A handful of Internet videos and postings have made the claim that a lantern battery contains anywhere from four to 32 smaller batteries wired together. For starters, opening a battery of any kind is extremely ill advised because most batteries contain a variety of acids and metals stored together. These are both harmful to people, and are where the electricity comes from. Second, what is actually inside a lantern battery is a series of four cells that look like long C- or D-cell batteries
A typical lantern battery is generally covered in thin, removable plastic for storage. The casing itself is made of a thicker, more permanent plastic, and generally has a paper label with the logo and information about the battery. The paper can be removed with hardly any ill effects, but breaking or removing the plastic container designed to hold the internal canisters in place is a little more dangerous. On the top of the casing, there will be two pieces of copper wiring that make up the contacts for the battery.
Inside the casing, there are four, or sometimes eight, metal canisters depending on the size and brand. These canisters are the individual cells of the battery and create the power. The contents of the battery itself might differ from brand to brand, but these are generally zinc-carbon cells. Also contained with these canisters are a series of wires that connect the electrodes at the tops to one another, and to the contacts on the casing of the battery.
Inside each of the 1.5-volt cells is a number of components. The electrodes themselves poke down inside and are connected to the graphite or carbon center of the cylinder and the zinc tubing. Between the two elements is a bath of acid, which is how the electricity flows from one material into the other. Between the plastic top and the acid is cardboard or rubber that prevents the acid from eroding the cell.
Inside each of the cells in the battery, a chemical reaction occurs. This reaction is what creates the electricity that powers the lantern or whatever devices to which the lantern battery is attached. While the various brands or kinds of batteries might be made of different materials, they create electricity from a simple chemical reaction. Inside each battery, two metals--one of which is higher on the periodic table than the other--are surrounded by an acid. The acid allows electrons--tiny charged subatomic particles--to move from one metal to the other. This creates electric charge, which can pass through wires into the light bulb.
