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Sunday, May 23, 2021

A Technical Introduction to the Concept and Value of Batteries

What has kept us fluidly moving around, in all sorts of contexts,  by storing energy and providing it as needed to an increasing number of devices, large and small?  What are they now, and how will they progress?     Start with a Battery Day

Battery Day   By Jessie Frazelle   ACM

Communications of the ACM, May 2021, Vol. 64 No. 5, Pages 52-59 10.1145/3434222

Tesla held its first Battery Day on September 22, 2020. What a fantastic world we live in that we can witness the first Applelike keynote for batteries. Batteries are a part of everyday life; without them, the world would be a much different place. Your cellphone, flashlight, tablet, laptops, drones, cars, and other devices would not be portable and operational without batteries.

At the heart of it, batteries store chemical energy and convert it into electrical energy. The chemical reaction in a battery involves the flow of electrons from one electrode to another. When a battery is discharging, electrons flow from the anode, or negative electrode, to the cathode, or positive electrode. This flow of electrons provides an electric current that can be used to power devices. Electrons have a negative charge; therefore, as the flow of negative electrons moves from one electrode to another, an electrolyte is used to balance the charge by being the route for charge-balancing positive ions to flow.

Let's break this down a bit and uncover the chemical reactions at play within batteries. An electrical current requires a flow of electrons. Where do those electrons come from?  ... " 

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