If you are keen to know what happens inside your battery broadly speaking, then you came to the right page. If on the other hand you are interested in a particular chemistry, then we suggest you click on the magnifying glass at the top right corner of this page. Then you can enter a particular type of battery, just as an example, and search for ideas on your topic.
Your Battery and The Events Inside It
Things are always happening inside your battery, even if it seems idle. The root cause of this activity lies in what we call chemical potential. This is the mechanism that allows batteries to store energy. Although what happens inside your battery occurs in Nature as well.
Let’s take oxygen and the logs from trees for example. They both store energy in their chemical bonds, which are the forces that bond atoms into molecules. When we burn the logs, which needs oxygen, we release some of their stored energy as heat.
We have been doing something similar with gasoline and oxygen, ever since Nicolaus Otto came up with the idea in 1876. Except in this case, we convert chemical potential into mechanical energy, to move the pistons in the engine.
The Energy Source In Your Batteries
Trees and plants – and the fossil fuels they leave behind – derive their chemical potential from the carbon dioxide they process to produce oxygen. But chemical batteries are not living things, and so they have to import their chemical potential from elsewhere.
This ‘on-boarding’ process begins when we connect a battery to a suitable electrical supply, and allow electrons to charge the battery. We reverse this procedure when we use the battery, and release the energy to power a device. Meanwhile, charged atomic ions move in the opposite direction inside the battery.
This was just a short introduction to what happens inside your battery. Please stay with us a while longer, while you follow the fascinating world of batteries on our website.
More Information
Measure of Lithium-Ion Battery Potential
