In the late 1700’s, professor of anatomy Luigi Galvani was doing experiments involving frog dissection. He noticed that the frog’s leg twitched when it was lying on a metal table and he touched it with his scalpel. He thought that the electricity originated from the frog, and called it animal electricity.
Later, Allesandro Volta was experimenting further with this, and discovered that no animal was needed to produce electricity! All you needed was two different metals connected by a salt solution. The first battery was made by Volta in about 1800. His battery, called the voltaic pile (shown at the right), was quite crude, but it generated continuous electrical current. He used alternating layers of silver, zinc, and blotting paper soaked in salt solution.
Battery evolution was quite rapid after that, with many people coming up with improvements and different kinds of batteries in a short period of time.
Voltaic Pile
How was the first battery made?
The first battery was made using alternating layers of silver, zinc, and blotting paper soaked in salt.
