Samuel Ruben

Samuel Ruben was an American inventor whose work in electrochemistry shaped the modern portable battery industry. Largely self-taught as an engineer, Ruben developed and patented improvements in dry-cell battery chemistry over several decades, and during the Second World War, working with the Mallory company at the request of the United States Army Signal Corps, he developed the mercury button cell, a compact and long-lasting battery that replaced the far less reliable zinc-carbon cells then used in military equipment. Ruben's battery work and his partnership with P.R. Mallory and Company laid the commercial and technical foundation for the battery manufacturer that later became Duracell. Across his career Ruben accumulated several hundred patents in batteries and related solid-state technology, and he is remembered as one of the principal figures behind the transition from bulky, unreliable early batteries to the compact, dependable portable power sources that powered devices through the rest of the twentieth century.