First, Last?
The first real practical use of electricity’s source was what people today
believe is the “holy grail” of the electric system: the battery.
The earliest recorded battery was discovered roughly 2,000 years ago in what
is now the Iran/Iraq area. In 1745, Dutch physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek
invented the first electrical capacitor, called the "Leyden Jar," which was used
to store static electricity. In 1748, Benjamin Franklin described the use of
multiple Leyden jars in a series. He used the term "battery" to describe that grouped set of electrical devices. To
him, it looked like a battery of cannons. In fact the current symbol for a battery in a circuit diagram originated as
a drawing of the earliest type of battery, a voltaic pile.
In 1800, Alessandro Volta described the first electrochemical battery. It was a stack of copper and zinc plates,
separated by brine-soaked paper disks that could produce a steady current. He did not know that the current
was due to chemical reactions consuming the materials. Volta thought this was an inexhaustible source of
energy and that the associated corrosion effects at the electrodes were a mere nuisance.
These batteries were great for experiments, but their voltages fluctuated and did not provide a sustained large
current. In 1836, John F. Daniell, a British chemist, invented the first practical source of electricity. His invention
saw widespread adoption in telegraph networks. It used a copper pot filled with copper sulfate and an unglazed
earthenware container filled with sulfuric acid and a zinc electrode. We call these liquid electrolytes.
Unfortunately, leakage and spillage created portability problems. It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century and
the invention of dry-cell batteries that portable electrical devices became practical.
Along with the concepts of electromagnetics used by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail in America and by Charles
Wheatstone and William Cooke in England in the late 1830s, the first real practical use of electricity was the
telegraph. Telegraph operators used batteries for the electric current. The long distances of telegraphs required
relatively high voltage and low current. Batteries were used because even Michael Faraday and his “generator”
were still not efficient. It wasn’t until about 1866 that electric generators were powerful enough for practical
applications (but that is for another day).
We have been working to improve battery capacity and cost performance ever since. Invented in 1859 by
Gaston Plante, the lead acid battery (today’s car battery) is probably the best known and was for the longest
time the best performing. The lead acid battery was the first rechargeable battery. In 1866, Georges Leclanche
invented the zinc-carbon, the first true dry cell and the best known portable battery. The nickel-cadmium
battery (alkaline battery) provided better energy density than the zinc-carbon. Today’s lithium ion battery is the
highest density battery in regular use. Some people are working on a utility scale battery using liquid metals.
So the first practical source of electricity was from an electrochemical reaction and made possible portable
devices that would take 100 years before we could make them portable. As we look to the future, the battery
can be a game-changer in either distributed generation or utility operations. Next, we will explore transforming
mechanical energy into electricity!
Read more from Carl on our website. Questions and comments can be emailed to communication@spp.org.