Figure 19. — Callaud's version of theDaniell cell. 

 From R. Wormell, Electricity in the Service of 

 Man, London and New York, 1886, p. 401. 



(^> 



V 



Figure 20. — Shape of the electrodes in a Grove 

 cell. After G. B. Prescott, History, Theory, and 

 Practice of the Electric Telegraph, Boston, i860, 

 P- 29, fig. 9. 



Despite its strong fumes, the Bunsen cell was widely 

 used. 



The Daniell and Grove cells avoided polarization 

 by the use of two solutions. Other nonpolarizing 

 cells using only a single solution also were invented. 

 Alfred Smee '* made such a single-solution cell by 

 placing a pair of amalgamated zinc plates in dilute 

 sulfuric acid with a platinum (later silver) plate 

 covered with finely divided platinum (figs. 23, 24). 

 While the voltage of Smee's cell was only about half 

 a volt, it had the advantage of a low cost of mainte- 

 nance and could be used for open-circuit work where 

 there was a very light drainage of current. Bunsen 

 in 1841^" and R. Warrington in 1842 215 invented 

 one-solution cells that eliminated polarization by 

 using zinc and carbon electrodes in a bichromate 

 and sulfuric acid solution (fig. 25). About the same 

 time J. C. Poggendorff tried a chromic acid cell 

 in his laboratory. ^^ The Poggendorff cell gave about 

 two volts, and its low internal resistance enabled it 

 to give high currents for a short period of time. The 

 cell recovered its low resistance on open circuit. 

 Grenet, a Frenchman, devised a bottle version of the 

 chromic acid cell that was widely used in the 1860's 

 (fig. 26). This is the cell that one sees in so many of 

 the physics textbooks of the second half of the 19th 

 century. 



After midcentury, when electricity was beginning 

 to pass from the laboratory stage to that of industrial 

 application, more rugged versions of the voltaic cell 

 appeared. The development of a storage battery 

 began in 1859 when Gaston Plante decided to compare 

 the polarization resulting from solid films on electrodes 

 of various metals. ^^ With his discovery that lead 

 electrodes gave a more intense and longer-lasting 

 secondary current than electrodes of other metals. 



'•i Alfred Smee, "On the Galvanic Properties of the MetalUc 

 Elementary Bodies, with a Description of a New Chemico- 

 Mechanical Battery," Philosophical Magazine, 1840, vol. 16, 

 pp. 315-321. 



3= Bunsen, op. cit. (footnote 33), and "Spectralanalytische 

 Untersuchungen," Annalen der Physik, 1875, vol. 155, pp. 230- 

 252. 



36 R. Warrington, "On the Employment of Chromic Acid 

 as an Agent in Voltaic Arrangements," Philosophical Magazine, 

 1842, vol. 20, pp. 393-395; Leeson, in Philosophical Magazine, 

 1842, vol. 20, p. 262. 



3' J. C. Poggendorff, "Uber die mit Chromsaure konstruirten 

 galvanischen Ketten," Annalen der Physik, 1842, vol. 57, pp. 101- 

 111. 



38 Gaston Plante "Note sur la polarisation voltai'que," 

 Academic des Sciences, Paris, Comples rendus, 1859, vol. 49, 

 pp. 402-405. 



PAPER 28: DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRICAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE 19TH CENTURY: I 



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