Year: 1889

page_text: Date of Application, 5th Feb., 1889
Specification Accepted, 9th Mar., 1889
I, LEONARD PAGET, of 7 Wall Street, New York City, in the County and State
of New York, United States of America do hereby declare the nature of the
said invention and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly
doscribed and ascertained in and by the following statement:
--
My invention relates particularly to the process of preparing electrodes for use in
secondary or storage batteries, and to the electrode when constructed in conformity
with such process, and its object is to devise a simple, more expeditious and cheaper
method of constructing the electrodes of that type of secondary or storage batteries
in which the active material or material adapted to become active is sustained or
supported by grids, frames or analogous retaining devices.
To this end it consists 1st in the method of procedure hereinafter described
and 2nd in the improved electrode hereinafter described.
Prior to my invention it was old in the art to construct electrodes of the type
referred to, by first casting grids, frames or supports of any desired form or shape
best calculated to securely hold the active material or material adapted to become
active in place, and to then pack this material in the opposite faces of the grids, or
hold it therein in any desired manner there being many forms of electrodes in which
the invention is directed particularly to the special feature of improved retaining
devices.
It was also old to weld the active material or material adapted to become active
to the grid plate or support and to cast the support around a previously shaped mass
of hardened paste-like active material.
According to a prior invention of my own I employed a process of uniting the
active material or material adapted to become active to the electrode or support by
fusing it and then immersing the plate or support in the molten mass and allowing

page_text: the whole to cool, the cooled mass constituting a completed electrode ready
for use.
This process involved more or less expense, in that two steps were necessitated
Lo complete the electrode. It is the especial object of the present invention to
simplify said process and reduce the operation to a single stup whereby both the
active material or material adapted to become active and the support, grid, or
relaining frame are all produced during one and the same operation, thereby creating
an electrodo which is cheaper, lighter, more durable, and more efficiunt.
In the use of that typo of electrodos in which the native material is mechanically
applied to the retaining plate or grid, or held thereon by extraneous devicos, there
results necessarily during the process of charging a goneration of gases between the
support and the active material, and it is largely due to this cause that the plates
buckle and the active material falls out of place. In other words, there is not sufficient
integrality between the active matorial or material adapted to become activo, and its
support to prevent this gas forumtion.
"
The second type which I have referred to above, in a measure overcomes the
objections urged, but there does not result with it such perfection of action as it
obtained with my improved electrode, for the reason that there is not, nor cannot be,
such integrality between the two parts, ris. :—the active material and its support as to
avoid this generation of gases.
This fact will be clearly understood when one is made acquainted with the fact that
there cannot be an absolute integrality between the salt of a metal and nu additional
metal itself where there is anything short of the fusion of both, and this for the
reason that the salts of any metal as lead oxide, fuso at a much higher temperature
than the metallic lead itself; consequently when the molten lead is cast around a
paste of the lead oxide it merely sets on the surface of the oxide and makes a purely
mechanical connection and in no sense entering the surface of, or integral with, the
lead oxide.
When, however the oxide of lead or lead salts is fused and then cast upon the
metallic or molten hase or supporting plate as described in my prior application, its
higher temperature causes the surface of the lead plate to partially fuse, and there
results an absolute union of the two at the plane of juncture. My prosent invention
brings about a much more absolute and perfect union of the two and nuakes the plane
of demareation absolutely imperceptible so that there is properly speaking no point in
the united masses where it can be said that the one ends and the other begins.
I will now describe my improvement and then particularly point out in the claims
which follow the essentials which I deem as my invention.
I take any well known form of two part mould used for casting storage lattery
plates, said mould having the usual "gate" or "get," and fill those portions of the
inould which ordinarily are designod to form the lead grid, plate or support with a
pulverized reducing agent, the mould having first been hentod so as not to chill the
fused salt. I then place the cover on the mould and fill it with a fused salt of lead.
As this fused salt is boing poured into the mould the reducing agent absorbs the acid
radicle of the metallic lead more or less perfectly forming a leaden frame or support
around the outer edge and elsewhere if this reducing agent has been placed in other
portions of the mould, while the load salts in a more or less pure condition fill the
mould in those portions which are designed to constitute the active facos of the
alectrode.
The action of this reducing agont is based upon the principle that it should have a
greater affinity for the acid radiolo of the fused salt than has lead itsalf when fused.
As an example: If I use fused lead oxide, I may and do fill those portions of the
mould designed to form the grid plate or support with either carbon in a fino stato
of division, or with nitre and carbon; being careful not to pack either too closely.
When I use fused chloride of lead, I fill the propor portions of the mould preferably
with zine in a powdered condition or with tin, or even magnesium, or with an alloy
of zinc and magnesium with which I have obtained very excellent results as regards
fineness of casting.

