voltaic pile

…Volta and known as the voltaic pile, provided the first experimental source of current electricity. In 1803 Berzelius demonstrated, as did the English chemist Humphry Davy at a slightly later date, the power of the voltaic pile to decompose chemicals into pairs of electrically opposite constituents. For example, water decomposed…

…to the invention of the voltaic pile, a kind of battery that makes possible a constant source of current electricity.

Known as the voltaic pile or the voltaic column, Volta’s battery consisted of alternating disks of zinc and silver (or copper and pewter) separated by paper or cloth soaked either in salt water or sodium hydroxide. A simple and reliable source of electric current that did not need…

…is now known as a voltaic pile consisting of layers of silver, moist cardboard, and zinc, repeated in that order, beginning and ending with a different metal. When he joined the silver and the zinc with a wire, electricity flowed continuously through the wire. Volta confirmed that the effects of…