Powering Progress: The Remarkable Evolution of Batteries From Ancient Amber to Modern Technology

-Karthik Gurumurthy

I’m fascinated by how batteries evolved from simple experiments to the powerful devices we take for granted today.

The journey starts way back with ancient peoples who noticed static electricity – like when rubbing amber created attraction to other materials. The Greek philosopher Thales (around 600 BCE) was actually the first to formally explore this phenomenon. But then not much happened for about 2,000 years!

Things picked up in the 1650s when Otto von Guericke created stronger electrical charges by rolling sulfur balls on surfaces, producing sparks of light. About a century later, scientists in Leiden, Netherlands invented a simple capacitor called the Leyden jar – essentially a glass jar with water or mercury and a metal rod that could store electrical charge. Touch the rod and ZAP! – you’d get a strong shock as all the electricity discharged at once.

Benjamin Franklin was fascinated by these Leyden jars and noticed the noise they made when discharging reminded him of thunder. This led to his famous (and incredibly dangerous!) kite experiment in 1752, where he flew a kite with a metal key during a thunderstorm to prove lightning was electrical in nature. When the key gave him a shock, he confirmed electricity could travel through air.

The real battery breakthrough came in 1800 when Alessandro Volta created the first true electric battery. Unlike the Leyden jar that discharged all at once, Volta’s battery provided a steady, flowing current. His first version was pretty wild – bowls of salt water with metal strips forming bridges between them! Each strip had copper at one end and tin or zinc at the other. Soon after, he made a more practical “voltaic pile” with stacked discs of copper, zinc, and cardboard soaked in saline solution.

Around 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted discovered the connection between electricity and magnetism, showing that an electric current could move a magnetic needle. Ten years later, scientists found that magnets could also produce electricity – the principle behind modern power plants where spinning coils in magnetic fields generate our electricity.

Today’s batteries come in two main types:

1. Dry-cell batteries (like the AAA, AA, C, and D batteries we use in flashlights and remotes) typically contain a cathode made of manganese oxide and an anode made of zinc, with an alkaline electrolyte paste. When these materials mix, the zinc loses electrons that transfer to the manganese oxide, creating an electric current. The larger the battery, the longer it provides power.
2. Wet-cell (or storage) batteries, like the ones in our cars, contain liquid acid electrolyte. A car battery consists of six connected 2-volt cells that produce a total of 12 volts – powerful enough to turn a starter motor. Each cell has plates of lead peroxide and sponge lead sitting in sulfuric acid. Both plate types react with the electrolyte to form lead sulfate, releasing electrons that flow through the circuit. The car’s generator recharges the battery by reversing this chemical reaction.

It’s amazing to think that these chemical reactions that convert chemical energy to electrical energy power so much of our modern world – from the tiny batteries in our watches to the powerful ones starting our cars. And it all began with people noticing that rubbed amber could attract things!