The "Ideal" Battery 



By A. R. MacPherson 



TO the experimenter in the field of 

 electro-chemistry there is much 

 unexplored knowledge which in 

 time will prove of inestimable value to 

 the chemistry of commerce, particularly 

 in the methods of generating electricity 

 through chemical actions, which at the 

 present day, though apparently satisfac- 

 tory, are very inefficient. There are 

 scores of patents on devices for generat- 

 ing electricity chemically, but the ma- 

 jority are lacking in the fundamental 

 principles necessary to the attainment of 

 an efficient commercial product. 



The primary cell to be realized is one 

 in which carbon and oxygen are the ele- 

 ments consumed, a much greater amount 

 of energy being obtained if these two 

 elements unite, with the production of 

 an electric current. No other form of 

 energy, such as heat or polarization, to 

 impair the efficiency of the cell, would 

 be manifest. The problem is to find an 

 electrolyte which wall dissolve the car- 

 bon as ions and to construct the neces- 

 sary oxygen electrode; thus, the two op- 



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posite poles of the cell would carry on 

 the reaction through the intervening 

 electrolyte and no local action would be 

 produced. All of the energy of the cell 



Diagram illustrating the arrangement and 

 connections of plates for oxidizing process 



View showing Jablockkoff 's cell arranged 

 over a furnace 



would be dissipated if the carbon and 

 oxygen acted directly on each other. 



The author has carried out a series of 

 experiments in this field involving the 

 production of an electric current through 

 the action of an electrolyte on zinc 

 plates, the carbons forming the positive 

 pole. Only the carbon plates were acted 

 upon, in that the oxygen stored up with- 

 in the pores of the carbon was set free, 

 this action considerably increasing the 

 current strength of the battery. 



The oxygen was impregnated in the 

 pores by an oxidizing process in which 

 the battery of carbon and zinc plates 

 was immersed in a solution consisting of 

 chromic acid, chrome alum, and sul- 

 phuric acid, the plates being connected 

 in parallel to an outside source of cur- 

 rent giving about twenty amperes. Af- 

 ter allowing the current to run through 

 the cells for fifteen or twenty minutes 

 the battery was removed from the solu- 

 tion, washed, and immersed in the elec- 

 trolyte, which was a simple salt solution. 

 The E. AI. F. produced for a short pe- 

 riod was more than double the strength 

 of the regular action in which the car- 

 bons had not received this oxidizing 

 treatment. It is probable that the salt 

 solution acts on the zinc, releasing hy- 



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