William Robert Grove
Sir William Robert Grove ( born July 11, 1811 in Swansea, Wales; † August 1, 1896 in London) was a British lawyer and scientist. Grove applies not only to Christian Friedrich Schönbein as the father of the fuel cell.
Life
After Grove had initially received private lessons, he received his degree at Swansea Grammar School. He attended Brasenose College, Oxford and graduated in 1832 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He obtained the Master in 1835, whereupon he was admitted at Lincoln's Inn as a lawyer. Due to his poor health but he practiced this profession initially not enough. Instead, he focused on studies of the "electrical science ", which were still at that time in a very unsatisfactory state. He also became a member ( "Fellow" ) of the Royal Society and was a founding member of the Chemical Society, a subsidiary of the Royal Society.
1837 Grove married Emma Powles, with whom he had six children.
Inspired by the work of Christian Friedrich Schönbein Grove In 1839, at the Royal Institution of South Wales through his first experiments on the fuel cell. In the same year he invented the Grovesche element, a variant of the galvanic cell consisting of a zinc cylinder in dilute sulfuric acid and platinum in concentrated nitric acid separated by a porous clay wall. According to this principle working batteries in telegraphy were in the next twenty years in common.
Also in 1839, he led the London institution before an arc lamp, which he pursued with the cells named after him. Subsequently, he was appointed Professor of Experimental Philosophy at this facility. He held this position from 1840 to 1847. In 1841 he experimented with John Peter Gassiot in the daguerreotype. In 1843 he gave a lecture on the interaction of physical forces, the results of which he published in On the Correlation of Physical Forces 1846. In it, he postulated the principle of energy conservation, a year before Hermann von Helmholtz, the work On the Conservation of Force published.
In 1847, Grove of the Royal Society, the Royal Medal and sat the British Association for the Advancement of Science as president before.
1853 Grove was appointed to the rank of Kronanwalts. In 1856 he defended the notorious poisoner William Palmer. Because of his technical knowledge Grove particular worked as a patent attorney. Particularly spectacular was a suit of December 1854 due to injury of the Calotype patent, an important patent in the field of photography. Grove was one of the attorneys of the plaintiff. He was a member of the 1864 Royal Commission on the Law of Patents ( Royal Commission for patent law ) His experience in patent law. Immediately after his appointment as Judge at Common Law 1871 in 1872, the suppression of the Knights. In 1875 he received a post at the judge High Court ( High Court of Justice ). After his retirement in 1878, he turned back to the science.
Memberships and Honors
In 1866, he stood before the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science as president in Nottingham. Since 1853 he was a corresponding member of the Accademia dei Lincei in the then papal Rome. After conversion to the Italian National Academy, he was listed as a foreign member.
The lunar crater Grove was named after him in 1935.
On the 150th anniversary of the development of the fuel cell was established in 1989 in honor of the Grove Fuel Cell Symposium Groves to life. The conference will be held in a two -year cycle and is concerned with new insights from the field of fuel cell technology and hydrogen production.