Eli5 Why is one Farad an impractically large unit? 1 Coloumb of charge is technically the electric charge of 6.24 10e18 charge carriers. And one Farad is by definition this much amount of charge stored across a potential difference of one volt. If related what are Supercapacitors, their application?
In: 46
A Coulomb is an established unit. For example, “Amps” are Coulombs per second. As much as possible, we want to use established units in their “base” form for building other units. Making a Farad “millionths of a Coulomb per volt” isn’t what we want to do. You can call it a microfarad instead. And we do.
Yes, in the history of capacitors it’s meant that the average capacitor has incredibly *small* amounts of Farads, but that’s just how it goes.
As for “supercapacitors”, they are just capacitors that have reached more than 1 Farads worth of capacitance. And even that’s not an official definition. While not a replacement for a battery, they’re at the point where they can join a battery in dealing with surge demands, such as when a battery is asked to put out hundreds of amps suddenly, perhaps for the starter motor of a car, or a battery backup power supply when commercial power goes out switching to battery power…. poor batteries go from minimal power draw (or even a float charge) to suddenly demanding hundreds of amps produced. Supercapacitors can provide that cushion for the batteries.
Latest Answers