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50 free Batteries trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Batteries trivia for science teachers, pub quizzers, gadget lovers and anyone who has ever wondered why the remote takes AAAs. The quiz starts with Benjamin Franklin borrowing an artillery word for his Leyden jars and Alessandro Volta stacking copper, zinc and brine-soaked paper in 1800, then follows the Daniell cell that powered the telegraph, Planté's rechargeable lead-acid battery of 1859, Leclanché's cell, Gassner's dry cell and Jungner's nickel-cadmium. It then covers the alkaline battery Lewis Urry built for Eveready in the 1950s, the lithium-ion story from Whittingham and Goodenough to Yoshino and Sony's 1991 launch, the 2019 Nobel Prize and its 97-year-old laureate, plus how cells actually work: anodes and cathodes, electrolytes, why lithium cells give three volts, self-discharge, memory effect, and the biggest batteries on Earth. There are questions on the Baghdad Battery, Duracell, the Energizer name, button-cell safety and the EU's cadmium ban. Roughly a third are easy and the rest climb steadily. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Italian physicist built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800?
Alessandro Volta
He thought his cells were an inexhaustible source of energy and dismissed the corrosion at the electrodes as a nuisance; Faraday showed otherwise in 1834.
Q 02Which two metals did Volta stack, separated by brine-soaked paper, in his original pile?
Copper and zinc
A working pile can be made today from a nickel, a penny and salt-water paper towel, though many are needed in series to do anything useful.
Q 03Who first used the word 'battery' for electrical apparatus, in 1749, borrowing a military term?
Benjamin Franklin
He was describing a set of linked Leyden jar capacitors that, like guns in a battery, worked together to store a bigger charge.
Q 04Whose experiments on frogs' legs in the 1780s sparked the argument that led Volta to his invention?
Luigi Galvani
Volta showed in 1794 that two metals and brine-soaked cloth produced current with no frog required.
Q 05When a battery is supplying power, which terminal is the anode?
The negative
The negative terminal is the source of electrons, which flow through the external circuit to the positive cathode.
Q 06What is the term for a single-use battery whose electrode materials are irreversibly changed during discharge?
Primary
Rechargeables are called secondary batteries; the oldest kind is the lead-acid battery in cars.
Q 07What is the approximate nominal voltage of both alkaline and zinc-carbon cells?
1.5 volts
NiCd and NiMH cells give about 1.2 volts and lithium cells 3 volts or more, because their chemistries release different amounts of energy.
Q 08Which 1836 cell, invented by a British chemist, was the first practical electricity source and powered the telegraph?
Daniell
A copper pot of copper sulphate held an earthenware container of sulphuric acid and a zinc electrode; the gravity-cell variant served telegraphs into the 1950s.
Q 09Who invented the lead-acid battery in 1859, the first that could be recharged by reversing the current?
Gaston Planté
His first model was two lead sheets rolled in a spiral with rubber strips, used to light train carriages at stations; the principle is unchanged today.
Q 10What gas does a lead-acid battery give off during overcharging, which is why it needs ventilation?
Hydrogen
The battery is heavy for its energy but delivers huge surge currents, which is why it still starts almost every petrol car.
Q 11Which 1839 cell by a Welsh scientist doubled telegraph-cell voltage but gave off nitric oxide fumes?
Grove
American telegraph companies favoured it for a time despite the fumes; its inventor is better known for the fuel cell.
Q 12Which French engineer's 1866 zinc-manganese dioxide cell led to the modern dry cell?
Georges Leclanché
It gave 1.4 volts and was a hit for telegraphs, bells and early telephones, though it ran down during long calls.
Q 13What did Carl Gassner mix with the ammonium chloride electrolyte in his 1886 dry cell to stop spills?
Plaster of Paris
The National Carbon Company later swapped the plaster for coiled cardboard in its first mass-produced cell of 1896.
Q 21In which year did Whittingham, Goodenough and Yoshino win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry?
2019
Goodenough was 97, making him the oldest Nobel laureate ever; he died in 2023 a month short of 101.
Q 22How old was John Goodenough when he received his Nobel Prize, making him the oldest laureate in history?
97
He was still running a lab at the University of Texas at Austin, where he announced a solid-state battery in 2017.
Q 23What is the typical nominal voltage of a single lithium-ion cell?
3.6 or 3.7 volts
Unlike AA-style cells, lithium-ion sizes are mostly not standardised and vary by device and vendor.
Q 14What was the first mass-produced dry cell, marketed by the National Carbon Company in 1896?
The Columbia
The company's Cleveland labs would later produce the alkaline battery, and its brand later became Eveready.
Q 15Which Swedish scientist invented the nickel-cadmium battery in 1899?
Waldemar Jungner
He patented a nickel-iron battery the same year but thought it inferior; Thomas Edison patented his own nickel-iron version in 1901.
Q 16Which decrease in capacity can NiCd cells show if repeatedly recharged in the same pattern?
Memory effect
NiMH cells suffer far less from it, and the EU has largely banned consumer NiCd cells since its 2006 Batteries Directive.
Q 17What electrolyte gives the alkaline battery its name?
Potassium hydroxide
It is not consumed in the reaction; only the zinc and manganese dioxide electrodes are used up.
Q 18Which Canadian engineer at Eveready invented the modern alkaline dry battery in the 1950s?
Lewis Urry
He had been asked to extend the life of zinc-carbon cells and decided alkaline chemistry was the better bet, building on Edison's earlier work.
Q 19In which year did Sony and Asahi Kasei put the first commercial lithium-ion battery on sale?
1991
Since then volumetric energy density has tripled and prices per kWh have fallen about 99 percent.
Q 20Which cathode material did John Goodenough introduce in 1980, the key to later commercial cells?
Lithium cobalt oxide
Stanley Whittingham's earlier titanium disulphide cell had safety problems and was never sold; Yoshino added the carbon anode in 1985.
Q 24What process, in which lithium ions slip reversibly into a host like graphite, underlies the lithium-ion battery?
Intercalation
Stanley Whittingham conceived intercalation electrodes in the 1970s while working at Exxon.
Q 25What fraction of their charge do unused disposable batteries lose per year at room temperature?
8 to 20 percent
This self-discharge comes from side reactions inside the cell; keeping them in the fridge does not meaningfully help and risks condensation damage.
Q 26Because of vibration, heat and sulphation, few car lead-acid batteries last how long in regular use?
Beyond six years
Starting batteries have many thin plates for maximum current, whereas deep-cycle batteries use thicker plates for a longer life.
Q 27What does the initialism SLI stand for on a car battery?
Starting, Lighting, Ignition
Such batteries are discharged only slightly before being recharged by the alternator.
Q 28The Baghdad Battery, a clay pot with copper tube and iron rod, was found in 1936 near which capital?
Ctesiphon
Wilhelm König suggested it was a galvanic cell for electroplating, but archaeologists reject the idea; no electroplated object from the period exists.
Q 29What does the brand name Duracell derive from?
'Durable cell'
The company grew out of P. R. Mallory, whose mercury batteries served the military; the batteries also carried the Mallory name until 1980.
Q 30Which conglomerate has owned Duracell outright since 2016, after trading its P&G shares for it?
Berkshire Hathaway
P&G agreed the deal with Warren Buffett's company in November 2014.