E 1.

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CURRENT & CHARGE
An electric current is a flow of charge. Current can be defined as the rate of
flow of charge.

The unit of charge is the COULOMB

If the current is 1 Ampere, it means that 1 Coulomb of charge is passing every

second.

The amount of charge that flows in a circuit depends on the size of the current
and the time for which the current flows.

The total amount of charge can be calculated using the following equation:

CHARGE = CURRENT X TIME

This is sometimes written as

Q=Ixt
Where: Q stands for Charge
I stands for Current
t stands for time

UNITS: CHARGE must be in COULOMBS

CURRENT must be in AMPS
TIME must be in SECONDS

THE TRIANGLE

I x t

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PROBLEMS
ANSWER
CHARGE CURRENT TIME WORKING OUT (WITH UNITS)

1 ? 4A 30 s

2 ? 0.2A 5 min

3 600 C ? 300 s

4 10,000 C 3.5A ?

5 0.5 C 5A ?

6 ? 300 mA 10 s

7 300 mC ? 5s

8. A student is performing an experiment to measure the charge stored by a

capacitor. When he discharges it he finds the average current is 200 mA
and that it takes 40 s to discharge. What was the charge on the
capacitor?

9. The dome of a Van de-Graaf generator holds a charge of 100 mC. When
a man touches the dome it discharges in 3 x 10 -2 s. What is the current
that flows through the man to earth?

10. In an electroplating experiment a student connects up a circuit that

delivers a steady current of 0.2 A. If it requires 96500 C of charge to
deposit 64 g of copper, how long will it take to deposit 20 g?