Editing Voltaic pile (section)

== Applications ==
[[file:Volta batteries.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Drawing of the voltaic pile in different configurations, from the letter sent from [[Alessandro Volta]] to [[Joseph Banks]].]]<!--Credit: User:Daniele Pugliesi/Sandbox/1, unpublished work !? Found by serendipity when first editing the page of [[Carl Gassner]]-->

On 20 March 1800, [[Alessandro Volta]] wrote to the [[London]] [[Royal Society]] to describe the technique for producing electric current using his device.<ref name=Volta>{{cite journal |title=On the Electricity Excited by the Mere Contact of Conducting Substances of Different Kinds |language=fr |first=Alessandro |last=Volta |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London |volume=90 |pages=403–431 |year=1800 |doi=10.1098/rstl.1800.0018 |doi-access=free }} A partial translation of this paper is available online; see {{cite web |title=Volta and the Battery |url=http://www.chemteam.info/Chem-History/Volta-1800.html |access-date=2012-12-01 }} A complete translation was published in {{cite book |last=Dibner |first=Bern |title=Alessandro Volta and the Electric Battery |publisher=Franklin Watts |year=1964 |pages=111–131 |oclc=247967}}</ref> On learning of the voltaic pile, [[William Nicholson (chemist)|William Nicholson]] and [[Anthony Carlisle]] used it to discover the [[electrolysis]] of water. [[Humphry Davy]] showed that the [[electromotive force]], which drives the electric current through a circuit containing a single voltaic cell, was caused by a chemical reaction, not by the voltage difference between the two metals. He also used the voltaic pile to decompose chemicals and to produce new chemicals. [[William Hyde Wollaston]] showed that electricity from voltaic piles had identical effects to those of electricity produced by [[friction]]. In 1802 [[Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov|Vasily Petrov]] used voltaic piles in the discovery and research of [[electric arc]] effects.

[[Humphry Davy]] and [[Andrew Crosse]] were among the first to develop large voltaic piles.<ref>Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 edition, Volume V09, Page 185</ref> Davy used a 2000-pair pile made for the [[Royal Institution]] in 1808 to demonstrate carbon [[arc discharge]]<ref>[http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/823202-DHllYA/native/823202.pdf Tracking Down the Origin of Arc Plasma Science. II. Early Continuous Discharges]</ref> and isolate five new elements: barium, calcium, boron, strontium and magnesium.<ref name="Kenyon">{{cite journal|last1=Kenyon|first1=T. K.|title=Science and Celebrity: Humphry Davy's Rising Star |journal=Chemical Heritage Magazine |date=2008|volume=26 |issue=4|pages=30–35|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/science-and-celebrity-humphry-davys-rising-star|access-date=22 March 2018}}</ref>