A battery contains two metals that have different tendencies to attract electrons. If one is lithium with an electron affinity of -3.05, and the other is zinc with an electron affinity of -0.76, describe how the electrons will flow. Then, describe how you could make this an even stronger battery.

Question

SmokeyBrown · Answer

From what I was able to find, it seems that elements with higher electron affinity will more effectively attract electrons. So, since zinc has a higher electron affinity than lithium, I think that the electrons would flow away from lithium towards zinc in that scenario. To make a stronger battery, you would use two elements with a big difference in electron affinity, so that one would repel electrons while the other attracts them, in order to increase the rate of electron transfer. Here's the source that gave me the info (it's just a wiki article) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_affinity

stromj3688 · Answer

thank you