Electrical Energy Storage
Science Posse
University of Wyoming
Electrical Energy Storage
 How is electrical energy stored?
 By converting the electromagnetic energy into
another form
 Storing the energy in another form is much
easier than directly storing the electricity
Electrical Energy Storage
 Some types of electrical energy storage are
 The battery – Uses the electromagnetic properties of
certain molecules to get electricity from chemical energy
 The fuel cell – Electricity is used to break water into
hydrogen and oxygen. When the electricity is needed
again, the gasses are recombined, releasing water and
electricity.
 The fly wheel – Electricity is used in a motor to spin a
heavy object (several pounds). Then the object is spinning
rapidly, the motor is turned off, and the object spins on its
own momentum. When electricity is needed, the spinning
object is used to run a generator, thus creating electricity.
The Battery
 The battery has three main parts
 The anode
 The part that has an excess of electrons, giving it a negative charge
 The cathode
 The part that has a shortage of electrons, giving it a positive charge
 The electrolyte
 A substance that forms a boundary between the anode and cathode.
 Full of ions.
 Ions are molecules or atoms that have an unbalanced number of electrons,
so they have a charge of some sort.
The Battery
 The anodes and cathodes are typically a
conductive metal
 The electrolyte is a substance that is highly ionic
like an acid or base (i.e. “battery acid”).
 Some household products make good electrolytes like lemon
juice, salt water, vinegar, etc.
The Battery – How it Works
 The electrolyte is placed in between the anode
and the cathode.
 A chemical reaction takes place where the
electrolytes ions remove electrons from the
cathode and give them to the anode.
 This creates the unbalance of electrons and the
positive and negative charges on the cathode and
anode
The Battery – How it Works
 When the battery is connected to an electric
circuit, the excess of electrons of the anode are
given a path to flow back to the cathode.
 This returns the battery to a balanced, neutral
state.
 This is how a battery is “drained.”
The Voltaic Pile
 Invented in 1800 by Alessandro Voltaire
 One of the first batteries
 Consists of several Voltaic Cells stacked on each
other
 Each Voltaic Cell consists of a piece of copper,
which acts as the cathode, a piece of zinc, which
acts as the anode, and a piece of paper soaked in
an electrolyte.
The Voltaic Pile
The Voltaic Cell