Indian School Muscat

PHYICS PROJECT

Kesav Pillai
12 – E
 CONTENT

1. Acknowledgement
2. Introduction
3. Potentiometer
4. Advantages of Potentiometer
5. Disadvantages of Potentiometer
6. Factors affecting the internal resistance
7. Experiment
8. Bibliography

INTRODUCTION
There is a great need for batteries in our daily use. We
use it in electrical appliances and its importance is only
growing day by day. Thus there is always a scope for
improvement in this field and the battery needs to be
made more powerful and more efficient.

When the internal resistance of a cell is decreased, the

potential difference across it increases and thereby
makes it more efficient and reliable.

This project is aimed at identifying and analyzing the

factors which affect the internal resistance of a cell based
on practical experiments and observations.

ELECTROCHEMICAL CELLS: -
An electrochemical cell is a device that can generate
electrical energy from the chemical reactions occurring
in it, or use the electrical energy supplied to it to facilitate
chemical reactions in it. These devices are capable of
converting chemical energy into electrical energy, or vice
versa. A common example of an electrochemical cell is a
standard 1.5-volt cell which is used to power many
electrical appliances such as TV remotes and clocks.

These are of two types: - Primary and Secondary.

Primary cells are basically use-and-throw galvanic cells.
The electrochemical reactions that take place in these
cells are irreversible in nature. Hence, the reactants are
consumed for the generation of electrical energy and the
cell stops producing an electric current once the
reactants are completely depleted.
Secondary cells (also known as rechargeable batteries)
are electrochemical cells in which the cell has a
reversible reaction, i.e. the cell can function as a Galvanic
cell as well as an Electrolytic cell.
DANIELL CELL: -
The Daniell cell was invented by a British chemist, John
Frederic Daniel. A Daniell cell is the best example of a
galvanic cell which converts chemical energy into
electrical energy. The Daniell cell consists of two
electrodes of dissimilar metals, Zn and Cu; each electrode
is in contact with a solution of its own ion; Zinc sulphate
and copper sulphate respectively.

ELECTROMOTIVE FORCE
Electromotive force, also called emf (denoted and
measured in volt), is the voltage developed by any source
of electrical energy such as a battery. It is generally
defined as the electrical potential for a source in a circuit.
 POTENTIOMETER

WHAT IS A POTENTIOMETER?
Potentiometer is a device used to measure the internal
resistance of a cell, to compare the emf of two cells and
potential difference across a resistor. It can be used to
determine the emf and internal resistance of the given
cell and also used to compare the emf of different cells.

PRINCIPLE: -
The basic principle of the potentiometer is that the
potential drop across any section of the wire will be
directly proportional to the length of the wire, provided
the wire is of the uniform cross-sectional area and a
uniform current flows through the wire.
Advantages of Potentiometer: -
1) They are cheap
2) It has high efficiency and enables us to measure the
potential difference between two points.
3) Accuracy of a potentiometer can be increased by
increasing in length.
4) It is not complex and easy to use.
5) It has a wide range of resistance values.

Disadvantages of Potentiometer: -
1) It requires a large force to move the sliding contact.
2) There is wear and tear due to movement of wiper
3) There is limited Bandwidth.
4) There is inertial loading
5) Most potentiometers can only dissipate a few watts
of power at most.
Factors affecting the Internal Resistance: -
The internal resistance of a primary cell depends upon
1) Distance between the electrodes
2) Temperature of electrodes
3) Effective area of the electrodes
4) Concentration of the solution
 EXPERIMENT: -

AIM-
To study the various factors on which the internal
resistance of the cell depends upon

APPARATUS-
Potentiometer, Shun resistance, High resistance, Battery
eliminator, Key, Rheostat, galvanometer, a leclanche cell,
a jockey, etc.

THEORY-
The internal resistance of a coil is the resistance offered
by the electrolyte to the flow of ions. The internal
resistance of the cell
1) is proportional to the separation between the two
electrodes.
2) is inversely proportional to an area of facing surface
of the electrodes in electrolyte. The resistance of a cell is
given up.
PROCEDURE-
To study the variation of internal resistance with
distance of separation.
1) Keep both electrodes at distance
2) Take maximum current from the battery, making
rheostat value small.
3) Without closing the key K2, adjust the rheostat so that
a null point is obtained on the last wire of the
potentiometer. Determine the position of the null point
and measure the balancing length.
4) Next close both keys K1 & K2. At the same time, take
out a small resistance from the shunt resistance box
5) Slide the jockey along the potentiometer wire and
obtain null point
6) Measure the balancing length.
7) Now decrease the separation between the electrodes
and repeat the observation and record the observations.

To study the variation of internal resistance with area of

electrodes
1) Keeping all other factors constant, increase/decrease
the area of electrodes, that is, the common area by
dipping them at different depths.
2) Find the null points and record the observations.
Result-
The internal resistance of a cell
1) Is proportional to the separation between the two
electrodes.
2) Is inversely proportional to the area of the facing
surface of the electrodes in the electrolyte.

Precautions-
1) The connections should be neat, clean and tight.
2) The plugs should be introduced in the keys only when
the observations are to be taken.
3) the positive poles of the battery E and the cells E1 and
E2 should all be connected to the terminal at the zero of
the wires.
4) The jockey should not be rubbed along the wire. It
should touch the wire gently.
5) The ammeter reading should remain constant for a
particular set of observations. If necessary, adjust the
rheostat for this purpose.
6) The emf of the battery should be greater than the
emf’s of either of the two cells
7) Some high resistance plug should always be taken out
from the resistance box before the jockey is moved along
the wire.
8) The emf of the battery should be greater than that of
the coil
9) For one set of observations the ammeter reading
should remain constant.
10) Current should be passed for a short time only, while
finding the null point.
11) Rheostat should be adjusted so that the initial null
point lies on the last wire of the ammeter.
12) Cell should not be disturbed during the experiment.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) Class 12 Physics NCERT book

2) LAB manual
3) en.wikipedia.org
4) www.google.com
5) teachwithict.com