Make Entry -- Become an Editor -- Most Popular: (10, 25, 50, 75, 100)

   Help

Voltaic Cell

A voltaic cell is a type of battery, and may refer to either a galvanic cell or a voltaic pile. The voltaic pile was invented in 1800 by Alessandro Volta, who discovered that certain metals and chemicals, placed in contact with one another, produce an electric current. (It's thought that the Bagdad Battery, an artifact over 1700 years old, worked on the same principle, though for unknown purposes.) The voltaic pile was used in the first electrolysis of water; later, Humphry Davy showed that the chemical reactions taking place in a voltaic pile created the electricity. Volta and others also discovered the dry pile shortly after the voltaic pile.

The Galvanic cell is much simpler than a voltaic pile; it consists only of two metals connected by a salt bridge. The Galvanic cell is referred to as a voltaic cell or an electrochemical cell. It was discovered by Luigi Galvani in 1780, who used the electricity generated to experiment with the nerves in a frog leg.

Instead of working with chemical reactions like the voltaic pile, the Galvanic cell depends on the two metals dissolving in their electrolyte at different rates, resulting in one metal being charged more negatively and polarizing the electrolyte. When a wire or direct contact is created between the two metals, an electric charge runs through it (electrons trying to equalize the polarity). The anode is the negative end, and the cathode the positive. When the anode is corroded, the current stops.

Web Resources On Voltaic Cell

How Batteries Work
Electrochemical Cells

Book Resources On Voltaic Cell

On the seat of the electromotive forces in the voltaic cell by Oliver Lodge
Electrochemical Studies of Batteries by Magdalena Nunez

Site Maps: Most Recent | Clusters | Browse
New: Graduate Student Job Opportunity