A battery stores chemical energy, and converts it to electricity when a device draws it. Science calls this process electrochemistry, but how does the chemistry of an electric battery actually work? We explore the basic principles in this post and several that follow after it. By the time you complete this series you should know exactly how electrochemical cells work.
Basic Principles of Electric Battery Chemistry
A battery comprises one, or several of these electrochemical cells. The more cells there are, the more ‘powerful’ the battery becomes. Each cell is an independent structure comprising two electrodes, plus an electrolyte than keeps them physically apart.
We need to understand what electricity is, and where the cell or cells get this energy from. In simple terms, electrical energy comes about from a flow of electrons. This process plays out in a battery when they flow from one electrode to the other, triggering a chemical reaction.
The electrons flow from the second electrode back to first one as a device consumes the stored energy. This the end of the road with a single-use primary battery. But we can restore the energy in secondary, rechargeable cells using an external source.
What Are Electrodes and What They Do
Electrodes are at the core of the chemistry of an electric battery. The electrons must have somewhere to flow from, and somewhere to flow to for the chemistry to operate. Science calls these ‘departure and arrival terminals’ electrodes. Although they have to be particular matched materials for the battery to release its electricity.
Science calls the ‘departure’ electrode a negative anode, and the corresponding ‘arrival’ one the positive cathode. These electrodes are usually made from metal or other chemical compounds. However, the two need to be different to control the electron flow. We continue with this explanation in our next post.
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