I asked some questions about batteries some years ago and others have done the same. I have re-read those threads but still have some questions, so please bear with me.
I appreciate the approach that Chabay and Sherwood take in making the transition from electrostatics to circuits in which they make the electric field primary rather than potential/voltage. They model a battery as a parallel plate capacitor whose electric field drives the current through a load. The field points from the positive plate to the negative plate through the wire, and also directly from the positive plate to the negative plate between the plates.
I am no good at ASCII art but here is a link to the article this is coming from
www4.ncsu.edu/~rwchabay/mi/circuit.pdf
The integral of the electric field from the positive plate through the wire, to the negative plate and across the gap to the positive plate is zero, as it should be for a conservative field. They introduce a "mechanical battery" which transports positive charge from the negative plate to the positive plate. So far so good.
My question is simply what is the mechanism in a real chemical battery which transports the charge against the electric field?
Justin Parke
Oakland Mills High School
Columbia, MD
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