Dry cells! (1 Viewer)

[ashokkumar]

Hey everyone.

I'm having trouble with the zinc-carbon dry cell. Every textbook (conquering, contexts, jacaranda) and other sources have different cathode reactions.

Which cathode reaction is the right one? :S

 

[Aerath]

Hahaha, that confused me last year (and I still don't get it), and that's why I changed to the lead acid cell.

 

[study-freak]

Hey everyone.

I'm having trouble with the zinc-carbon dry cell. Every textbook (conquering, contexts, jacaranda) and other sources have different cathode reactions.

Which cathode reaction is the right one? :S

Trust Jacaranda for this one.

 

[ashokkumar]

Ahh okay thanks. One other thing. Different textbooks have different electrolyte pastes. They all have ammonium chloride, but different textbooks have varying compounds in the electrolyte. (e.g. zinc chloride, manganese dioxide, carbon powder).

So what is the actual composition of the electrolyte paste?

 

[annabackwards]

Hahaha, that confused me last year (and I still don't get it), and that's why I changed to the lead acid cell.

Hehe good thing my school taught me about the lead-acid cell ^^

 

[study-freak]

Ahh okay thanks. One other thing. Different textbooks have different electrolyte pastes. They all have ammonium chloride, but different textbooks have varying compounds in the electrolyte. (e.g. zinc chloride, manganese dioxide, carbon powder).

So what is the actual composition of the electrolyte paste?

Well I'd guess it varies slightly depending on the battery but ammonium chloride is the main component.
You can mention a few other aqueous components in an exam if you want but ammonium chloride (26%w/w if I correctly remember from Jacaranda - and yes, I memorised it for the HSC LOL) should suffice.
It's a big time waste if you try to go much further on your research because
1. Jacaranda says it - teachers read it (the same with conquering I guess, but my research indicates that Jacaranda is better for dry cells part)
2. What is the electrolyte? (likely to be a 1 marker)