BATTERY HEROES: LECLANCHÉ

Georges Leclanché, the 19th century scientist and inventor is largely forgotten outside of France. But a billion flashlights across the world wouldn’t be shining without his invention, writes Dominic Cleary.

Turbulent chemistry for turbulent times

So much in so little time. Georges Leclanché, creator of the dry cell battery, was only 43 when he died. Yet his legacy — found in the multibillions of flashlight-style batteries scattered in homes across the world — has been global in impact.

Leclanché lived through a turbulent and desperate time for his native France — years of revolutions, anarchy, war and occupation. Twice during his life his family were political refugees forced to flee from their homes.

Leclanché was born in 1839 at Parmain to the north of Paris. His father, Léopold Leclanché, a prominent lawyer and a collaborator of the political revolutionary Ledru Rollin was forced to flee the country in June 1849.

A peaceful protest against the first president of the republic, the newly elected Louis-Napoléon, turned nasty. His enemies called it armed insurrection. Three years later Louis-Napoléon staged a coup d’état, re-added Bonaparte to his name and became king of France and better known as Napoléon III.

At the age of nine, Georges Leclanché left his native France for the then calmer shores of England. His first interest in electricity and batteries were thus stimulated by the enormous impact Michael Faraday, the inventor of the electric dynamo and much more, had on the wave of interest in science that swept across Britain in the 1830s and 1840s.

It was only in 1856 that it was considered safe enough for the 17-yearold Leclanché to return to France; he studied metallurgy at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris, graduating four years later as a qualified engineer.

His first job was a crucial one for the eventual development of his battery. Working for the train company, Compagnie des Chemins de fer de l’Est, his job was to develop the rudimentary electrical systems used for signalling the length of the 500km line to Strasbourg. The problem for signalling in the formative days of the railways was more than just the ability to communicate in the early days of the Morse code — it was creating the infrastructure needed to transmit signals.

So it was here that Leclanché started his research into batteries. Battery technology had come some way from Luigi Galvani’s discovery around 1783, the so-called ‘frog leg experiment’— from Galvani’s belief in a form of animal electricity, to the search for a ‘galvanic cell’ based on chemical reactions. Leclanché’s first experiments looked at exploiting the oxidation properties of copper carbonate.

Leclanché’s research was interrupted by yet more political trouble in France. In 1863 a crisis emerged when Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s Second Empire came under threat from legislative elections that threatened to limit his powers. Troops went on the streets.

For the second time in his life he went into exile. This time to Brussels, where he lived close to Victor Hugo, the French playwright and family. The exile was to last a further seven years until the end of the Second Empire.

Working in his shed, he continued to experiment and improve on his designs, moving from a battery using copper carbonate (which he patented in 1866), to one using manganese, which went on to be shown in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, where it was awarded a bronze medal.

Until Leclanché, most batteries had been based on Alessandro Volta’s 1800 design. The most popular in Leclanché’s time was Planté’s lead acid battery. In 1860 this had been demonstrated using long foil strips, which were wound spirally with intermediate layers of cloth, then immersed in a solution of 10% sulphuric acid. This was capable of high power, but also heavy, and the chemicals dangerous.

Leclanché’s cell, called a “wet cell”, replaced Planté’s lead with zinc and a carbon-manganese dioxide mixture. He also replaced the sulphuric acid with much less toxic ammonium chloride. This meant the cell was lighter; its safety and lightness was considered perfect for use in signalling, requiring occasional short-burst use and little maintenance.

Leclanché died in September 1882. He was just 43 little knowing he had revolutionized the world

Leclanché’s first battery wasn’t the sealed flashlight-style unit we think of today. Instead, open-topped glass jars, about 20cm high, were used to contain the various chemicals.

The first batteries kept the elements separate using a porous pot, allowing the liquid electrolyte to pass through it. In 1871, the manganese dioxide/ carbon mixture was moulded into two blocks, held in place around the 4mm-5mm carbon plate by rubber bands. In a later development, the porous pot was replaced by a canvas container, and the zinc rod changed to a cylinder to increase the surface area and lower the internal resistance.

In 1867, only a year after patenting his invention, he was already so confident of its success that he quit his job to promote the battery.

