Lewis Urry, who has died aged 77, created the small alkaline batteries that first went on sale in 1959 and now comprise 80% of battery sales. Mobile phones, laptop computers and cameras use lithium batteries - which were also an Urry invention - but the Energizer battery, with its slogan, "it goes and it goes and it goes", is the direct descendant of his alkaline model.

In 1955, Urry was transferred from Toronto by his employer, the Eveready Battery Company, to work in their Cleveland laboratory on a reliable, long-lasting power unit. His orders were to increase the lifespan of the standard carbon-zinc battery. Toys ran on them in those days, but their short life-span slowed sales.

Urry decided that creating a new type of battery would be more profitable. Scientists had long been experimenting with cells that used alkaline, which generates more power, but none had been able to balance a combination that would last longer, and be worth the higher price.

Urry tested numerous materials before deciding that manganese dioxide and solid zinc worked well with an alkaline substance as an electrolyte to conduct the electricity. But sufficient power was still lacking. "My eureka moment came when I realised that using powdered zinc would give more surface area," he recalled.

His next task was to convince his boss. He bought two battery-operated model cars from a toy shop and installed a conventional D-cell battery in one and his prototype alkaline unit in the other. As the vice-president of technology watched, Urry started the cars across the cafeteria floor.

"Our car went several lengths of this long cafeteria," he said, "but the other car barely moved. Everybody was coming out of their labs to watch. They were all oohing and aahing and cheering." His alkaline battery was then demonstrated to the products division in New York by lighting two torches and leaving them overnight. The next morning, only the alkaline-powered torch was still glimmering.

Eveready production was immediately switched to Urry's invention. The batteries were renamed as the Energizer brand in 1980, and chemical improvements have made them 40 times longer lasting than the ones that went on sale in 1959.

Urry was born in Pontypool, Ontario, and served in the Canadian army from 1946 to 1949. He graduated from Toronto University in chemical engineering in 1950, and went to work at Eveready that same year.

He worked with dozens of different kinds of batteries and power cells and held 51 patents, including some for the lithium battery.

In 1999, he presented the first prototype alkaline battery and the first manufactured cylindrical alkaline cell to the Smithsonian Institution. They were put on display in the same room as Thomas Edison's light bulb.

Urry continued working on ideas and only fully retired in May. His wife, Beverly Ann, died in 1993 and he is survived by their three sons and two daughters.

· Lewis Frederick Urry, chemical engineer and inventor, born January 29 1927; died October 19 2004