I interrupt my battery history series for this important news:

In case you hadn't heard, the next big thing in batteries is fast charge and discharge times. One of the main hangups with electric cars is that they take too long to charge. Most people don't want to spend several hours "fueling" their car with electrons after a century of a five minute fill up. Recent advances in battery materials such as lithium titanate (Altair Nanosystems) and lithium iron phosphate (A123 Systems) have allowed the development of batteries that can charge in a matter of minutes instead of hours. This is all dependent on you power source, of course, but Aerovironment has demonstrated a charging system capable of a ten minute charge that can propel a vehicle 120 miles.

So, it has been quite some time since I've posted a blog. Unfortunately, I am trying to get this pesky degree and do some research on the side. I would like to continue my history of the battery with the development of the first rechargeable battery. Our sojourn takes us once again to France; however, the year is now 1859.

With this first post, I will make an attempt to give a quick outline of the battery's invention and how a battery is structured. Hopefully, it will be accessible to those not from the electrochemical field and not too sacrilegious to those who are. Please let me know whether it is too technical, not enough or just right in the comments. Enjoy!

Any history of the battery would be incomplete without mention of Alessandro Volta. In 1800, Volta built the first battery which was called the voltaic pile due to its stacked arrangement. The battery was a stack of alternating zinc and copper plates separated by saltwater electrolyte soaked cardboard.

Energizing the Future is designed to cover recent breakthroughs and my own personal thoughts on energy storage and generation. As my primary focus in research is batteries, I will start the blog off with an overview of battery technologies, starting with the Volta cell and progressing through to the present day, and some of the more recent and exciting advances in battery chemistry. I look forward to contributing to this community and hope to have my first content blog up by the end of the week.