Industrial Chemical Process Design
Including complex operations and formulas that are explained in an easy-to-understand format, this book provides the solutions to some of the most complex problems in chemical process design.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Industrial Chemical Process Design
Battery Cells
Everyone is familiar with the use of storage batteries in automobiles, the use of the dry cell in flashlights, and so forth. In connection with the study of electrolysis, attention was called to the possibility of employing storage batteries as the source of electrical energy necessary for the occurrence of electrochemical transformations. In view of the fact that the energy supplied by a battery cell is of chemical origin, it is interesting to inquire how the energy originating in chemical reactions can be used to perform useful work. Such an inquiry serves also to establish the relationship between the chemical changes that occur during electrolysis and those that take place in battery cells.
Relationship between electrolytic cells and battery cells
Perhaps the best approach to understanding the operation of battery cells may be had by reconsidering a simple case of electrolysis. The non-spontaneous changes that occur during the electrolysis of an aqueous solution of zinc chloride may be represented by the following equations:
These changes are caused by the imposition of an outside force, which may take the form of electrical energy supplied by a battery cell. Thus, energy is used and work is done in electrolyzing the zinc chloride solution. Since energy can be neither created nor destroyed, it follows that the electrical energy used during electrolysis must have been transformed into chemical energy possessed by the products of electrolysis. This fact leads directly to the question of whether this chemical energy stored up in the...
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