Does everything have a chemical energy store?
In: Physics
In chemistry we talk about potential energy of different compounds, and it’s related to the bonds between atoms. When a bond is formed energy is released, and you need to add energy to break bonds. Different compounds are more or less stable and the potential energy is inversely proportional to the stability of the bonds.
As a metaphor, you can imagine a bowling ball on a shelf. The higher you put it, the more potential energy it has. But when it’s on the floor it is completely stable because it can’t fall any further and thus it doesn’t have any potential energy.
EDIT: a better metaphor would be magnets. It takes energy to separate magnets just like molecules, and when release the magnets so they snap together, that energy is released. You can actually hear that energy because it causes the air to move, i.e. you hear a sound (a click).
Chemical reactions that release a lot of energy (e.g. combustion) occur when you transition from a less stable to a more stable compound. Because you have to break the bonds of the original compound in order to get to the more stable one, all chemical reactions that don’t start out with unbounded atoms require some energy to start the reaction, but once it gets going it continues by itself. That’s why you need heat to start a fire, but once it gets going it usually continues by itself.
In theory, there are compounds that are the most stable combination of elements and thus do not have any potential energy.
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