Why do batteries lose charge when they’re not being used?
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There are two main reasons. One is small internal short circuits, and the second is side reactions. Internal short circuits may be clearer, so let‘s talk about the side reactions: The battery charge depends on a main chemical reactions, however, side reactions are taking place which use up parts of the chemicals, so they are no longer available for the main reaction.
Eli5 version: Let‘s say you have a bunch of workers, and since they are doing hard work they need food to be able to work. lot’s of food. But currently you don‘t have a real task for them, so they sit idle and do other things, like playing cards, chatting, standing around, go for walks, etc.
They will still use food, very little compared to the times they are doing hard work, but nevertheless that food will be missing once they have to start doing real work again.
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If you get magnets close to each other, they will eventually reach a distance where they snap together. The charge and discharge cycles in batteries are an electrochemical process, involving lithium ions and electrons bonding and unbonding.
The amount of magnetism involved is incredibly tiny, but electrons gently float around the “fence” all the time…
Do you use energy when you are just chilling, watching a movie? Same concept
In most batteries there is something internally that separates the positive part and the negative part (separator). The separator is not perfect, and causes the battery to internally discharge itself. You can think of it as an extremely tiny internal short.
Modern li-ion batteries self discharge is extremely small, but it is there.
Pretty much anything else people are talking about isn’t self discharge, it’s degradation of the battery, which reduces capacity.
Edit: To expand some more, when you connect a battery to something, like a lightbulb, electrons flow from the negative part of the battery, through the light bulb, then to the positive part of the battery. In self discharge electrons flow from the negative part of the battery to the positive part through the internal separator.
Depends on the battery.
A chemical cell like a AA, yeah, it dies over time as the chemicals in them still react. A Lead Acid battery on the other hand will actually charge itself over time. Back in college, car wouldn’t, dead battery start due to lights on, but I didn’t need it. I could walk to school. 3 days later, car started. If the battery died due to a short circuit or a dead cell, then the lead acid is toast, but this was just ran down.
The reason why is because voltage is a potential. To create a voltage in a battery chemicals are used. These chemicals are constantly trying to reach 0 potential energy and only drop unless an external force is applied (by charging with voltage or magnetic field). The battery’s chemicals will slowly drop to 0 potential energy even if the battery isnt used.
When you use a battery you are using the “potential energy” stored in the battery. You aren’t putting chemicals into your device when you are putting the batteries in and the batteries have to come from somewhere.
I suppose its due to the inner resistance of the battery, and the current flowing through the inner resistance drains it slowly.
Batteries work by having a lot more electrons in one side than the other. They tend to have an insulator in the middle that prevents those electrons from going back.
However a small amount of electrons slowly go back to get equilibrium, slowly discharging the battery.
The insulator in some batteries is thicker to prevent this discharge, but just makes it slower, it never truly stops. Having an insulator that is too thick removes useful space for actual capacity and adds weight. So batteries that want the most capacity will also discharge fast. Batteries that discharge very slow will have less capacity.
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