History of Electricity

Alessandro Volta (1799 - Voltaic pile)

Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was an Italian physicist credited with the invention of the first electrical battery, the Voltaic pile, which he invented in 1799 and the results of which he reported in 1800 in a two part letter to the President of the Royal Society.

In announcing his discovery of the voltaic pile (the voltaic pile was the first electrical battery that could continuously provide an electrical current to a circuit.), Volta paid tribute to the influences of William Nicholson, Tiberius Cavallo, and Abraham Bennet.
The battery made by Volta is credited as the first electrochemical cell. It consists of two electrodes: one made of zinc, the other of copper. The electrolyte is either sulfuric acid mixed with water or a form of saltwater brine.The zinc, which is higher in the electrochemical series than both copper and hydrogen, reacts with the negatively charged sulfate. The positively charged hydrogen ions (protons) capture electrons from the copper, forming bubbles of hydrogen gas, H2. This makes the zinc rod the negative electrode and the copper rod the positive electrode.

The SI unit of electric potential is named in his honour as the volt.

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