ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Faraday efficiency

When we use electricity, we often want to convert one kind of energy to another kind. For example, when we use a battery, we want to convert the energy stored in the battery to electricity that we can use to power a device.

But when we do this conversion, we don't always get all the energy we put in back out. This is called "loss" or "inefficiency." Faraday efficiency is a way to measure how efficient this conversion process is.

Imagine you have a big box of marbles, and you want to pour them out into a smaller box. If you pour quickly and carefully, you might be able to get most of the marbles into the smaller box without spilling too many. But if you pour too quickly or do it carelessly, you might lose a lot of marbles in the process.

Now imagine that instead of marbles, you have electric charges (like electrons) that you want to move from one place to another. When you move these charges, you want to do it as efficiently as possible so you don't lose any energy along the way.

Faraday efficiency is a way to measure how many charges you can move from one place to another without losing any energy. It's named after a famous scientist named Michael Faraday, who was one of the first to study electricity and magnetism.

Basically, Faraday efficiency tells you how much of the electrical energy you put in (like from a battery) is actually useful, and how much is lost as heat or other forms of energy that you don't want.

In summary, faraday efficiency is a way to measure how efficiently we can convert one form of energy into another, specifically in terms of moving electrical charges. It is named after Michael Faraday and helps us understand how much of the electrical energy we put in is actually useful.