IMPROVEMENTS IN SECONDARY BATTERIES AND IN METHODS OF CONSTRUCTING THE SAME.
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Norman Charles Cookson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 17th August 1882.
NORMAN CHARLES COOKSON of Queen Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, Lead
Manufacturer. IMPROVEMENTS IN SECONDARY BATTERIES AND IN METHODS OF
CONSTRUCTING THE SAME.
I form the positive and negative elements of the secondary battery of one or
a series of continuous lead wires.-I either form these wires by the ordinary
process of wire pressing by a process differing from the ordinary process
employed in the formation of lead wires, namely by running a continuous stream
on a series of streams of entirely melted lead through a perforation or perforations
in the bottom of a metal containing vessel into a vessel of water or other suitable
cooling medium placed so near it as that the continuity of the stream is not broken
and not at such a distance as to produce any considerable granulating effect. I
produce oxidation more or less perfect on the surface of the wire employed either
by means of electricity in what is known as Planté's method or to facilitate this
process I use as the cooling medium above referred to a solution of acetic acid or
apply otherwise a solution of diluted acetic acid so as to produce a thin but
adherent coating of oxide capable of undergoing the changes required in the
storage and development of electrical force.-I prefer to arrange the wires forming
the elements so as that there may be not only inetalic contact in the usual under-
standing of the words in every part of each element but that there may be
absolute metalic contact by homogeneous and continuous wire from the extreme
point of each element to the binding screws by which the cell is charged and
discharged and for convenience when many wires are used in the same cell I prefer
to melt together by the process known.-as lead burning all the wires of each
element into one.-I arrange the wires in the cell either in the form of an open
plate after weaving them into a species of fabric of convenient width and the
desired length or by coiling them in any convenient way as seperate wires side
by side in each element, and with the elements seperated by such material as
silicate cotton; or by coiling them in such a way as to present a large end surface
to the end surface of the opposite element with provisions in the cell to prevent

page_text: any shifting of position.-Another part of my improvements consists in the
deposit on one or both of the fabric plates already described of a layer of spongy
metalic lead which I effect as follows-I form the fabric before described as
produced with lead wires and immerse it in a solution of a soluble salt of lead
by preference the chloride of lead and I then immerse a plate of zinc in near
proximity to the open lead fabric, deposition of spongy lead immediately takes
place slightly adherent to the zinc plate.-I allow this deposit to continue until
it not only reaches to but passes through the interstices of the lead fabric and
forms with an approximately equal thickness on both sides. I then detach the
zinc plate and slightly press the spongy lead and wash it carefully to remove traces
of chloride of zinc and any other impurities after which it may be oxidized.-This
process of forming a deposit of spongy lead for secondary battery plates is also
applicable if perforated lead plates be used and the galvanic cell may be formed
either of two plates coated with the spongy lead or with one so coated and the
other made up by any known process with oxide or peroxide of lead as is well
understood. The coating of spongy lead may also be oxidized by the acetic acid
method before described or by any other convenient process. I prefer to produce
the solution from which the spongy lead is deposited by mixing common salt with
crude sulphate of lead which is an abundant and cheap material and I prefer to
recover the zine of the chloride of zinc formed in the process of deposition of
spongy lead by precipitation with lime or magnesia or other alkali when it is
obtained in the form of oxide of zinc, a marketable product.