For example, we have chemical energy in the form of fuels and can convert that chemical energy into electricity. How does that process work? How can we turn kinetic energy of wind mills to electricity? How does sunlight turn into heat energy? How come we can measure energy in Joules when there are so many forms of it?
In: Chemistry
Chemical energy can be directly converted into electricity by exploiting chemical reactions which make electrons move from one side to another (electricity is the controlled flow of electrons).
Kinetic energy is converted into electricity often by using rotating devices. This works because kinetic energy can make something rotate and a rotating magnetic field (for example produced by a rotating magnet) produces AC voltage because of the interconnection between electric and magnetic fields.
There are also more indirect ways to convert chemical energy into electrical energy, by going through extra steps, including:
– burning the fuel and using the steam to move something, and in turn convert that motion into electricity (steam engines)
– spraying fuel into air and generating a high temperature gas that is used to move something which is in turn used to produce electricity (combustion engines)
>How come we can measure energy in Joules when there are so many forms of it?
We can measure energy with the same unit because energy is always energy. Energy can be used to produce a force. The simplest example is some kind of energy pushing, say, an object by 2 feet. If the thing pushing is parallel to the path taken by the object, the energy is simply the product E=F*s, where F (in the simplest case) is the weight. You can also measure the energy produced by burning something (e.g. the food energy in calories) by measuring the increase in temperature of something else.
Latest Answers