Why is batteries dc

As you might imagine, it's a lot harder to kill someone with volts than with 1 million volts and most electrical deaths are prevented altogether today using GFCI outlets. To learn more, read How Power Grids Work. A bitter rivalry between electricity-savvy inventors may sound fictional, but the tension between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla was real.

Tesla championed alternating current, while Edison insisted that it was too dangerous. The only casualties in this "war of currents" were the animals Edison publicly electrocuted with Tesla's high voltage system to prove his point.

The early victims were dogs and cats, but Edison eventually electrocuted an elephant named Topsy [source: Ruddick ]. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Battery is a two terminal, static charge accumulator device. The batteries convert the chemical energy to electrical energy. Where the charge stored on the plates in form of chemical reaction is in static in nature.

At that same time, we cannot store Alternating Current in batteries because AC changes its polarity periodically which means the conventional AC supply has upto 50Hz or 60Hz 50 to 60 times in a second. But in practical this condition highly impossible.

Within a wire carrying direct current, electrons hop from atom to atom while moving in a single direction. Thus, a given electron that starts its trek at one end of the wire will eventually end up at the other end of the wire. Instead, they hop from atom to atom in one direction for a while, and then turn around and hop from atom to atom in the opposite direction. Every so often, the electrons change direction. The above image shows the AC cycle in which one positive and negative cycle is considered as a wave.

There is the frequency in alternating current and it is the number of cycles per second, so the frequency is calculated according to the wave. The AC signal is fluctuating current and it has positive and negative cycles, while the DC is direct and its magnitude is not varying with time.

The AC is varying with time. In the phase, there are positive and negative, while in DC we say the negative and positive section because it is not varying. This chemical energy is then converted into electrical energy while the battery is used. This electrical energy that is used in the battery is DC and not AC. So a battery consist of a positive and negative charged electrode and this electrode will be immersed in an electrolyte which is a fluid.

This electrolyte also has electrons and charge too. So when we connect a load to the electrodes then the circuit will be completed and the electrons will flow from the higher side to the lower side and this flow is the current, so the chemical reaction takes place according to the attraction and repulsion of the electrons and in this way the battery works.