Batteries & Fuel Cells
A history in pictures
1771-1800: The Galvani-Volta Controversy
Luigi Galvani
“Animal Electricity”
Alessandro Volta
1800: The First Battery (Voltaic Pile)
1801: Volta presenting his battery to Napoleon.
1800: Fathers of Electrolysis
Anthony Carlisle
William Nicholson
Johann Ritter
In 1800, electrolysis was discovered a few months after Volta’s battery.
It seems the discovery was simultaneously made by Nicholson & Ritter
in England and by Ritter in Silesia (now Poland) .
1821: The First Electric Motor
1835: The First BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle)
Michael Faraday
Sibrandus Stratingh
1836: The Grove Battery and the Daniel Battery
Grove’s Battery
Daniell’s Battery
John F. Daniel
Grove’s Battery provided more power than Volta’s battery but
leaked poisonous gas. Daniel’s battery was safer and was used in
the first telegraphs.
1838: Backwards Electrolysis
Christian Friedrich Schönbein
1839: First Fuel Cell (Grove’s “Gas Battery”)
Sir William Grove
1859: The Lead battery is invented
1887: The first full-scale electric car
Gaston Plante
Lead-Acid Battery
1888: Morrison’s electric car ran on 24 lead-acid battery
cells. Here it is shown at a Des Moines parade.
1889: Improved Fuel Cell
1897: Electric Taxis
1901: Nickel-Iron Rechargeable Battery (Edison Battery)
Mond & Langer’s Fuel Cell
1910: The Edison Battery is tried in a automobile
NY Electric Taxi
Edison with a 1912 Detroit Electric
1912: Rechargeable BEV
1939-1958: BEVs off market
1959: The Henney Kilowatt
1959: The Alkali Fuel Cell
1967: First Fuel Cell Vehicle
1965: A U.S. Army soldier
operates a portable drill
powered by an alkali fuel
cell.
Francis Thomas Bacon
with his Alkali Fuel cell.
Karl Kordesch rides his
alkali fuel cell motorbike.
1961-1969:The Apollo Project
Fuel cells are used to power the spacecraft computers and
life-support systems because they are safer than nuclear
and smaller than solar. The astronauts drink the water
that is produced from the electrolysis.
1975: BEV range to charge is still only 60 miles
1979: The fuel cell golf cart
1994: Fuel cell bus
1996: GM’s EV1
2007: GM Sequel and Tesla Roadster
Why choose cars for our project?
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/Gallery/Gallery0.html
pictures of scientists
http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/fuelcells/fc_types.html
types of fuel cells
http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/GroveBio.htm sir william grove
http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/nicholson.html
willliam nicholson
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarselectric2a.htm history of BEVs
http://americanhistory.si.edu/fuelcells/phos/pafcmain.htm fuel cell history