Batteries are everywhere. They allow mobility of our electronic devices. These batteries are filled with chemicals that produce electricity. Electrons collect on the negative side and if you create a closed circuit with the positive and negative terminals, along with something that draws a load (light bulb) the energy will flow properly. Where does the energy come from? A chemical reaction inside the batteries. The speed at how they are produced within the battery is the batteries internal resistance. They travel from the negative to the positive terminal for the reaction to take place. If the electricity is not flowing the chemical reaction does not take place. Think, once a connection is attached the reaction begins.
What does this have to do with our discussion? I typed it out to help us all understand. A rechargeable battery is recharged when external electrical energy is applied onto the battery. The flow of electricity from the NEGATIVE to the POSITIVE side during discharge that I mentioned above is REVERSED and the batteries power is restored. Can All batteries be recharged? NO, because it depends on the type of chemicals within the battery. Think of a car, car batteries are rechargeable by the alternator in a car because they are filled with a LEAD acid solution. The rate of charging is based on the amount of power being thrown into the battery. You have to be careful though, because certain batteries can only handle certain amounts of charging.
So what causes a battery to loose its charge? Being used is one option and the other is the growth of cadmium crystals within the battery. If a battery is not fully discharged. The crystals within them will not be affected by the electrical current. So they are not reformed and can grow larger, when they grow larger, the battery looses its capacity to hold a greater charge because the space is being used. Now that I explained how batteries work, let’s answer the question…
Some batteries can be “ recharged.” Does that mean that the battery has a supply of charge that is depleted as the battery is used? YES, there’s a chemical reaction within the battery that creates the electricity. As the car battery discharges because you left your lights on and the car is off, the chemical reaction within the battery is flowing from the completed circuit. The lead plates and lead dioxide plates with all the chemicals involved are dissipating as they run out of electricity. Their supply is running out; YES they are depleted and the battery will not be able to recreate the chemical reaction to create electricity.
If “ recharging” does not literally mean to put charge back into the battery, what does it mean? How do you recharge a battery? Look at my explanation of how batteries work, when you reapply the correct voltage to a battery, the lead and lead dioxide along with all the involved chemicals, reform on the lead and lead dioxide plates, creating a recharge of the chemicals that are required to create electricity. You are not putting electricity back into the battery, you are allowing the battery to reform within the ingredients, the ability to recreate electricity.
Summarizing the questions, when the battery is giving off it’s electricity, the electrons are flowing from one side to the other, so it is loosing it’s charge. With a recharger, the flow of electrons are reversed and the original side that lost the electrons regains them.
Think:::
SIDE A ————————- SIDE B
ELECTRONS —————–>
(As the battery is loosing power the electrons move over to side B).
SIDE A ———————— SIDE B
<—————————ELECTRONS
(When the charger is applied, the electrons move back).
The battery looses power completely and dies when the chemicals and materials are no longer able to hold a charge (electrons will not be produced and flow in the chemical charge).
