Like what about plastic makes it impossible for electricity to flow through it as opposed to something like metal?
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The electrons in conductive metals aren’t bound to a single nucleus and free flow through the material. This allows current to flow throughout.
Plastic have heavily bonded electrons that do not free flow.
Electricity relies on *charge carriers*. Charged particles that move around in a material. Normally electrons, although there’s some odd exceptions.
For an electron to move, there has to be an open spot for it to move into. This spot cannot be higher energy, and if this spot is lower energy then once the electron moves there is will stay. So really, you need an open spot that’s the same energy as the occupied spot.
Most materials don’t have that. Their occupied spots are different energies from their unoccupied spots, or too far away.
All materials conduct electricity (which is just electrons flowing from one atom to the next). Some atoms just hold onto their electrons more firmly, which means it takes more energy to get them moving and generates more heat from resistance as they do move. Air is a terrible conductor, yet lightning happens when the entire might of a storm pushes electrons along, but you could make electrons move through the same distance of wire with just a small battery.
I always think of those old ball-bearing puzzles I played with as a kid, the kind where you had to tip the puzzle back and forth and get the little balls to roll into their holes. And if you bumped the puzzle even slightly (added energy) the the balls would go flying around because the holes weren’t very deep.
So those little balls are like the electrons in their shell around the atom. A material like copper doesn’t have very deep “holes” for the electrons to sit in, so giving copper a little bit of energy–a small bump–can send the electrons flying off. However a material like plastic has very deep holes. You can get the electrons to move in plastic, but you have to give it quite a jolt of energy.
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