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Portable Power: The Invention of Batteries

It may be hard to believe, but the holidays are right around the corner – and with them comes the biggest shopping season of the year. As was the case in the past few years, electronics like MP3 players and digital cameras are sure to fly off the shelves this year. And if some scientists in Singapore have their way, you may be powering up your electronics in a whole new way in the future. As a preface to the holiday season, InventHelp® presents a new twist on the powerful little inventions that keep our cameras flashing and our music flowing – batteries.

You probably never realized that taking that first bathroom break in the morning may be flushing a valuable source of energy right down the toilet. That's because recently, a group of scientists in Singapore have found a way to power batteries with...urine. Ki Bang Lee, PhD, MS, is a principal research scientist at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, where the battery was developed.

The battery sandwiches copper, paper laced with copper chloride, and magnesium between two plastic layers. The "sandwich" is later laminated.

"When a droplet of human urine is added into the battery...the urine soaks through the paper between the magnesium and copper layers. The chemicals dissolve and react to produce the electricity," writes Lee and colleagues. The battery could be used in home-based health kits, they suggest.

Truly, batteries have come a long way since their invention. Americans purchase more than 3 billion batteries a year, which go on to power our radios, watches and power tools, just to name a few.

Alessandro Volta invented the first practical method for generating steady, reliable electricity. Inventors William Robert Grove and John F. Daniel improved the design, creating power cells that were safer and less corrosive than the Volta cell.

The alkaline batteries that we use so often today were invented by Lew Urry. The alkaline batteries lasted five to seven times longer than other batteries of the era. Imagine how often you'd have to replace your digital camera battery without Urry's invention!

In 1859, French inventor Gaston Plante invented the first practical storage lead-acid battery that could be recharged. This is the same type of battery that is still used in modern cars. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) use a different type of battery that stores chemical energy in rechargeable packs.

While most true BEVs have been pulled from the market and destroyed by their manufacturers (triggering quite a few conspiracy theories), cars that use both electrical battery power and an internal combustion engine (hybrids) are readily available and very popular. The hybrids can get up to 60 miles a gallon in the city, where the constant stop-and-start motion is actually beneficial because the battery recharges when the brake is depressed – but try telling that to rush-hour commuters!

In 1954, Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller and Daryl Chapin had a really "bright" idea, literally, when they invented the first solar battery. Like a hybrid vehicle, a solar battery is considered environmentally friendly because it converts the sun's energy into electricity.

Although the sun is more than 150 million kilometers away, it is amazingly powerful. In fact, every minute, enough energy arrives at the Earth to meet our demands for a whole year – if only we could harness it properly. And while solar energy is free, the accompanying technology is very expensive to develop. More technological advances and inventions are needed before solar energy becomes the norm.

InventHelp® hopes that you've found this story on the history of batteries energizing. As you arrange travel plans, shop and prepare to reunite with friends and family, we wish you the best of luck in finding the energy to make it through the holidays!

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