| Description | The authors write: 'About fourteen months ago we had the honour of communicating to the Society (‘Roy. Soc. Proc.,’ vol. 44, p. 182) [see PP/12/10] the results of a large number of experiments made with electromotor cells, of which a special feature was that one of the plates of the combination consisted of an “aeration plate,” or layer of conducting material exposed to the atmosphere, and consequently superficially charged with a film of condensed air, which served as a means of indirectly effecting the oxidation of the other plate (when made of oxidisable metal), or of the fluid surrounding it (when the plate is of non-oxidisable material immersed in an oxidisable fluid). We showed that the E. M. F. of a given combination varies very considerably with the nature of the material of which the aeration plate is made, surfaces of platinum sponge, and especially platinum black, yielding the highest results when the electrolyte is dilute sulphuric acid; a convenient way of constructing the plates being to apply the spongy metal to the surface of unglazed earthenware, or other similar porous non-conducting material, so as to form a conducting film, the electrolytic fluid being absorbed in the porous material and so making contact.'
Annotations in pencil and ink.
Subject: Electricity / Chemistry
Received and read 20 June 1889.
A version of this paper was published in volume 46 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'Note on the development of voltaic electricity by atmospheric oxidation of combustible gases and other substances'. |