Camille Alphonse Faure (21 May 1840, Vizille – 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 the patents in the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, 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 Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

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 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 Sittingbourne, 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 road (Great ...

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, 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 Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

plates with a paste of lead oxides, sulphuric acid and

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

, 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. It was a significant breakthrough that led to the industrial manufacture of lead-acid batteries, 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, improvements to hot air engines, and motor vehicle steering mechanisms.

Notes

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