Profile
Settings
Refer your friends
Sign out
Introduction
The current is determined by the flow of electric charges, referred to as electricity. Electricity has become more and more important to humans as the world continues to expand. From ceiling fans inside rooms to heavy machines in factories, everything relies on electricity. Electric potential is a key element of electricity. For electrons to flow and produce electricity, a potential difference must exist.
Your body undergoes almost every chemical reaction due to electric forces. An understanding of these forces and how electrons move between atoms is essential for well-rounded biochemistry. When electrons move between atoms, they change their structure and composition. Normally we see in electric forces electrons repel other electrons, but protons and electrons are attracted to one another.
Electric Potential
An electric field’s potential can be characterized by the energy required to move a unit of electric charge from one point to another. A more accurate definition would be the energy per unit charge for a test charge that is so small that its impact on the field is negligible. Additionally, To prevent the charge from acquiring kinetic energy or producing radiation, the test charge is supposed to move across the field with negligible acceleration. A zero-voltage reference point is a point at which the electric potential is zero. Infinity is typically used as the reference point, although any point may be used.
In electrostatics, the field is described as a vector quantity which is gradient is the electrostatic potential, a scalar quantity often known as V or sometimes φ, equal to the electric potential energy (measured in joules) of any charged particle at any location divided by its charge (measured in coulombs). When the charge on the particle is divided out, it yields a quotient that is unique to the electric field. Electrical potential, therefore, is the electrical potential energy per unit charge.
It can be expressed as either joule per coulomb (J/C) or volts at a specific time from a static (time-invariant) or dynamic model. At infinity, there is no electric potential.
Electric Potential = Work Done / Unit Charge
Electric Potential in SI units:
V = W/q = Joules/ coulomb = Volts
Electric potential is thus measured in Volts or Voltage.
1 Volt = 1 Joule/ 1 coulomb
1 volt means, for one coulomb of electricity to move, one joule of work must be performed.
Electric Potential Due to a Point Charge
If electrostatic forces/powers are applied at a point in an electric field, the electric potential is characterized as a measure of the amount of work required to move a positive unit charge from infinity. Consider an electric charge at a point. Due to the presence of an electric field, the charge created by then applies power/force. Whenever r is a distance from the positive charge +q, the electric potential will appear as:
V = q/4πϵ0r
Where,
In a positive charge, r is the position vector
q is the source charge
Volts are the unit of electric potential,
1 Volt = 1 joule coulomb-1
The electrostatic potential is supposed to be 1 volt at a point at which work is done by moving a charge of 1 coulomb from infinity to a specific point by means of an electric field against the electrostatic field.
Electric Potential Due to Multiple Charges:
The electric potential due to multiple charges can be derived as follows-
In a point charge group, there are q1, q2, q3,…, .qn
A distance of r1, r2, r3, … rn is maintained,
At a specific point, we can determine the electrostatic potential. Due to every individual charge, we can identify each individual’s electrostatic potential by considering other charges to be absent. At that point, we include all charges in our calculations.
Thus, a point’s electric potential arises from the mathematical sum of all the individual potentials associated with that point.
Electric Potential Difference
A unit charge is carried from one point in an electric field to another by the electrical potential difference. Alternatively, the potential difference can be defined as the difference in electric potential between two points. Volt is the unit of potential difference.
What is electric potential energy?
A charge must have electric potential energy to move against an electric field. As the electric field gets stronger, more energy will be required to move the charged particle.
Assume you have a plate charged negatively, with a positive particle attached to it by the electric force. Positively charged objects are being pulled toward the plate by an electric field (while negatively charged objects are being pushed away).
As soon as you take the positive particle, you will pull it off the plate as the electric field pulls it back towards you. Getting the particles off the plate is a difficult task because the electric field is pulling them together. If we withdraw the electric force, the positive charge has the tendency to move back to the negatively charged plate. As a result of moving the particle away from the plate, you stored energy in it as electrical potential energy.
The charge would have more electrical potential energy if you pulled the positive particle further away from the plate. If the plate’s charge was doubled again, more energy would be required to move the positive particle. You would need more energy to move it if the positive particle had double the charge.
Imagine that our plate is positively charged instead of negatively charged. As both particles are positively charged, we would expect that the positively charged particles would be pushed away from the plate. However, we have to exert energy to move particles closer to the plate rather than away from it. For moving the particle closer to the plate, we must put in more energy, so the particle will have more electrical potential energy.
POTENTIAL DIFFERENCE AND ELECTRICAL POTENTIAL ENERGY
Electric potential energy can be calculated from the potential difference (or voltage) by
ΔPE = qΔV
Here q is the source charge, and ΔV is the potential difference.
Voltage and energy are two different things. Voltage is the amount of energy in one unit of charge. As a consequence, although both a motorcycle battery and a car battery may have the same voltage (or, more precisely, the same potential difference between the two batteries), one can store much more energy than the other because ΔPE = qΔV. A motorcycle battery and a car battery both use 12 V batteries, but the car battery can move more charge.
Conclusion
As you can see, electrostatic potential is a scalar representation of the region around a charge arrangement that is important for assessing the work required. Since electric charges surround themselves with fields, they have to undergo work if they wish to move. The energy that a charge makes when it moves is called its electric potential energy.
