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Batteries and How They Work

 

Batteries date back to the time of the ancient Greek warlord king, Cyrus the Great. In fact, it is said that he once came back from the Persian war with an army of hundreds of thousands of men and had all of his baggage carried by his warriors to his capital on a pulley system which was covered with hollow reeds. The baggage was laden with weapons and other equipment and the apparatus was so immense that it took two years to move it all. The device he used was fashioned after the wires that connected the various departments of his government.

Batteries have come a long way since those first efforts by inventor. In the 16th century, the English philosopher defined electricity as the flow of a potential energy between two bodies that cancel out with an opposite and equal potential energy. Because of this, we now know that batteries are composed of two parts, a positive and negative cell, connected in series to form one cell in which the potential energy is stored. The new battery was created after a lot of study and experimentation and the first battery consisted of one cell, which was made up of lead plates covered with a metallic outer cover.

When two opposite ions touch on either side of the cell an electrical current passes between them. When the two ions touch an anode, however, an electric current is produced because the reverse charges of the ions oppose the same charge on the cathode. When a battery is created in this manner it is called a diode battery and the current produced is far higher than the flow of electricity between the cells. Batteries now can store large amounts of energy and move them to a specified location, where they become capable of discharging into a battery’s resting stage.