Gaston Planté (22 April 1834 – 21 May 1889) was a French

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

who invented the lead–acid battery in 1859. This type battery was developed as the first

rechargeable A rechargeable battery, storage battery, or secondary cell (formally a type of energy accumulator), is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to a disposable or prim ...

electric battery An electric battery is a source of electric power consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections for powering electrical devices. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode and its nega ...

marketed for commercial use and it is widely used in automobiles. Planté was born on 22 April 1834 in Orthez,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. In 1854 he began work as an assistant lecturer in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

at the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

. In 1860 he was promoted to the post of Professor of Physics at the Polytechnic Association for the Development of Popular Instruction. An amphitheatre at that institute is named after him. In 1855, Planté discovered the first fossils of the prehistoric flightless bird '' Gastornis parisiensis'' (named after him) near

. This gigantic animal was a very close relative of the famous diatrymas of North America. At that time, Planté was at the start of his academic career, serving as a teaching assistant to A. E. Becquerel (father of

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ...

Henri Becquerel Antoine Henri Becquerel (; 15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French engineer, physicist, Nobel laureate, and the first person to discover evidence of radioactivity. For work in this field he, along with Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pi ...

). This early discovery—although it created considerable excitement in 1855—was soon to be overshadowed by Planté's subsequent discoveries. He was elected as a member to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communi ...

in 1882.

Lead-acid battery

In 1859, Planté invented the lead-acid cell, the first rechargeable battery. His early model consisted of a spiral roll of two sheets of pure lead, separated by a linen cloth and immersed in a glass jar of sulfuric acid solution.Dell ''et al.'' (2001) The following year, he presented a nine-cell lead-acid battery to the Academy of Sciences. In 1881, Camille Alphonse Faure would develop a more efficient and reliable model that saw great success in early electric cars. Planté also investigated the differences between

static electricity Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material or between materials. The charge remains until it is able to move away by means of an electric current or electrical discharge. Static electricity is n ...

and dynamic electricity (i.e., from batteries). As part of this investigation, Planté invented a mechanical device that he called the Rheostatic Machine. The Rheostatic Machine used a bank of mica capacitors, a clever rotating commutator, and a series of contacts to alternately charge a bank of

capacitor A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals. The effect of a ...

s in parallel (from a high-voltage battery source) and then connect the capacitors in series. This arrangement multiplied the battery

voltage Voltage, also known as electric pressure, electric tension, or (electric) potential difference, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a static electric field, it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge t ...

by the number of capacitor stages to obtain very high voltages. By rapidly rotating the shaft, a series of high-voltage sparks many centimetres long could be rapidly generated. This device was a mechanical predecessor of the modern-day Marx generator. Using this device, Planté explored the electrical breakdown of air, the formation of Lichtenberg figures, and the behaviour of thin wires when pulsed by high

electric current An electric current is a stream of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is measured as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface or into a control volume. The movin ...

Death and legacy

He died on 21 May 1889 in the Bellevue part of Meudon, near Paris. In 1989 the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences established the Gaston Planté Medal, which is awarded every few years to scientists who have made significant contributions to the development of lead-acid battery technology.

Footnotes

References

* (2001): ''Understanding Batteries''.

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Ro ...

. . * (1855): "Annonce de la découverte d'un oiseau fossile de taille gigantesque, trouvé à la partie inférieure de l'argile plastique des terrains parisiens" Announcement of the discovery of a fossil bird of gigantic size, found in the lower Argile Plastique formation of the Paris region" '' C. R. Hebd. Acad. Sci. Paris'' 40: 554-557 rticle in Frenchbr>PDF fulltext
at Gallica.

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20070928154235/http://www.altacal.org/newsletter_2006_04/essay.html * http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/PlantelBio.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20070116220815/http://dspt.club.fr/PLANTE.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20061104160249/http://labatonline.com/conference/history.html * https://web.archive.org/web/20061104160333/http://labatonline.com/conference/medal.html
e-book copy of ''The Storage Of Electrical Energy'' by Gaston Planté, 1859
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plante, Gaston 1834 births 1889 deaths People from Orthez 19th-century French inventors 19th-century French physicists Battery inventors Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery