Abstract
SCECONDARY batteries to store up currents of electricity in the form of chemical work promise to play so important a part in the ultimate adoption of the electric light, that improvements in their construction are of peculiar interest. The latest innovation is due to M. Faure, who has modified with great success the secondary battery of Gaston Plante by covering the surfaces of the lead plates with a coating of minium, thereby increasing their capacity manifold. This device possesses the additional advantage that it obviates the necessity of “forming” the cells by the tedious process of charging and discharging them for many days, as in Plante's batteries. Two sheets of lead are separately coated with minium and are rolled together in a spiral, being kept apart by a layer of felt, and are then placed in a vessel containing dilute acid. When a current is passed into this cell the minium on one plate is reduced to metallic lead that on the other is oxidised to the state of peroxide. These actions are reversed while the charged cell is discharging itself. According to M. Reynier one of these cells made large enough to weigh 75 kilograms may store up energy sufficient to furnish afterwards one-horse power of work for an hour.
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References
"Weitere Studien über die Entwicklung der einfachen Ascidien" (Arch. f. microsc Anat., vol. vii.).
"Zur Entwickelung der einfachen Ascidien" (Arch. f. microsc. Anat., vol. viii. 1872).
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Storing of Electricity . Nature 24, 68–69 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/024068b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/024068b0