Paper, 'A new form of gas battery' by Ludwig Mond and Carl Langer

Description

The authors write: 'In January, 1839, now over fifty years ago, Mr (now Lord Justice) Grove published the first notice of his startling discovery—the gas battery. This he followed up in 1842, 1843, and 1845 by three important papers, two of which were read before this Society [...] Grove states that he never thought of the gas battery as a practical means of generating voltaic power, but, nevertheless, he indicates clearly in what directions improvements with this object should be attempted, viz., by extending as much as possible the surface of contact between the gases, the absorbent and the electrolyte.We have been engaged for several years with investigations on gas batteries, which fully corroborate Grove’s view, but show that he, as well as later investigators, overlook one important point, viz., the necessity of maintaining the condensing power of the absorbent unimpaired. We found that platinum black, the most suitable absorbent for gas batteries, loses its condensing power almost completely as soon as it gets wet, and that it is therefore necessary for our purpose to keep it comparatively dry. All attempts to attain this with various constructions of the gas battery involving the use of a liquid electrolyte failed. We have only succeeded by using an electrolyte in a quasi-solid form, viz., soaked up by a porous non-conducting material, in a similar way as has been done in the so-called dry piles and batteries.'

Annotations in pencil and ink throughout.

Subject: Physics

Received 13 June 1889. Read 20 June 1889. Communicated by Lord Rayleigh [John William Strutt].

A version of this paper was published in volume 46 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'A new form of gas battery'.

Reference number

PP/14/24

Earliest possible date

1889

Physical description

Ink and graphite pencil on paper

Page extent

17 pages

Format

Typescript