Re: EMF +- battery speculation

[Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

Ludwik asked (in a speculative message posted last night):

> > Is it true that most of the electric flux is in the acid between
> > the [battery] plates, as in a charged capacitor? I think so.

JohnD responded:

> I don't think so.  There is no field and no flux in the
> electrolyte of an unloaded battery.

1) How do you justify this?
2) Suppose an air  capacitor, whose one plate is Zn and another
    is Cu, is already charged to X volts, the same voltage it would
    develop in the electrolyte. Nearly all the electric field flux is
    between the electrodes. The capacitor is then inserted into the
    electrolyte. All the flux, you are saying, is now expelled from
    the region between the plates. What does it? Why does the
    flux "prefer" a longer path outside the plates instead of a shorter
    path between the plates?
3) And is the electric flux distributed when one half of each plate
    is sticking out; (it is not surrounded by the electrolyte)?

Ludwik also speculated that ions do not drift because:

> > in addition to the electric force (Fe=q*E) each carrier
> > [in space between the plates] experiences another force, equal
> > and opposite to Fe.This non-electric force was labeled as emf.

JohnD:

> This is a fairy tale.  Further speculation along this
> line is not going to be helpful.

Many textbooks do refer to "a non-electric" force (agent) doing
positive work on ions inside a battery cell. Is this a misconception?
The "agent" is presumably responsible for gains of energy inside
a chemical cell.

By the way, my speculation was mostly about how the idea
of a "non-electric force" was conceived. Does somebody
have a non-speculative answer to the question?
Ludwik Kowalski