He was helped both by his father’s legal advice, and assistance from a Belgian friend, Charles Mourlon. Mourlon who helped him industrialise the product, put him in contact with the Belgian telegraph service, and after testing, they adopted the Leclanché battery for their network; the Dutch railways did the same, and a workshop was set up in Brussels to produce the batteries for them.

In 1871 the Mourlon-Leclanché factory was employing five workers, run from the ground floor of a small white-shuttered building in Brussels on rue d’Aerschot. That year political events at home allowed him to return to Paris with the restoration of what became known as the third republic and the end to the Franco-Prussian war that May.

And in one of the ironic twists of history, this time it was Napoléon III’s turn for exile. Captured the September before in the ineptly handled Battle of Sedan against the Prussians, he was deposed in absentia. He died in England three years later.

Leclanché opened a studio at 9, rue de Laval in Paris and settled down. At this point love entered his life and in 1873 he married Gabrielle Clémentine-Lannes. Two children followed swiftly — Max-Georges in 1874 and Marianne en 1876.

The year of Marianne’s birth was an important one in the breakthrough of the development of his battery. He succeeded in gelifying the electrolyte through the addition of starch. This immediately made the battery easy to transport.

Leclanché formed a partnership with Ernest Barbier and a new LeclanIn 1871, the manganese dioxide/carbon mixture was moulded into two blocks, held in place around the 4mm-5mm carbon plate by rubber bands. In a later development, the porous pot was replaced by a canvas container, and the zinc rod changed to a cylinder to increase the surface area and lower the internal resistance

Leclanché’s first exile followed a peaceful protest against the first president of the republic, the newly elected Louis-Napoléon. Three years later Louis-Napoléon staged a coup d’état, re-added Bonaparte to his name and became king of France and better known as Napoléon III

ché-Barbier battery was announced. Fate was on his side this time. It was perfectly timed to coincide with the arrival of the telephone — commercialization of which started in France the following year — as well as the steady boom in rail. Leclanche-Barbier were the only makers of batteries in France.

Around this time his health started to fail. The end came after a long illness and he died in September 1882. He was just 43.

The story doesn’t end there.

His son Max followed in his footsteps, studying chemistry and gaining a doctorate in 1895. He continued researching and improving the battery, replacing what had been a porous ceramic pot with a hessian bag to hold the powdered coal and manganese dioxide mixture. Meanwhile his brother, Mauritius, took over directing the business, until his death in 1923. The company has changed hands and names many times since and is now part of Alcatel.

Leclanché lies buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Perversely, even in death he was unable to escape the turbulent history of his times. Not far from his grave lies the remains of his father’s revolutionary friend Ledru Rollin which again is just yards away from the famous Mur des Fédérés where 147 revolutionary communards were shot just days before his return from Belgium.

WHAT MADE THE LECLANCHÉ BATTERY SO SUCCESSFUL?

It certainly had drawbacks — it wasn’t rechargeable, it had a lower energy density than other battery designs, it didn’t perform well in temperatures below freezing point, and it could have a tendency to leakage.

But it was cheap. It became the first practical commercial battery product. The Leclanché battery became hugely popular for a wide range of domestic uses, due to the low cost of manufacture, and especially the relative safety of the materials, making it. Boosted by the original large-scale production, its profile grew, and it evolved into a wide range of sizes of strengths, from the original 1.5V through to 9V.

Alexander Graham Bell’s preferred use of the battery for demonstrations of early telephones also helped. Another early modification which improved safety and handling was an innovation by Carl Gassner, who swapped a paste for the liquid that had enabled the transfer of charge, not just in Leclanché’s, but batteries in general.

During the 20th century, it proved to be perfect for the growing domestic consumer market. The 1960 Eveready battery handbook devoted a few pages to research on the Leclanché based cells, stating that a higher percentage of carbon gave higher currents, but with a lower capacity. Research like this helped improve the performance by 700% between 1920 and 1990, so it was still finding use in a modified version inside the disposable Polaroid PolaPulse camera.

Though they have lost market share in recent years to newer types of longer-lasting alkaline batteries, his battery cells are still among the most popular consumer batteries we have today.