution (used as electrolytes). His invention is sometimes referred to as “lead-acid accumulator”. During his experiment using a switch, Planté discovered that when the switch is off, the current still flows through the acid. At this point, he noticed that one of the electrodes became coated with lead oxide (PbO2) while the other retained its natural lead surface. When the switch is turned on, the electric current flows from the electrodes going to the system (or load).
More improvements in the lead-acid battery’s construction and design followed years after Planté’s invention. It was Camille Faure who made a significant improvement when he further increased its capacity. Planté and Faure’s remarkable inventions and work lead to the industrial scale manufacturing of lead-acid batteries, the most common application of which today is as SLI battery in our cars.
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