Gaston Planté

Infobox Scientist
name = Gaston Planté
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caption = Gaston Planté
birth_date = 22 Apr 1834
birth_place = Orthez
death_date = 21 May 1889
death_place = Bellevue
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nationality = French
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field = physics
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known_for = lead acid battery
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Gaston Planté (1834-1889) was a French physicist who invented the lead acid battery in 1859. The lead acid battery eventually became the first rechargeable electric battery marketed for commercial use.

Planté was born on April 22, 1834 in Orthez, France. In 1854, he began work as an assistant lecturer in physics at the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Paris, and in 1860 rose 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, he discovered the first fossils of the prehistoric flightless bird "Gastornis parisiensis" (named after him) near Paris. 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, being just a teaching assistant to A. E. Becquerel (father of the Nobel laureate Henri Becquerel) [Prévost (1855)] . Thus, this early discovery - despite causing considerable furore in 1855 - was soon to be overshadowed by Planté's subsequent discoveries.

Lead-acid battery

In 1859 he 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, 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 and more efficient and reliable model that saw great success in early electric cars.

Planté also investigated the differences between "static electricity" 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 and a clever rotating commutator and a series of contacts to alternately charge a bank of capacitors in parallel (from a high voltage battery source), and then connect the capacitors in series. This arrangement multiplied the battery voltage by the number of capacitor stages to obtain very high voltages. By rapidly rotating the shaft, a series of high voltage sparks many centimeters long could rapidly be 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 behavior of thin wires when pulsed by high electric currents.

He died on May 21, 1889 in Bellevue, 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. ISBN 0854046054.
* (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 [Article in French] . [http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/CadresFenetre?O=NUMM-2997 PDF fulltext] at Gallica.

External links

* http://www.altacal.org/newsletter_2006_04/essay.html
* http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/PlantelBio.htm
* http://dspt.club.fr/PLANTE.htm
* http://www.labatonline.com/conference/history.html
* http://www.labatonline.com/conference/medal.html
* [http://www.archive.org/details/storageofelectri031249mbp e-book copy of "The Storage Of Electrical Energy" by Gaston Planté, 1859]