• Question: how did you make a battery ?

    Asked by rawlingd16 to Yasmin, Natasha, Jemma, James, Davide, Craig, Charlie on 25 Jan 2017. This question was also asked by Mod - Shane.
    • Photo: Charles Footer

      Charles Footer answered on 25 Jan 2017:

      A battery itself is really much less complex than you might think. All it really consists of is two separate chemical reactions happening near enough to each other that electrons which are created from one would like to travel to the other. This is called a potential.
      A simple and great way to make a battery would simply be sticking a piece of copper and a piece of aluminium connected to a light bulb into a lemon.

      Try it, it works really well actually!

    • Photo: Davide Moia

      Davide Moia answered on 25 Jan 2017:

      There are different types of batteries. What most of them have in common is that they have two electrodes, the anode and the cathode, separated by an ion conductor like an electrolyte or a polymer film. One of the requirements to make a performing battery is to find electrodes that are able to efficiently conduct electrons and ions and making them partecipate in chemical reactions. This is the basis of electrochemical energy storage.
      The type of batteries we work on use several materials like insulating polymers, lithium metal, sulphur, carbon and liquid solvents.

Comments