Abstract:
The field of electrochemistry was discovered in 1791 when Luigi Galvani was
dissecting a frog. One of his coworkers touched its internal crucial nerves with the
tip of a scalpel causing the muscles and nerves of the frog to contract. Nine years
later, Volta reported to the Royal Society in London that by placing a membrane in
contact with silver and zinc plates, on either side, and wetting it in salt water, an
electric current would flow in the external circuit connecting the silver and zinc
plates (chemical to electrical energy conversion). This discovery was soon followed
by that of the reverse process when Nicholson and Carlisle demonstrated in the
same year that by connecting two wires of platinum, immersed in a dilute acid, to a
battery, bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen evolved on the two electrodes (electricity
to chemicals). The pioneering researcher in the field of electrochemistry, Michael
Faraday, started his work in 1832, and proposed the two quantitative laws of
electrolysis: