Search

This Essay tells the colourful history of the invention of the pile by Alessandro Volta and of the subsequent discovery by William Nicholson of the electrolysis of water, carried out with the Voltaic pile (1800). Indeed, as a result of the dissemination of Volta's paper among London scientists, favoured by an incorrect behaviour of the President of the Royal Society, the article by Nicholson was published months before the publication of Volta's letter. The outstanding news that electricity could be generated by a simple and easy to build instrument (the pile) was printed also by daily newspapers, which favoured its spreading all over Europe and stimulated a multitude of enthusiast practitioners and amateurs to construct their own pile and to carry out the electrical decomposition of a variety of aqueous electrolytes. The correct chemical interpretation of the pile and of electrolysis had to wait for nearly one century, but in 1800 electrochemistry was born. Electrochemistry under political constraints: The invention of the pile by Alessandro Volta and the subsequent discovery by William Nicholson of the electrolysis of water (1800) took place under uncomfortable conditions, owing to the political and military troubles in Europe at the time. In spite of this, the astounding news spread quickly and stimulated hundreds of practitioners, thus giving rise to the flowering of a new discipline: electrochemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]