why cant we store electricity indefinitely in batteries?
In: Chemistry
Time for some wibbly lines as we go back to the first modern batteries – the voltaic pile, developed by Volta. They were essentially a copper disc, on top of a zinc disc, on top of a piece of cardboard or felt soaked in salt water, repeated until you had the voltage you wanted.
As basic as that design is, you can see physical reasons why it won’t hold up forever – the electrolyte (salt water) will evaporate, the discs will corrode, reducing their contacting surfaces.
Our modern batteries suffer from similar problems, even ultramodern lithium ion rechargeable batteries, where the electrodes are damaged over time and use.
So, is it possible to store electricity indefinitely? Well, kind of yes, but only by cheating – going back to our stack, if we keep the discs separate and add electrolyte when we need it, then the battery is permanently charged – it just needs a little assembly before use.
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