As I understand it, the electric potential energy in a system of two point charges q and Q is U = qQ/4πrε, where r is the separation between them and ε is the permittivity of the medium in between. So the potential energy depends on the magnitude of the charges, the separation between them and the medium between. What is commonly meant by "static electricity" is electrical charge separation of some sort. So the two are related, but one is great deal more precise than the other. I have the feeling you are going to need to be a lot more precise in your communications if this discussion is going to get very far.
Can you call a battery a capacitor, The battery is charged provided you don't make a connection between the poles it will hold charges for long time , The plates can be charged in an acid media .
A battery converts chemical energy into electrical energy. A capacitor stores electrical energy in an electric field.
A battery stores energy .. It converts chemical energy once a connection is made between anode and cathode. I don't know if you can see to much difference between an electrolytic capacitor and a battery, were the electrolyte is borax and ethylene glycol. The difference the capacitor discharges very fast but a battery discharges slowly .
Well yes. In this case, there are charged conductors (q, Q) in the form of ice particles, separated by (very large) distances (r) and with air as the dielectric medium (permittivity ε). So what is your point, exactly?
Good post. Does it also suggest that since static Electricity and it's storage by capacitor model can not stay for long n will either be dissipated or discharged, still electric potential energy will be there for long till used?
That is a question about triboelectricity. The mechanism for charge separation in thunderclouds has not, so far as I can see, been settled. There is a review here of the various charging mechanisms that have been considered: http://www.tau.ac.il/~colin/courses/AtmosElec/Saunders Charge Separation SSR 2008 (1).pdf and there is a yet further mechanism, invoking quantum mechanical exchange interactions, proposed here: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19880001070.pdf But I'm not an expert on this. Perhaps there may be others more knowledgeable who can comment further.
The potential will remain until the charges are discharged via some physical process. In practice this happens all the time, due to the presence of ions in the air for instance. You may have noticed you are more likely to experience static electricity effects (e.g. from walking on artificial fabric carpets with synthetic-soled shoes) when the air is dry than when it is moist. Capacitors store electric charge almost indefinitely, but these are dry and enclosed. It is worth bearing in mind that the amount of charge (measured in Coulombs) that can be stored in this way is VERY SMALL, compared to a battery, which stores electrical energy by quite different means (by converting it to chemical energy). A current of one amp is one Coulomb per second. Most capacitors cannot store even a Coulomb of charge. However there are, I see, things nowadays called "supercapacitors" that can do more than this. More here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/whats_the_role_of_the_supercapacitor But you will see even these are used for short transient power absorption and release, measured in seconds, whereas batteries can release energy for hours, days or weeks. P.S. This sort of thing is Billvon's area. He may be able to comment more authoritatively on supercapacitors than I can.
Yes there is a huge difference. Even an electrolytic capacitor does not convert electric charge to chemical energy. It relies on an oxide layer or equivalent that is chemically produced, once only, to act as a dielectric and after that it behaves just like any other capacitor - unless some fool reverses the polarity, in which case the dielectric layer is destroyed and the capacitor then becomes a conductor and may blow up.
Thanks About clouds and lightening, I shall check by myself. Hoever, the substances which has neutral charge eg water, should not be a substance fit for for static energy and capacitor model. "The potential will remain until the charges are discharged via some physical process", will you tell some more about it?
I highly recommend that anyone interested in static electricity and electricity in general read An Elementary Treatise on Electricity by James Clark Maxwell. https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet...ry-Treatise-On-Electricity#page/n19/mode/2up/ It is extremely well written and easy to read for beginners but interesting for even experts. You can also search for Faraday's works at archive.org. Faraday also wrote about electricity but since he was also a chemist (among other things) and discusses some early electrochemistry. https://archive.org/stream/experimentalrese00faraiala#page/n7/mode/2up https://archive.org/search.php?query=michael faraday&and[]=subject:"Electricity"&and[]=subject:"Chemistry"&and[]=subject:"Science"&and[]=subject:"Physics" About capacitors, all capacitors leak. Maxwell wrote about this and if I remember correctly he basically said that there is no such thing as a perfect insulator. Infinite resistance is not a thing. Even if your charged plates are billions of light years apart there is some non-zero conduction. All capacitors leak and will eventually discharge. Electrolytic caps can stay charged for years but that is more because of the large size with respect to capacitance. There are types of caps that have much less leakage but they seem to have much smaller capacitance for equivalent size. An interesting side story is the Capacitor Plague of a decade ago. The wikipedia page has lots of pics of what can happen with electrolytic capacitors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague The story I heard was that a formula and process for electrolytic capacitors was stolen via corporate espionage from a big name Japanese manufacturer of quality capacitors. But the formula stolen was supposedly wrong. I have direct experience with the problem when my computer monitors (big name Korean brand) all failed a few months after the warranty expired. The problem was their backlight power supplies had failed and it was obvious when I opened them up that the caps had failed. The ends were bulging. It cost about $10 to replace the caps. I soon found that there were many computer monitors in dumpsters and recycling bins around. About 90% were fixable just by changing the caps. I would not recommend that people do this unless they understand what they are doing. It can be dangerous.
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Hmm, I see what you mean. And he disappeared when you posted this...... Let's see if he's back tomorrow. I still suspect an attempt at justifying homeopathy at the bottom of all this, but maybe I'm too cynical.
