A Brief History of the Battery

The first electrochemical cell was developed at the end of the 18th Century by the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta. Early in the 19th Century, Michael Faraday made further breakthroughs in understanding electricity by showing how charged ions (positive cations and negative anions) are attracted to their opposite charge. Whilst early batteries had little practical application owing to their inability to supply current for a sustained period of time, later batteries exhibited enhanced reliability and had useful industrial applications. A major development came with the transition from wet cell batteries, which used liquid electrolytes and which were delicate and susceptible to leakage, to the more robust and less hazardous dry cell batteries, which used an electrolyte paste.