Physics and chemistry of a dry cell battery

 

 Outer layer: Zinc                           Middle layer: Ammonium Chloride                       Inner layer: Manganese Dioxide                       Carbon Rod            WaveGuide(wire)

Zn(s) → Zn2+(aq) + 2 e-           2 e-  + 2NH4+(aq) → 2NH3(aq) +  H2(g)       H2(g) +  2MnO2(s)→ Mn2O3(s) + H2O(l)          2e-                   Photon

                                    2Cl         

My original thinking

Without a waveguide aka "wire going to load completing the circuit" charge builds up so as to impede the zinc + chlorine reaction.  That is to say the energy state of the electrons on or about the carbon rod are same state as those emanating from the zinc + chlorine reaction. That leaves new movers no where to go.  When the wave guide path is completed the electrons are able to accelerate and thereby to emit a photon and depopulate the state allowing more electrons to follow it on the path it has just taken.  The photon skips down the waveguide at near the speed of light with intermittent interactions with the conductor.  This can be visualized like a stone skipping across water as can be done with a flat rock across the surface of a pond.  The points where the rock touches the water are the interactions with conductor.  Remember this occurs as a push pull affair.  While the electronic force pushes out the carbon rod it pulls in the cathode. This is standard waveguide behavior which an RF engineer would call paired currents The propagation of which is the photon itself. This is an informatic transfer in that time is required for the energy to propagate as opposed to a book keeping like transfer that occurs with entanglement.  

Next Question:  What is the frequency of the photon involved in transfer of e- charge over a potential of 1.5 volts?

1 electron volt = 1.60217646 × 10^-19 joules

Planck's constant = 6.626068 × 10^-34 m² kg / s

E=hF

…but this leads to a crazy high value computed for frequency of the photon???

F=386 Terrahertz????   What am I doing wrong?  Am I doing anything wrong?     Visible light spans 400–790 THz.   This part makes sense if one thinks about an light emitting diode (LED).   That is the reverse.  Electricity travels down a wire and is turned into visible photons in this frequency range.

At this point I panic because I know that this frequency does not propagate well along a wire wave guide as described above or at least right now so I think.  Is there a frequency conversion mechanism?  Seems there must be.  Unless there is some sort of group phenomena.   If one thinks and realizes that "DC" current is made up of photons then DC is made out of a fundamentally AC phenomena namely photons. 

Heuristic notes:  

1. Imagine a 1400Mhz oscillator.  The waves propagating out from it are very much lower in frequency than the frequency of the photon in the above calculations.  Yet I can easily measure a wave that has 2 volts peak to peak amplitude. 
2. How does group behavior relate to this?  Can visible light photons be propagated in the belly of a wave group that is much slower?

Answers to the questions generated by this post

1. How optical photons are converted to low frequency photons for transport along copper wire waveguide
2. How do electrical conductors work?

 

Background Information

Chemical reactions (following from wikipedia )

From Zinc Carbon Battery: In a zinc-carbon dry cell, the outer zinc container is the negative terminal. The zinc is oxidised according to the following half-equation.

    Zn(s) → Zn2+(aq) + 2 e-

A graphite rod surrounded by a powder containing manganese(IV) oxide is the positive terminal. The manganese dioxide is mixed with carbon powder to increase the electrical conductivity. The reaction is as follows:

    2MnO2(s) + H2(g)→ Mn2O3(s) + H2O(l)

The H2 comes from the NH4+(aq):

    2NH4+(aq) + 2 e- → H2(g) + 2NH3(aq)

and the NH3 combines with the Zn2+.   In this half-reaction, the manganese is reduced from an oxidation state of (+4) to (+3).  There are other possible side-reactions, but the overall reaction in a zinc-carbon cell can be represented as:

    Zn(s) + 2MnO2(s) + 2NH4+(aq) → Mn2O3(s) + Zn(NH3)22+(aq) + H2O(l)

The battery has an e.m.f. of about 1.5 V. The approximate nature of the e.m.f is related to the complexity of the cathode reaction. The anode (zinc) reaction is comparatively simple with a known potential. Side reactions and depletion of the active chemicals increases the internal resistance of the battery, and this causes the e.m.f. to drop.  Although carbon is an important element of the battery's composition, it takes no part in the electrochemical reaction, instead only serving to collect current and reduce the resistance of the manganese dioxide mix.
 

Construction

The container of the zinc-carbon dry cell is a zinc can. This contains a layer of NH4Cl with ZnCl2 aqueous paste separated by a paper layer from a mixture of powdered carbon & manganese (IV) oxide (MnO2) which is packed around a carbon rod.