History of Battery Storage Part Four

Lead batteries continue to dominate electricity for a while. However, while reliable they are cumbersome, removing the possibility of powering compact devices we take for granted nowadays. The history of battery storage seems frozen in time, dependent on lead-acid batteries, and varieties of wet cells. And then something dramatic happens.

Battery Storage History Takes a New Direction

The call was growing strong for a compact electric battery cell, that would become indispensable for flashlights, doorbells and the like. A leaky one with a liquid electrolyte was not the answer. What happened next changed the history of battery storage.

German physician Carl Gassner invents a dry version of the wet Leclanché cell in 1885. He modifies the free liquid electrolyte by immobilizing it in a plaster-of-paris binder, to which he adds hydrophilic chemicals and zinc chloride.
Frederik Louis Wilhelm Hellesen from Denmark produces a similar dry cell, with zinc and carbon electrodes in 1887 shortly after. A controversy remains whether he, or Carl Gassner came up with the idea first.
Japanese scientist Sakizō Yai also invents a dry cell battery in 1887, but fails to register a patent until 1892. He exhibits it at the World’s Columbian exposition in 1893, where it causes quite a stir.
Swedish scientist Ernst Waldemar Jungner produces the first alkaline battery in 1899. His design is the now-familiar nickel-cadmium electrode pair, in a potassium-hydroxide solution. This combination employs the first alkaline electrolyte.
However, Jungner’s high-energy density alkaline battery proves expensive, and only reaches the United States in 1946. NASA loves it though. They use it in their rockets and satellites throughout the 1960s and 1970’s.

We Have Come to the End of an Era

We have reached the end of a century, in which batteries travelled from humble beginnings to consumer items. We’ll re-enter the 20th century in a future post, because it is time to catch up with current news now.