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 cau ...

who invented the

lead–acid battery The lead–acid battery is a type of rechargeable battery first invented in 1859 by French physicist Gaston Planté. It was the first type of rechargeable battery to be invented. Compared to modern rechargeable batteries, lead–acid batteries ha ...

in 1859. This type battery was developed as the first rechargeable

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 (electronics), terminal is the ...

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

Orthez Orthez (; ; , ) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, and region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It lies 40 km NW of Pau on the Southern railway to Bayonne. The town also encompasses the small village of Sai ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. In 1854 he began work as an assistant lecturer in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, 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 whi ...

at the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. 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 Flightless birds are birds that cannot Bird flight, fly, as they have, through evolution, lost the ability to. There are over 60 extant species, including the well-known ratites (ostriches, emus, cassowary, cassowaries, Rhea (bird), rheas, an ...

'' 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 (, ) 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 outstanding contributions in th ...

Henri Becquerel Antoine Henri Becquerel ( ; ; 15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French nuclear physicist who shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Marie and Pierre Curie for his discovery of radioactivity. Biography Family and education Becq ...

). 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) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

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 Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...

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 Camille Alphonse Faure (21 May 1840, Vizille – 14 September 1898) was a French chemical engineer who in 1881 significantly improved the design of the lead-acid battery, which had been invented by Gaston Planté in 1859. Faure's improveme ...

would develop a more efficient and reliable model that saw great success in early

electric cars An electric car or electric vehicle (EV) is a passenger automobile that is propelled by an electric traction motor, using electrical energy as the primary source of propulsion. The term normally refers to a plug-in electric vehicle, typ ...

. Planté also investigated the differences between

static electricity Static electricity is an imbalance of electric charges within or on the surface of a material. The charge remains until it can move away by an electric current or electrical discharge. The word "static" is used to differentiate it from electric ...

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 In electrical engineering, a capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy by accumulating electric charges on two closely spaced surfaces that are insulated from each other. The capacitor was originally known as the condenser, a term st ...

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 (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a Electrostatics, static electric field, it corresponds to the Work (electrical), ...

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 A Marx generator is an electrical circuit first described by Erwin Otto Marx in 1924. Its purpose is to generate a high-voltage pulse from a low-voltage DC supply. Marx generators are used in high-energy physics experiments, as well as to simul ...

. Using this device, Planté explored the

electrical breakdown In electronics, electrical breakdown or dielectric breakdown is a process that occurs when an electrically insulating material (a dielectric), subjected to a high enough voltage, suddenly becomes a conductor and current flows through it. All ...

of air, the formation of

Lichtenberg figures A Lichtenberg figure (German: ''Lichtenberg-Figur''), or Lichtenberg dust figure, is a branching electric discharge that sometimes appears on the surface or in the interior of insulating materials. Lichtenberg figures are often associated wit ...

, and the behaviour of thin wires when pulsed by high

electric current An electric current is a flow of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is defined as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface. The moving particles are called charge c ...

Death and legacy

He died on 21 May 1889 in the Bellevue part of Meudon, near Paris. In 1989 the

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (abbreviated BAS; , ''Bŭlgarska akademiya na naukite'', abbreviated БАН) is the National Academy of Bulgaria, established in 1869. The Academy, with headquarters in Sofia, is autonomous and consists of a S ...

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 and 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 ...

. . * (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
LABAT History
* 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 International members of the American Philosophical Society