It’s hard to imagine a life without batteries, it has become such a great deal of our daily lives that most would be lost without them. Whether they power your cell phone, laptop, smartwatch, or vehicle, more and more individuals become constant consumers of your everyday battery. The question stands: where do batteries come from, and where are they going?
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History of batteries
The term battery was first used by Benjamin Franklin, who produced a mere set of capacitors he had wired in a series, according to Phys.org. It enabled him to produce a much higher amount of voltage. This was not close to what we now know as batteries today. In the eighteen hundreds, a man by the name of Allesandro Volta stacked copper and zinc discs divided by cloth that had been placed in saltwater. It was then referred to as the Voltaic Pile and was one of the first moderately dependable constant sources of electricity. Allesandro Volta Was born in the town of Como, Italy on 18 February 1745. As a scholar, Allessandro Volta showed much interest in electricity and science. At this stage, no one knew much about electricity and ambitions weren’t high. At this time, someone else by the name of William Cruickshank designed a newer improved version of the Voltaic Pile. It was designed to be on its side in a box with slots for the cells. It was a much more stable and consistent approach and was known as the Troth Battery.
Modern day batteries
We no longer think of batteries in this way, even though they laid the foundation on which modern-day batteries were built. We now only think of lithium-ion batteries or small sealed lead-acid batteries that power our cell phones, vehicles, and many other electronics we regularly use.
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Battery Production
The production of today's batteries is somewhat of a large industry. Think about it - this industry supplies power to pretty much most of our daily lives. There are many difficult yet perfected steps in the battery-making process, many of which no one without the knowledge and experience can accomplish. The battery production process starts off with about 5 kg soft steel compressed into a metal sheet approximately two kilometers long, they’re then compressed using a significant four hundred tons of pressure.
The foil strip is then separated into smaller sizes that are easier to handle as many batteries are still made by people and not only by machines. After this, the metal sheet is coated with a slurry made up of Cathode/Anode active material, crushed into a fine powder, and then mixed with methyl-2 Pyrrolidinone. The mixing process can take up to a few hours, and without the proper seals, it can get very messy. These seals are what's keeping everything together and are also serving a much larger purpose, get the facts here to know all about it. The slurry is then applied to the compressed metal sheets, after which it goes into an oven to set the coating. The set metals are then cut into smaller pieces similar in size; they are fixed together and within a shell. It is then further assembled and prepared for electrifying work.
We rarely think about batteries, except when we realize we don’t have any. They are a unique, important part of our lives and are underappreciated by many. The value of this tiny piece of ingenuity powering your smart device is most probably the only way you're reading this article. So there you have it, explained in the simplest terms possible, the life of the battery.
