What is Electric Battery ?

It had a short shelf life, and about 1881 Émile Alphonse Faure developed batteries using a mixture of lead oxides for the positive plate electrolyte with faster reactions and higher efficiency. In 1900, Thomas Alva Edison developed the nickel storage battery, and in 1905 the nickel-iron battery. During World War II the mercury cell was produced.

The small alkaline battery was introduced in 1949. In the 1950s the improved alkaline-manganese battery was developed. In 1954 the first solar battery or solar cell was introduced, and in 1956 the hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell was introduced. The 1960s saw the invention of the gel-type electrolyte lead-acid battery. Lithium-ion batteries, wafer thin and powering portable computers, cell phones, and space probes were introduced in the 1990s.

Computer chips and sensors now help prolong battery life and speed the charging cycle. Sensors monitor the temperature inside a battery as chemical reactions during the recharging cause it to heat up; microchips control the power flow during recharging so that current flows in rapidly when the batteries are drained and then increasingly slowly as the batteries become fully charged.

Another source of technical progress is nanotechnology; research indicates that batteries employing carbon nanotubes will have twice the life of traditional batteries

A battery is a device for converting chemical energy into electrical energy. Batteries can consist of a single voltaic cell or a series of voltaic cells joined to each other.

Batteries can be found everywhere in the world around us, from the giant batteries that provide electrical energy in spacecraft to the miniature batteries that power radios and penlights.

The correct use of the term battery is reserved for groups of two or more voltaic cells. The lead storage battery found in automobiles, for example, contains six voltaic cells.

Batteries can be classified as primary or secondary batteries (or cells). A primary battery is one designed to be used just once. When the battery has run down (produced all the energy it can), it is discarded. Secondary batteries, on the other hand, can be recharged and reused.

The best known example of a primary battery is probably the common dry cell invented by French engineer Georges Leclanché (1839–1882). The dry cell consists of a zinc container that supplies electrons to the battery; a carbon rod through which the electrons flow; and a moist paste of zinc chloride and ammonium chloride, which accepts the electrons produced from the zinc.

Technically, the zinc container is the anode (the electrode at which electrons are given up to a reaction) and the moist paste is the cathode (the electrode at which electrons are taken up from a reaction) in the cell. The Leclanché cell is called a dry cell because no liquid is present in it.

The dry cell runs down as the zinc can is slowly used up. At some point there is not enough zinc left to produce electrons at a useable rate. At that point, the dry cell is just thrown away.

Secondary cells. The secondary cell with which you are likely to be familiar is the lead storage battery found in automobiles. The lead storage battery usually consists of six voltaic cells connected to each other. The total amount of energy produced by the battery is equal to the sum of the electrical energy from the six cells. Since each cell produces about two volts, the total energy available from the cell is 12 volts.

As the lead storage battery is used, it runs down. That is, the lead plates in the battery are converted to lead sulfate. Unlike the dry cell, however, this process can be reversed. Electrical current can be passed back into the battery, and lead sulfate is changed back into lead.

If you could see the lead plates in a battery, you would see them slowly disappearing when the battery is being used and slowly reappearing when the battery is being recharged. Recharging occurs naturally when the automobile is operating and generating its own electricity or when a source of external current is provided in order to recharge the battery.

Battery Collection of voltaic cells that convert chemical energy into direct current (DC) electricity. The term is also commonly used for a single cell, particularly the dry, electrochemical cell used in electronic equipment.

Most primary cell batteries are not rechargeable; some types of primary cell – such as nickel-cadmium (Nicad) batteries – and all accumulators (storage batteries) can be recharged when a current passed through them in the reverse direction restores the original chemical state. A battery's capacity is normally measured in ampere-hours; one ampere-hour is equal to 3600 coulombs.

Electricity, as you probably already know, is the flow of electrons through a conductive path like a wire. This path is called a circuit.

Batteries have three parts, an anode (-), a cathode (+), and the electrolyte.

The cathode and anode (the positive and negative sides at either end of a traditional battery) are hooked up to an electrical circuit.

The chemical reactions in the battery causes a build up of electrons at the anode.

This results in an electrical difference between the anode and the cathode. You can think of this difference as an unstable build-up of the electrons.

The electrons wants to rearrange themselves to get rid of this difference.

But they do this in a certain way. Electrons repel each other and try to go to a place with fewer electrons.

In a battery, the only place to go is to the cathode. But, the electrolyte keeps the electrons from going straight from the anode to the cathode within the battery.

When the circuit is closed (a wire connects the cathode and the anode) the electrons will be able to get to the cathode. In the picture above, the electrons go through the wire, lighting the light bulb along the way.