• Question: How does a re-chargeable battery work?

    Asked by Samuelthescientist to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Oliver Brown

      Oliver Brown answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      So the way a non-rechargeable battery works is that two chemicals are held apart inside the battery, one has extra electrons going spare, and one needs more electrons. When you connect up the two terminals on the battery, the electrons have a way of getting from the chemical with spare electrons to the one that needs electrons, and that’s just what they do.

      The only difference with a rechargeable battery is that this process can be reversed! By connecting the rechargeable battery to another power supply one chemical is given more electrons and the other has some electrons taken away, recreating the original imbalance.

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