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The resistance offered by medium in between plates of battery (electrolytes and electrodes of the
cell) to the flow of current within the battery is called internal resistance of the battery.
Internal resistance of a battery usually d branch containing batteryenoted by r and in electric
circuit its representation is shown below in the figure
Internal resistance of a battery depends on factors like seperation between plates, plate area,
nature of material of plate etc. For an ideal cell r=0 , but real batteries or sourcesof emf always
has same finite internal resistance.
If P and Q are two terminals of the battery shown below in the figure
To understand the process of energy transfer in a simple circuit consider a simple circuit as
shown in the figure given below
Internal resistance
A practical electrical power source which is a linear electric circuit may, according to Thvenin's
theorem, be represented as an ideal voltage source in series with an impedance. This resistance is
termed the internal resistance of the source. When the power source delivers current, the
measured voltage output is lower than the no-load voltage; the difference is the voltage drop (the
product of current and resistance) caused by the internal resistance. The concept of internal
resistance applies to all kinds of electrical sources and is useful for analyzing many types of
electrical circuits.
Batteries
Batteries can be approximately modeled as a voltage source in series with a resistance. The
internal resistance of a battery is dependent on the specific battery's size, chemical properties,
age, temperature and the discharge current. It has an electronic component due to the resistivity
of the battery's component materials and an ionic component due to electrochemical factors such
as electrolyte conductivity, ion mobility, and electrode surface area. Measurement of the internal
resistance of a battery is a guide to its condition, but may not apply at other than the test
conditions. Measurement with an alternating current, typically at a frequency of 1kHz, may
underestimate the resistance, as the frequency may be too high to take into account the slower
electrochemical processes. Internal resistance depends upon temperature; for example, a fresh
Energizer E91 AA alkaline primary battery drops from about 0.9 ohms at -40 C, where the low
temperature reduces ion mobility, to about 0.15 ohms at room temperature and about 0.1 ohms at
40 C.[1]
The internal resistance of a battery can be calculated from its open circuit voltage, voltage onload, and the load resistance:
Many equivalent series resistance (ESR) meters, essentially AC milliohmmeters normally used
to measure the ESR of capacitors, can be used to estimate battery internal resistance, particularly
to check the state of discharge of a battery rather than obtain an accurate dc value.[2] Some
chargers for rechargeable batteries indicate the ESR.
In use the voltage across the terminals of a disposable battery driving a load decreases until it
drops too low to be useful; this is largely due to an increase in internal resistance rather than a
drop in the voltage of the equivalent source.
With rechargeable lithium polymer batteries the internal resistance is largely independent of the
state of charge, but increases as the battery ages, thus is a good indicator of expected life.[3][4]