The battery is turning 222 years old this year. Ever since it was created, it's worked according to the same principle: electrically charged particles flow in a circuit from the negative to the positive pole and generate electricity as a result. This electricity can then be used by various devices, allowing them to be operated without being connected up to the mains. 

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The road from primary cells to lead-acid batteries

Up until the mid-19th century, batteries were made following Volta's principle and functioned as primary (a.k.a. non-rechargeable) cells. That was until the French physicist Gaston Planté developed the first accumulator – a secondary (a.k.a. rechargeable) cell. His approach saw lead plates being used in diluted sulphuric acid. This design was based on a chemical process involving lead and acid and is still used to this day. Planté's invention awoke people's interest in rechargeable lead-acid batteries. One of these individuals was Emile Alphonse Fauré. In 1880, the French chemical engineer developed a process that took the standard battery – a design that lasted only a few charge cycles – and made it more effective.

Six years later, the Luxembourgian engineer Henri Tudor had developed the lead-acid battery to the point that it could also be manufactured in a serial production process. Over the next few years, Tudor also came up with his "Energy Car" – the first forerunner to the modern automobile. From the outside, it looked like a carriage with a wooden body. Taking a look inside, however, revealed that the vehicle had a petrol engine. This drove an electric motor which functioned as a generator and fed the lead-acid battery with energy. 

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Made in Germany: The first advances in e-mobility

While all these developments were going on, Thomas Davenport was busy inventing the first motor vehicle with a primary cell. As early as 1834, he gave the world its very first electric car. The first hybrid car – a vehicle called the "Mixte" – was built in 1900. It worked using wheel hub motors in the front wheels that were patented by Ferdinand Porsche. This very first serially produced hybrid vehicle drew power from a generator that was driven by an internal combustion engine. Its maximum speed was 80 km/h. 

Strange but true: By this point at dawn of the 20th century, far more electric vehicles were out on the roads than petrol vehicles with combustion engines. The very first four-wheeled, electrically powered vehicle was introduced to the world by the German entrepreneur Andreas Flocken in 1888. This kicked off a period of fast and furious development in the realm of electromobility. In fact, at one point, there were almost twice as many electrically powered vehicles as vehicles with combustion engines. Despite this, the interrelationships between the car industry, the oil industry, the car trade and politics prevented electric cars from really being able to establish themselves. As a result, all of these discoveries and ideas lay dormant for almost a century before being dusted off again to solve the mobility problem and make a more sustainable environment.

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Spoiled for choice when it comes to combustion engine batteries

These days, anyone driving a diesel or petrol vehicle has a number of batteries to choose from. The standard lead-acid battery that was introduced by Planté way back when is still available and uses the same principle as ever, although of course in a much more modern form. There are also variants of this design that use a gel instead of acid. These batteries combine sulphuric acid with silica to create a gel-like substance. The advantage of these starter motor batteries is that they're leak-proof and almost entirely maintenance-free. 

EFB and AGM batteries were later also developed for modern cars that have a lot of electrical features like start-stop systems and energy recovery technology. These new inventions were needed because simple batteries quickly reached their limits when faced with such demands. Their secret? Their positive plates are coated with polyester. This enhances their cycling stability and lengthens the service life of the batteries as a result. 

If that weren't enough, you can also get energy storage devices that are based on lithium-ion technology. These batteries score top marks with their lower weight and higher performance and are used in sports cars and electric cars for that reason. Their advantages are counterbalanced by a number of disadvantages, however. Their production costs are high, temperature management is a tricky subject and their environmental record isn't the best. Lithium is often found as a saline brine. In order to extract it in this form, it has to be pumped out of lakes that contain it. This reduces the groundwater level in the already rather dry regions where the deposits are found, leading to consequences for local ecosystems. 

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The future of battery technology – electric car battery alternatives

Despite these downsides, there's currently no alternative to using lithium-ion or lithium polymer batteries in electric cars. Almost all of the major manufacturers are developing new technologies. More solutions are certainly needed, especially now that the EU Parliament has decided to put an end to combustion engines from 2035. These new technologies are all in the early stages of development, however. It will be several years before they can produced commercially. 

The best-developed alternative is the solid-state battery, which works without using any liquid electrolytes at all. This eliminates the risk of leakages and fires. It also means that protective mechanisms are no longer required. As a result, solid-state batteries are not only lighter, but cheaper too. The reason they're not currently used in electric cars is that they take an extremely long time to charge and lose too much of their capacity after a low number of charge cycles. Nevertheless, Mercedes is already testing the battery out on the road in its all-electric eCitaro buses. 

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The future: A greater range of alternative batteries

A number of different batteries that don't use expensive, somewhat unsustainable lithium have been proposed in theory and demonstrated in initial tests. These range from batteries that combine magnesium or aluminium with sulphur to sodium-ion batteries and batteries made with zinc. The latter seem particularly exciting because they use chitin as a sustainable electrolyte instead of synthetic materials. Chitin is a component of the shells of insects and crustaceans. This not only means it's biodegradable, but also that large quantities of the renewable raw material can be sourced from fish waste. Chitin can be used with electrodes made out of zinc. This metal has similar properties to lithium, but is much more common and cheaper as a result. All the variants we've mentioned could have a great future ahead of them – and could, above all, relieve the pressure on raw materials in the lithium market. 

Which battery will prevail and then be sold in which vehicle will mainly depend on the demands expected of them and what customers are willing to pay. One thing's certain, however – material scarcity and fluctuations in the prices of raw materials will ensure we have a wide range of different battery alternatives to choose from. All we need now is for the big breakthrough to take place.

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