What is a Volta battery and how does it work

there Volta stackCreated by Alexander Volta In the 1799It constitutes the predecessor of the modern electric battery, The first electricity generator. It is composed of a column of three repeating elements: zinc discs, copper discs, and a middle layer of cardboard soaked in salt water. This stack is inspired by A Galvani experiment What does this have to do with… Dead frog legs! But how does it work and what do frogs have to do with it?

Origins of the Volta battery: Galvani experiment

Invented in 1799 by Alexander VoltaThe Volta battery is the result of a series of experiments on electricity in response to certain measurements made by a physiologist and anatomist Luigi Galvani. And the last one discovered it The dead frog's muscles contracted If we touch one A pair of electrodes. Galvani postulated the existence of a specific fluid in animals, a type of animal electricity.

This phenomenon interested Volta, who studied it and concluded that the movement of the frog's muscles is just movement Current flow indicator, which is a kind of natural measuring instrument. In fact, he noticed that the frog's muscular movement was amplified in the presence of… Electrodes from different materials This phenomenon did not occur with all materials. He therefore understood that it was the electrodes themselves placed in contact that generated this impulse, not the hypothetical Galvani fluid.

However, Volta and Galvani were partly right: the metals chosen were basic, Volta claimed, but the electric current was generated by chemical reactions between the electrodes and the frog's flesh. Later, Volta was able to replicate the phenomenon without using animal bodies, and was able to build what is known as the Volta battery. But how does it work?

Volta battery operation

name pile It comes from giving more Nested elements, stacked on top of each other. Each element consists of Three discs of different materials: one of copperone of Cardboard soaked in salt waterpart of Zinc. The central disc acts as a conductor and allows electrical charges to pass between the two metal discs of copper and zinc, which act as electrodes.

Thanks to redox reactions, a Potential discrepancies Electricity between the two electrodes, and by connecting the two electrodes via a metal wire, this is created Direct current. Volta also realized that the greater the number of elements connected in series, the The more stress there is Between the two extremes.

Nowadays, some of the batteries we use have a process similar to Volta batteries: the so-called dry batteries, Which does not contain liquids. Some of the most common examples include: zinc carbon batteries, the Alkaline batteries And the Button batteriesUsed to operate calculators and watches.