Electrochemistry Tutorial: Galvanic Cells and the Nernst Equation >> Step 2: Powering a stopwatch

Electrochemistry: Galvanic Cells and the Nernst Equation

Step 2: Powering a stopwatch

To summarize things so far: To create a galvanic cell, we physically separated the oxidizing agent from the reducing agent and connected them with a wire, forcing the transfer of electrons to occur through the wire. In order to sustain the flow of electrons, we need to maintain charge neutrality in the cell, using a salt bridge.

You have now created an electrical circuit, and the next step is to make it do some work. Let’s see if we can use these reactions to power the operation of a stopwatch.

You may notice that in the above movie that only some of the reactions powered the stopwatch. Why do you think that some galvanic cells powered the stopwatch and others didn’t? In the next section we look at this more closely.