dumb battery question

[[email protected]]

I was talking to someone about batteries the other day.

He said when you bring certain metals together, the
potential appears 'naturally', i.e. merely by the action
of sandwiching them. I answered that's impossible,
it would be free energy, entropy contradicts it. It has
to be charged, after bringing them into proximity.

Assuming I am correct - that raises the question of
how the manufacturer charges them up in the first place,
for the non-rechargeable types.

Conversion of the raw metal ores into metal. Takes a *lot* of energy.

Most metals (gold is an exception) don't like to remain metal - in our
wet, oxygen atmosphere, they will revert to the ore phase.

e.g. alkaline batteries (what does that mean anyway?)

IIRC, potassium hydroxide (alkaline base) as the electrolyte in
alkaline batteries.

Madman

 

[fkasner]

---
Regardless of what you may think of my "descriptive malevolence",
the fact remains that the topic of the thread was about generating a
current by merely touching dissimilar metals together. A battery
with no electrolyte, if you like.

Your description is that of generating static electricity by rubbing
a _non-conductor_ with another non-conductor and accumulating unlike
charges on the two different surfaces, which has absolutely nothing
to do with the subject being discussed.

Your apparent inability to understand that, I believe, lends
credence to my "descriptive malevolence". Wouldn't you agree, if
the shoe was on the other foot?

As you are unable to read I shall parse the reply for you. The term was
"sir" of which you are not worthy.
FK

 

[John Fields]

As you are unable to read I shall parse the reply for you. The term was
"sir" of which you are not worthy.

---
Oh, well... Your opinion as to whether I can read or not and my
worthiness to be addressed as "sir", by you, is really of little
consequense. What does matter, I believe, is the technical content
of both of my posts, which refutes the idea that rubbing a glass rod
with a piece of rabbit fur in order to generate a static charge is
anything like touching a piece of copper to a piece of zinc in order
to generate a dirrect current, which was the topic of the thread.

But you don't want to go there, do you?

 

[Rich Grise]

You would be wrong in that answer.


No, it doesn't. And it's not "free". It comes at the cost of one (or
both) of the metals corroding into something other than "pure whatever
metal it happens to be". In other words, a chemical change in the
components yields an electrical potential.


Incorrect. Various combinations of metals and/or other ingredients start
producing current immediately upon being brought into contact with each
other. One example would be a chunk of copper wire and a galvanized
(zinc-coated) nail stuck in a lemon - The potential is there the instant
the second strip is jabbed into the lemon, needing only a circuit from
the wire to the nail to start flowing. No "charging" needed - unless you
count the assembly process as "charging".

The charging took place when they refined the copper and the zinc, and
from the lemon tree turning sunlight, air, and water into citric and
ascorbic acids. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

Good idea. I'm not sure I *want* to know why one would chew aluminum
foil to begin with...

Too impatient to unwrap the chololate coin? ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Where did you acquire these "dumb batteries?" Are they the same
type as those that killed the Energizer Bunny? That tragedy
wasn't caused by faulty batteries or dumb batteries. It was
caused by improper installation of the batteries.

I thought that someone used a sawed off double barrel shotgun to off
that hairy little pest?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[redbelly]

Good idea. I'm not sure I *want* to know why one would chew aluminum
foil to begin with...

If one is around 12 years old, and a friend says "try chewing on some
aluminum foil", 9 out of 10 people will try it. As I, er, as ONE grows
older and knows better, one still retains the memory of the fooish
stuff I--I mean ONE--did as a youngster.

Mark

 

[Gordon]

I thought that someone used a sawed off double barrel shotgun to off
that hairy little pest?

I heard that someone put the little Energizer Bunny's batteries
in backward, then, instead of going and going and going, the
little bunny kept coming and coming and coming until he died from
sexual exhaustion.

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Good idea. I'm not sure I *want* to know why one would chew aluminum
foil to begin with...

Some choclate is packed in foil,and does not come
of easely.(Example: had some small easter eggs
this weekend which were packed that way )

 

[Don Bruder]

Some choclate is packed in foil,and does not come
of easely.(Example: had some small easter eggs
this weekend which were packed that way )

Then there's the ever-popular "last stick of gum in the pack that's been
sitting on the dashboard melting and re-hardening until the foil won't
come off and you don't notice that you didn't get all of it until you
chomp down on it" event.

I think my "best score" on that one was about a 6 foot leap sideways as
I bit down on the tinfoil that was stuck to the gum, and instantly got
hit in the side of the head by an invisible baseball bat (swung by an
equally invisible assailant), to the accompaniment of the world's
biggest flashbulb going off inside my head, and a sound like Gallagher
schmucking a watermelon on a bass drum.

Nothing like a jolt of electricity straight to the brain via the mouth...

Needless to say, I won't touch a stick of gum that doesn't "peel clean"
on the first try anymore!