Camille Alphonse Faure (21 May 1840 – 14 September 1898) was a French chemical engineer who in 1881 significantly improved the design of the lead-acid battery, which had been invented by Gaston Planté in 1859. Faure's improvements greatly increased the capacity of such batteries and led directly to their manufacture on an industrial scale. The patents were assigned to the Société La Force et la Lumière. The right to use these patents in the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

were sold to the Faure Electric Accumulator Company on 29 March 1881. Faure was a consultant engineer with

William Edward Ayrton William Edward Ayrton, FRS (14 September 18478 November 1908) was an English physicist and electrical engineer. Life Early life and education Ayrton was born in London, the son of Edward Nugent Ayrton, a barrister, and educated at University ...

for this company.

Biography

He was born at

Vizille Vizille (; frp, Veselye) is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. Population Sights Vizille is the home of the Musée de la Révolution française, a rich depository of archival and rare materials devoted to the French R ...

and trained at the Ecole des Arts et Métiers at Aix. From 1874 until about 1880, he worked as a chemist at the new factory of the Cotton Powder Company at Uplees,

Faversham Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient British ...

, Kent, England. While there, he and the factory manager, George Trench, took out patents for Tonite (a new high explosive) (1874), and an improved dynamite detonator (1878). In 1880, Faure patented a method of coating lead plates with a paste of lead oxides, sulphuric acid and water, which was then cured by gentle warming in a humid atmosphere. The curing process caused the paste to change to a mixture of lead sulphates which adhered to the lead plate. During charging the cured paste was converted into electrochemically active material (the "active mass") and gave a substantial increase in capacity compared with Planté's battery. This was a significant breakthrough that led to the industrial manufacture of lead-acid batteries, as now used for starting motor cars. Towards the end of his life Faure was granted further patents,Swiss Patent Nos 3698 (1891) and 3855 (1891) and UK Patent Nos 15152 (1894), 11341 (1896), 11342 (1896), and 21587 (1896) among them ones for the manufacture of aluminium alloys and improvements to hot air engines and motor vehicle steering mechanisms.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faure, Camille Alphonse 1840 births 1898 deaths People from Isère 19th-century French inventors 19th-century French chemists Electrochemistry Battery inventors