This may be your most intriguing battery read for some time. Our source is a rather ancient Russian academic website we link to below. This source claims the Jacobi lead battery was operating in Russia before Planté created his secondary battery in France. And that both comprised of lead plates immersed in water-diluted sulfuric acid. The Russian article includes some intriguing images we include in this post.
Operating Principles of the Jacobi Lead Battery
The prototype Jacobi lead battery appeared in 1860, so it’s evident the Russian and the Frenchman were in a tight race. The article describes how “current only flows when connected to an external source. But the intensity depends on the resistance of the conductor completing the circuit”.
The academic paper explains how “the surface of the electrodes is given such a shape that on the one hand the substances released from the electrodes are held firmly on their surface. While the gases released during the discharge can freely circulate along the surface without tearing off the deposited products”.
In the diagram below “a common strip connecting the positive electrodes represents the positive pole of the cell. While the same strip connecting the negative electrodes will represent the negative pole”.
“The groups of electrodes assembled in this way are inserted into a glass or lead-lined wooden vessel,” the academic article continues. “But in such a way that the plates do not touch the bottom and that there is no metal connection between the positive and negative electrodes.” The diagram above shows one of these “elements in a glass vessel”.
Disclaimer and Reaching Out for Advice
We’d be the first to admit our Russian is non-existent, and we had to rely on the bots at Google translation. None the less, we hope our article provides fresh insights into the minds of early battery scientists. Should we call a truce on the basis Jacobi and Planté pioneered the lead battery simultaneously, do you think? But they never knew of each other on the ‘far side of the world’.
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