Duracell is perhaps the world’s best known make of batteries. The brand is owned by the multinational conglomerate Proctor and Gamble. Duracell was founded by scientist Samuel Ruben and entrepreneur Philip Rogers Mallory. They developed an alkaline technology in the 1970s to replace the need for more dangerous mercury batteries. Duracell was introduced in 1974. It is a combination of the words ‘durable’ and ‘cell’. They marketed the batteries as being the world’s longest lasting. The company website says: “As a brand, we realized that there were (and still are) many uses for batteries. And as technology advanced, the uses for batteries only increased. We quickly became the world's leading producer of high-performance alkaline batteries.”