Episode: 3742
Title: HPR3742: Battery
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3742/hpr3742.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 04:50:41

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,742 for Tuesday 6 December 2022.
Today's show is entitled, Battery.
It is part of the series Ham Radio.
It is hosted by Ken Fallon and is about 10 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is the Wikipedia article on the battery.
Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Today, I'm going to do a show about batteries.
This is part of the Amateur Radio series where it's important for you to know what a battery is.
It's been read word for word from the Wikipedia, simply English, page and links will be in the show notes.
A battery converts chemical energy into electrical energy by a chemical reaction.
Usually the chemicals are kept inside the battery.
It is used in a circuit to power other components.
A battery produces direct current electricity and that is electricity that flows in one direction
and does not switch back and forth.
Using the electricity from a loudness in a building is cheaper and more efficient.
But a battery can provide electricity in areas that do not have electrical power distribution.
It's also useful for things that move, such as electric vehicles and mobile phones.
Batteries may be primary or secondary.
The primary is thrown away when it can no longer provide electricity.
The secondary can be recharged and reused.
The electrical symbol of a battery is a horizontal line with a vertical line, then a space and a smaller vertical line with a horizontal line extending out with the symbol plus on the long side and a minus on the short side.
So think of having two capital letter T's, Port Horizontal, almost touching and that's what you have.
Next section, chemistry inside a battery.
A battery can be one cell or many cells.
Each cell has an anode, cathode and electrolyte.
The electrolyte is the main material inside the battery.
This is often a type of acid and can be dangerous to touch.
Anode reacts with the electrolyte and produce electrons.
This is the negative or the minus end.
The cathode reacts with the electrolyte and takes electrons.
This is the positive or plus end.
The electric current happens when a wire connects the anode to the cathode and the electrons move from one end to the other.
But a battery can be damaged by just a wire connecting the two ends.
As a load is also needed between the two ends.
The load is something that slows the electrons down and usually does something useful like a light bulb in a flashlight or the electronics in a calculator.
Electrolite can be liquid or solid.
A battery is called a wet cell or dry cell depending on the type of electrolyte.
The chemical reactions that occur in a battery are exothermic reactions.
This type of reaction makes heat.
For example, if you leave your laptop on for a long time and then touch the battery it will be warm or hot.
A rechargeable battery is recharged by reversing the electric chemical reaction that occurs within the battery.
But a rechargeable battery can only be recharged a given number of times.
That's called the recharge life.
Even built-in batteries cannot be recharged forever.
Moreover, each time a battery is charged, recharged, its ability to hold charge goes down a bit.
Non-rechargeable batteries should not be charged as various harmful substances can leak out such as potassium hydroxide.
The cells can be connected to make a bigger battery.
Connecting the positive of one cell to the negative of the next is called connecting them in series.
The voltage of each battery is added together.
Two six-fold batteries connected in series will make 12 volts.
Connecting the positive of one cell to the positive of the other.
And the negative of the other is called connecting them in parallel.
The voltage stays the same but the current is added together.
Voltage is the pressure pushing the electrons through the wires and it is measured in units called volts.
Current is how many electrons can go at once and it's measured in units called amps.
The combination of current and voltage gives the power and that's measured in watts.
So you can say watts is equal to number of volts multiplied by the number of amps of a battery.
And there's a schematic shown batteries connected in parallel with the drawing.
Batteries come in different shapes, sizes and voltages.
Double A, triple A, C and D cells including alkaline batteries are standard sizes and shapes and have about 1.2 volts.
The voltage of the cell depends on the chemicals used.
The electrical charge depends on how large the cell is as well as what chemicals are used.
The charge a battery delivers is usually measured in amp hours.
Since the voltage stays the same, many more charge means a bigger cell can supply more amps or run for a longer time.
History.
The first battery was invented in 1800 by Alexandra Volta.
Nowadays his battery is called the Voltaic pile.
In small modern batteries the fluid is immobilized in the kind of paste and everything is put in a sealed case.
Because of this case nothing can spill out of the battery.
Larger batteries such as car batteries still have liquid inside and are not sealed.
A kind of battery that uses molten salts as the electrolyte was invented during War War II.
Type some batteries. Try cells.
Cells that do not contain the liquid or contain an immobilized liquid such as the paste or gel as the electrolyte.
So there are two sections. First one is primary cell. These cannot be recharged.
Alkaline batteries called alkaline not rechargeable.
Mercury batteries are also not rechargeable.
Lithuanian batteries are super heavy duty batteries not rechargeable.
Lithium batteries sometimes called coin cell are not rechargeable.
Silver oxide batteries are not rechargeable and these are called watch batteries.
And the Voltaic pile is also not rechargeable.
Secondary cells can be recharged.
These include sealed lead acid batteries. Lithium ion batteries used in cell phones and laptops.
Nickel cadium batteries. NICD are rechargeable.
Nickel metal hydride batteries. NICH rechargeable.
And nickel zinc batteries are also rechargeable.
In the section wet cells we have lead acid rechargeable car batteries.
Nickel iron rechargeable Edison batteries.
And then we also have fuel cells which are recharged by adding fuel.
Alternative to batteries.
Fuel cells and solar cells are not batteries because they do not store energy inside them.
A capacitor is also not a battery because it does not store energy in a chemical form.
A capacitor can store electricity and create electricity much faster than a battery.
But it is usually caused too much to make it as big as a battery can be.
Scientists and chemical engineers are working to make better capacitors and batteries for electrical cars.
Small electrical generators operated by hand and foot can supply power in small electrical devices.
Clockwork radios, clockwork toyaches and similar devices also have a wind up spring to store mechanical energy.
References are included in the show notes.
This article was released under the Creative Commons Attribution Scherelike License by Wikipedia.
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