Introducing Electrochemical Reactions

Electrochemical Reactions: Introduction

We use batteries throughout our day-to-day lives. Cell phones use lithium-ion batteries, cars use lead-acid batteries (see (a) part of the figure below), while silver-oxide batteries (see (b) part of the figure below) are used in watches. Some batteries are rechargeable (see (c) part of the figure below), while others cannot be recharged and have to be thrown away.

a) A car battery, b) watch batteries and c) rechargeable AA batteries.

A battery consists of multiple electrochemical cells. And within each cell there are electrochemical reactions taking place. This can be seen in the lemon battery experiment shown in the figure below. Each lemon is a cell in the battery, which consists of three lemon cells. The reactions the copper and zinc undergo in the lemons are electrochemical reactions, and a current is produced.

A current is produced by connecting lemons with zinc and copper metal. The reactions taking place here are electrochemical reactions.

Electrochemical reactions, and electrochemical cells are covered in this tutorial. Before going into any more detail however, it is important to revise oxidation and reduction, as well as redox reactions and how to balance them, as these concepts are very important in electrochemistry.