Concentration cell

Imagine you have a bucket of water with a blue color and another bucket of water which is identical and also has a blue color. Now, you take a little bit of water from the first bucket and pour it into the second one. Can you tell what will happen? The water in the second bucket will become a little bit darker and the water in the first bucket will become a little bit lighter.

This is what happens in a concentration cell, except with chemicals instead of water. A concentration cell is a type of battery where two electrodes of the same material are connected to each other through a salt bridge or a porous membrane that allows ions to move through it. The two electrodes are immersed in two separate solutions of the same chemical, but with different concentrations.

One solution has a higher concentration of the chemical and the other has a lower concentration. As the ions move from one side of the cell to the other, they change the concentration of the two solutions, creating a potential difference, or voltage, across the electrodes.

Just like the water in the buckets, the concentration of the chemical in the higher concentration solution will decrease, while the concentration in the lower concentration solution will increase. This means that the concentration cell will create a flow of electrons, forming an electrical circuit that can be used to power things.

This process is happening all around us, even in our bodies. Our cells use concentration cells to create the electrical impulses that keep our hearts beating and our muscles moving. So next time you see a bucket of water, remember that there's a lot going on underneath the surface, just like in a concentration cell.