Yeah, here we are again. In the last series of “Have you ever thought about…“ we discussed barcodes and QR codes working principles that we use almost on a day-to-day basis. Now another critical tech just caught my attention batteries. Our smartphones, laptops, masonry tools, generators, electric vehicles, and almost everything else require a source of energy to meet their electrical needs are compatible with batteries.
The etymology of the word is related somehow to military vocabulary, to beat or strike another unlawfully. Also, the French word bombardment is somehow related to the term. However, in the 18th century, with the discovery of electricity by Benjamin Franklin, the word began to get the most frequent use as a device that stores and supplies electrical energy.
The world’s first battery is invented by an Italian physicist and chemist, Alessandro Volta, in 1800.
The voltaic pile, an early form of battery, was constructed using alternating discs of zinc and copper separated by pieces of cardboard soaked in brine. Brine is a solution of sodium chloride (NaCl) and water (H2O), simply is salty water. This arrangement produced an electrical current, which could be carried over a greater distance using a metallic conducting arc.
Basically, a battery is a device that converts chemical energy into electrical energy. Inside the battery, there are two electrodes called the anode and the cathode, which are separated by a liquid called the electrolyte. When the battery is connected to an external circuit, a chemical reaction occurs at the anode, where zinc atoms are oxidized, releasing electrons and forming zinc ions. These electrons flow through the external circuit to the cathode, where they are taken up by hydrogen ions in the electrolyte, forming hydrogen gas. This flow of electrons is what we call an electric current. The overall process involves two half-reactions: oxidation at the anode and reduction at the cathode. oxidation involves the loss of electrons, while reduction involves the gain of electrons. These two processes often occur simultaneously in a redox reaction. These reactions continue until one of the reactants is used up, and the battery can no longer produce electricity.
During the 19th and 20th centuries Zinc-Carbon, Nickel-Iron, Nickel-Hydrogen, and other combinations were used for storing energy. Wet with a liquid electrolyte, also dry batteries were used throughout time.
Nowadays Lithium is the metal with the lowest density and with the greatest electrochemical potential and energy-to-weight ratio, is used in a variety of areas.
Interestingly Sodium-ion batteries are emerging as a promising alternative to the widely used lithium-ion batteries. Both types of batteries use a liquid electrolyte to store and transfer electrical energy. However, they differ in the type of ions they use, with sodium-ion batteries using sodium ions and lithium-ion batteries using lithium ions.
- Sodium is more than 500 times more abundant than lithium, which is available in a few countries.
- Sodium-ion battery charges faster than lithium-ion variants and have a three times higher lifecycle.
- However, sodium-ion batteries lack of a well-established raw material supply chain and the technology is still in the early stages of development.
Maybe in the future, we will find totally new way of storing energy. For now, we have explored the topic of batteries and how they work. I hope you found this information useful. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to share them.✨
Thank you for reading. Enjoy your day!😊