How can we make a high voltage Battery?

Question

We know that when we charge a battery, the energy builds up inside it and the voltage rises., until we reach the limiting rating of the battery.

So, if we increase the limiting voltage of the "batteries cells", higher power can be reached.

Answer 1

A cell is a single pair of different materials in an electrolyte solution. For a given pair of materials such as carbon and zinc, there is a fixed maximum voltage that can be generated. A battery is more than one cell, usually connected in series to create a higher voltage. The old term is "Voltaic Pile". Capacitors store electric charge. They can can easily be built with common materials and store very high voltages. If you want to have fun with high voltage do a search on "Van de Graaff"

A 120V battery is 10 times bigger than a 12V battery for the same AH rating.

Answer 2

How about putting batteries in series. You'll be able to reach just about any voltage you would need (within reason).

Answer 3

The voltage of the cells are limited by chemistry. They started by taking different metals and comparing galvanic potential in seawater. (Go to the link to see) Consider graphite (+.02 SCE) and zinc (-1.0 SCE). With different electrolytes you can do a little better than with seawater. So, (the "heavy duty" cells available now) carbon-zinc cells have 1.02V in seawater, but with the acid they use, a better electrolyte, make 1.5V.

http://www.corrosionsource.com/handbook/...

So, we now have lithium batteries, which are about 3V. The Lithium ion rechargeables are 3.6V.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_Ion

Wiki has good articles on the various battery technologies. Again, battery manufacturers are looking for better systems, but are limited by the chemistry.

Answer 4

Not entirely, the ammount of power is limited by the chemical reaction that happens inside the battery. Also, theres a difference between the voltage that a battery gives off, and the physical ammount of energy stored.