DailyKenn.com — English chemist William Nicholson and English surgeon Anthony Carlisle were the first to produce a chemical reaction by electricity, while experimenting with Allesandro Volta's voltaic pile; May 2, 1800. [source].
"On 2nd May, Carlisle and Nicholson began their experiment using brass wires in a tube filled with river water. A fine stream of bubbles, identifiable as hydrogen, immediately arose from the wire attached to the zinc disc, while the wire attached to the silver disc became tarnished and blackened by oxidation," [source].
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Alessandro Volta, born on February 18, 1745, in Como, Lombardy, Italy, and passed away on March 5, 1827, in the same city, was a notable Italian physicist credited with inventing the electric battery, marking the advent of continuous current.
Volta commenced his academic journey as a professor of physics at the Royal School of Como in 1774. His fascination with electricity prompted him to enhance the electrophorus, a device utilized for generating static electricity, in 1775. Moreover, he made a significant discovery in 1776 by identifying and isolating methane gas. Three years later, he ascended to the position of physics chair at the University of Pavia.
In 1791, Volta's colleague Luigi Galvani proposed that the contact of disparate metals with the leg muscles of a skinned frog produced an electric current, eliciting leg movements. Galvani theorized this as a novel form of electricity inherent in living tissue, dubbing it "animal electricity." Volta, however, posited that the frog merely facilitated a current flow between the metals, which he termed "metallic electricity." Commencing experiments in 1792 solely with metals, Volta confirmed that animal tissue was dispensable for current generation. This stirred debates between proponents of animal electricity and advocates of metallic electricity, culminating in Volta's triumph upon his unveiling of the first electric battery in 1800.
Termed the voltaic pile or voltaic column, Volta's battery comprised alternating zinc and silver (or copper and pewter) disks separated by paper or cloth soaked in saltwater or sodium hydroxide. This invention, offering a straightforward and reliable source of electric current devoid of the need for recharging like the Leyden jar, spurred a surge in electrical experimentation. Within a mere six weeks of its introduction, English scientists William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle harnessed the voltaic pile to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, thereby unraveling the process of electrolysis and inaugurating the field of electrochemistry.
In 1801, Volta presented a demonstration of his battery's electric current generation before Napoleon in Paris, earning him the titles of count and senator of the kingdom of Lombardy. Subsequently, in 1815, the Austrian emperor Francis I appointed him as the director of the philosophical faculty at the University of Padua. Notably, in 1881, the volt, a unit measuring the electromotive force propelling current, was christened in his honor.
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