page_text: It is not an easy matter to determine the best proportions of nitre and carbon to
be used, but any person skilled in the technical work of casting will readily determine
this by trial and judgment, the action being that the nitre oxidizes the carbon producing
carbonic oxide which reduces the lead oxide.
I have arrived at excellent results by mixing about five per cent. of nitre with
the powdered carbon the nitre of course having first been carefully dried and
pulverized. If carbon alone is used and in bulk it is apt not to act quickly enough
so that particles of carbon become mixed with the reduced lead, but I desire it to
be understood that my invention is broad enough to include within its scope
pulverized carbon or any analogous reducing agent which would readily suggest
itself to one skilled in the art, but that with the added nitre or any obvious
equivalent, I obtain preferred results.
I do not, therefore, limit myself to the specific reducing agent named, my invention
being directed broadly to the art of producing both the grid frame or support of a
storage battery, and the active material or material adapted to become active at a single
operation.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is:
First. The described process of producing an electrode for use in a secondary or
storage battery consisting in fusing active material or material adapted to become
active, conjointly with the material which forms the support and causing the two
to assume their relative positions during the process of casting, substantially as
described.
Second. The described process of producing an electrode for use in a secondary or
storage battery which consists in fusing a substance which has electrical storage
properties as lead oxide, and then causing the metallic base and the residual substance
to assmine the relative positions of support, grid or plate and active material or
material adapted to become active, substantially as described.
Third. The described process of producing an electrode for use in a secondary or
storage battery consisting in fusing a metallic substance which possessos electrical
storage properties and then subjecting this fused substance to the action of a properly
disposed reducing agent which causes the metallic base to assume the position of a
grid, frame or support carrying the residual substance in the nature of active
material or material adapted to become active, substantially as described.
Fourth. The described process of producing an electrode for a secondary or storage
battery consisting in fusing a metallic substance which possesses electrical storage
properties as lead oxide and then subjecting this fused substance to the action of a
reducing agent as carbon mixed with nitre, said reducing agent being placed in a
mould in such position that as the fused substance is poured in to the mould metallic
lead is absorbed by the reducing agent, and the residual substance assumes the position
of active material or material adapted to become active and held in place by its union
with the metallic base, substantially as described.
Fifth. The described process of producing an electrode for use in a secondary
or storage battery which consists in forming the grid frame or support and the active
material or material adapted to become active at one and the same operation,
substantially as described.
Sixth. An electrode for a secondary or storage battery in which the active material
or material adapted to become active, and the grid, frame or support merge into each
other, substantially as described.
Seventh. An electrode for a secondary or storage battery in which the active
material or material adapted to become active and the grid, frame or support, are
merged into each other, the active material being held in place by the surrounding
frame, substantially as described.
Eighth. An electrode for a secondary or storage battery in which the grid, frame or

page_text: support is composed of an oxidizable metal, and the active material or material adapted
to become active of a salt of the metal, thore being no line of demarcation between
the two, substantially as described.
Ninth. An electrode for a secondary or storage battery in which the grid, frame or
support is of land and the active material of a salt of lead, the two boing merged into
each other so that it is not possible to distinguish any definite line of demarcation
between them, substantially as described.
A1
1000