The two figures
above appear on page 272 of the Philosophical Magazine
and Journal of Science, 1843, with William Grove's letter
"On the Gas Voltaic Battery." Grove undertook the series
of thirty experiments described in this letter when, "after
my original publication I received a letter from Dr. Schoenbein
[Christian F. Schönbein (1799-1868)] ... [who] there expresses
an opinion, that in the gas battery oxygen does not immediately
contribute to the production of current, but that it is
produced by the combination of hydrogen with water."
One of the gas battery configurations used
in Grove's experiments is seen here. "In figure 6, a battery
of five cells ... is represented as when charged [filled]
with oxygen and hydrogen, and having been for some time
connected with the voltmeter (figure 7), the tubes of
which are of the same size as those of the battery." These
are labeled "o" and "h" in the drawing.
Grove wrote, "ten cells charged to a given
mark on the tube with dilute sulphuric acid ... oxygen
and hydrogen, were arranged in circuit with an interposed
voltameter ... and allowed to remain so for thirty-six
hours. At the end of that time 2.1 cubic inches of mixed
gas were evolved in the voltameter; the liquid had risen
in each of the hydrogen tubes of the battery to the extent
of 1.5 cubic inch, and in the oxygen tubes 0.7 cubic inch,
equalling [sic] altogether 2.2 cubic inches; there was
therefore 0.1 cubic inch more of hydrogen absorbed in
the battery tubes than was evolved in the voltameter.
This experiment was repeated several times with the same
general result."
In the course of these experiments, Grove
provided strong evidence that producing current required
both hydrogen and oxygen. However, he also raised questions
about the production of heat and "novel gaseous and liquid
products"questions that he could not answer with
the equipment and theory available to him. These questions
became puzzles for later researchers to solve.
William Robert Grove
Image from Scientific
Identity: Portraits from the Dibner Library of the History
of Science and Technology
If you have information about Grove or other
nineteenth-century fuel cell researchers, please fill
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the link at the top of the previous page.
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