Electric battery

Electricity and history of the battery 

Electricity has fascinated humankind since our ancestors first witnessed lightning.

• In ancient Greece, Thales (640-546) observed that an electric charge could be generated by rubbing amber, for which the Greek word is elektron.
• The German physicist Otto von Guericke (1602-1686) experimented with generating electricity in 1650.
• The English physicist Stephen Gray (1670-1736) discovered electrical conductivity in 1729, and
• the American statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) studied the properties of electricity by conducting his famous experiment of flying a kite with a key attached during electrical storms.

Who invented the electric battery? 

The first workable device for generating a consistent flow of electricity was invented around 1799 by the Italian inventor Alessandro Volta (1745-1827). Alessandro Volta' s discovery of a means of converting chemical energy into electrical energy formed the basis for nearly all modern batteries.

Alessandro Volta 's work on electric battery

Beginning his work in 1793, Alessandro Volta observed the electrical interaction between two different metals submerged near each other in an acidic solution. Based on this principle, Alessandro Volta' s first battery consisted of a series of alternating copper and zinc rings in an acid solution known as an electrolyte. Alessandro Volta called his invention a column battery, although it came to be commonly known as the Volta battery or Voltaic cell.

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