Urry was born January 29, 1927, in Pontypool, Ontario, and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Toronto in 1950, having previously spent time serving in the Canadian army.
[1] In 1955, Urry was dispatched to the company's laboratory in Parma, Ohio, in order to discover a way of extending the lifespan of the zinc-carbon battery.
Urry, after testing a number of materials, discovered that manganese dioxide and solid zinc worked well coupled with an alkaline substance as an electrolyte.
Marsal filed US patent (2,960,558) for this revolutionary alkaline dry cell battery with a powdered zinc gel anode.
Modern alkaline batteries, due to technological improvements, can last as much as 40 times longer than the original prototype.