Happy National Battery Day! On February 18th, get a charge out of today! Observed each year, the day serves to appreciate the convenience batteries provide to our everyday lives.
Click play below to hear the story on why National Day Calendar® celebrates National Battery Day.
Today we would be hard-pressed to find someone in the United States who doesn’t derive a benefit from a battery. Even those who live “off the grid” have battery-operated devices such as a flashlight, radio, or watch.
A battery changes chemical energy into electricity by bringing the different chemicals together in a specific order. When correctly ordered, the electrons will travel from one substance to another, creating an electrical current.
Long Road of the Battery
While battery manufacturing for everyday personal use developed in the last fifty to sixty years, archaeologists found evidence of a device that may have been used to electroplate gold onto silver, much like a battery would.
In 1936, during the construction of a new railway near Baghdad, a Parthian tomb was found. Austrian archaeologist and painter Wilhelm König found a clay jar containing a copper cylinder encasing an iron rod.
König suggested the find to be approximately two thousand years old! Benjamin Franklin first coined the term “battery” in 1748 to describe an array of charged glass plates.
1800
In 1800, Italian physicist, chemist, and pioneer of electricity and power Alessandro Volta layered silver, cloth, or paper soaked in salt or acid and zinc into what he called “voltaic piles.” The voltaic piles generated a limited electrical current.
From this, Volta proceeded to publish his work, and we get the word “volt” from his name to describe electric potential.
Scottish military surgeon and chemist, and professor of chemistry William Cruickshank, designed a battery for mass production in 1802.
Corrosion in batteries has always been an issue, but until English chemist and physicist John Frederic Daniell came along, it was much worse.
Daniell receives credit for developing a way to reduce corrosion when storing batteries. In 1820, he invented the Daniell Cell, which incorporated mercury, reducing the corrosion.
1896
Over time, various scientists and inventors developed gradual improvements to the battery. Then in 1896, the National Carbon Company (later known as the Eveready Battery Company) manufactured the first commercially available battery called the Columbia.
Two years later, National Carbon Company introduced the first D sized battery for the first flashlight.
The 1900s and beyond
Until 1957, watches needed to be wound routinely to keep time. Then in 1957, the Hamilton Watch Company introduced the first battery-operated watch.
Today batteries are available for numerous purposes. In our modern age, portable electricity isn’t something we think about every day because it is so easily accessible.
We charge the batteries on our phones by using the batteries in our cars as we travel down the road. We even have portable chargers that can charge our batteries where ever we are.
The variety of batteries change every day. Solar batteries recharge daily and store power in cells. They come in numerous sizes as well.
The variety of batteries change every day. Solar batteries recharge daily and store power in cells. They come in numerous sizes as well.
HOW TO OBSERVE
How many batteries do you rely on in your life? From your car to your smoke detectors, batteries are everywhere. Count the items in your home that use batteries. How often do you buy them? Do you have a battery charger?
Our phones, watches, hearing aids, all use batteries. Medical devices rely on them to keep people alive. They monitor our children as they sleep, and they serve as back up systems for our security and safety.
Batteries operate wheelchairs and keep lights bright for photography. In an emergency, batteries keep the phones going and point us in the right direction.
Use #NationalBatteryDay to post on social media.
HISTORY
National Battery Day commemorates the anniversary of Alessandro Volta’s birthday on February 18, 1745.
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