History
The mercury oxide-zinc battery system was known more than 100 years ago but did not become widely used until 1942, when Samuel Ruben developed a balanced mercury cell which was useful for military applications such as metal detectors, munitions, and walkie-talkies. The battery system had the advantages of long shelf life (to 10 years) and steady voltage output. After the Second World War the battery system was widely applied for small electronic devices such as cardiac pacemakers and hearing aids. Mercury oxide batteries were made in a range of sizes from miniature button cells used for hearing aids and electric wrist watches, cylindrical types used for portable electronic apparatus, rectangular batteries used for transistor radios, and large multicell packs used for industrial applications such as radio remote control for overhead crane systems. In the United States, mercury oxide batteries were manufactured by companies including P. R. Mallory and Co Inc, (now Duracell), Union Carbide Corporation (whose former battery division is now called Energizer Holdings), RCA Corporation, and Burgess Battery Company.
Read more about this topic: Mercury Battery
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“In every election in American history both parties have their clichés. The party that has the clichés that ring true wins.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)