Batteries and Their Importance

        We use batteries everyday, we use them to start our cars and
to listen to our Walkmans. I have a few questions: How do batteries
work? What are the different kinds of batteries? Why do they die? Why
do they lose energy when they are not used for a long time? Well I
tried my best to find the best answers for these questions and a
little more.

        Battery, also called an electric cell, is a device that
converts chemical energy into electricity. All batteries contain an
electrolyte, a positive electrode, and a negative electrode. There are
two general types of batteries. Batteries in which chemicals cannot be
reconstituted into their original form once their energy have been
converted these are called primary cells. Batteries in which the
chemicals can be reconstituted by passing an electric current through
them in the opposite direction are known as secondary cells, are
rechargeable cells.
        The primary battery is the most common type of battery used
today, invented by the French chemist Geoges Leclanche in the late
1860s. At the time this invention was very important and helped the
start of the industrial revolution. It allowed people with portable
electricity. This popular invention was called the dry cell or
flashlight battery. The Lechlanche cell is very similar to the dry
cell we use today. The positive pole is a rode of carbon embedded in a
black manganese dioxide (MnO2) and Carbon particles and the negative
electrode is made of zinc. The electrolyte consists of a mixture of
ammonium chloride and zinc chloride made into a paste. This sits in
between the negative and positive electrodes, which acts as an ionic
conductor. When the cell is in use, atoms of the Zinc in the outer
case are oxidized, giving up electrons and forming zinc ions.

Zn - 2e   Zn++

The electrons are lost by the zinc atoms then flow through the load
(the device being powered) and supply energy. They re-enter the...