Experimental Investigations of Alkaline Silver-zinc and Copper-zinc Batteries

Batteries are important issues in electrochemistry and in electrochemistry lessons. But nevertheless, the electrode processes in batteries are not quite easy to understand.One of the didactic benefits of the investigations of alkaline silver-zinc and copper-zinc batteries might be the chance to directly observethe changes on the electrode surface and the simple way to measure the electrode processes. These electrode processes are intensively examined so that they can be explained well and described clearly.In this paper we will present several experiments to investigate these two battery systems: Cyclic voltammetry is used to identify the electrode processes, and on the basis ofcharging and discharging curves one can estimate the efficiency of the batteries. Furthermore, the reflection of a laser beam onto a surfaceis an easy means to correlate the results with the electrochemical changes of the electrode.