How do Laptop Batteries Work?
Laptop batteries can be confusing. If you want to attain a greater background knowledge on how laptop batteries work, then you should definitely keep reading.
Batteries work through chemical reactions, so knowing a little about electro-chemistry is important when it comes to understanding how laptop batteries work. Laptop batteries supply laptops with electricity. In its most simple definition, electricity is just electrons; electrons that are moving are an electrical current, while an electrical charge is electrons that are still. A battery has to take the still electrons and make them move, thus creating an electrical current.
Electro-negativity is used to measure the amount of attraction a certain substance has for electrons. Similar to diffusion, a substance that is highly electronegative will pull electrons from a less electronegative substance. This can be seen in the rust of iron; oxygen, being the more electronegative substance, pulls the electrons out of iron and causes it waste away over time.
When generating a current, a wire made of a conductive substance is used to connect two different substances to each other. The more electronegative substance can then use the conductor as a pathway for the electrons to travel through toward it from the less electronegative substance. As long as the conductor is there, the substance that is more electronegative will continue to take electrons from the other substance until it runs out of electrons [in a battery's case, this would be its charge].
In order for a battery to be rechargeable, the chemical reactions must be reversible. It’s a simple concept: The battery must be able to take in more electrons from another source and use them to replenish its charge. In the case of laptop batteries, they use battery chargers. When it comes to recharge-ability, however, most modern batteries have to be made as “wet batteries.”
In a wet battery circuit, the transfer of electrons is managed by the migration of ions that are dissolved in a liquid called an electrolyte. Negative ions have an extra electron, and can thus give it up easily, while positive ions can then accept the ions. A wet battery circuit has two parts: wet and dry. The charges [electrons] in a wet battery go through a circuit. They flow through the dry part as electrical current through some sort of conductor [typically a wire] from the positive terminal to the negative. The positive terminal is less electronegative while the negative terminal is more electronegative.
During the wet part of the circuit, the electrons are then returned to the positive terminal to restart the cycle again. In a car, its battery would be considered the wet part of the circuit. However, when ions migrate from one pole of a battery to the other, they stop returning. The ions will build up until the migration of ions through the liquid is completely blocked and the current flow stops. The main reason people use these batteries is because of its huge advantage: rechargeability.
When a battery is charged [that is, having the current applied in the reverse direction] the ions will then retrieve the electrons that they lost or will give up the extra electron they already have. The ions can then start migrating back
through the electrolyte once again.
Laptop batteries use a similar principle that true wet batteries use. They use an electrolyte system that allows ions to travel through, but unlike car batteries, it isn’t a liquid. It is usually some sort of paste or similar substance. I realize that it’s a lot of information to take in at once, but now that you’ve read this article you should have a much stronger grasp on how these types of batteries work.
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