Cathode Vs. Anode Wiring

Battery

• When you hook up a battery to an electrical circuit, it causes an imbalance in anodes and cathodes. Anodes want to be released to cathodes for balance. In a battery, electrodes can only travel to the cathode. Therefore, the cathodes have nowhere else to go. Through a connecting wire between the electrodes, the anode electrons travel to the cathode electrons, generating electricity along the way but in a limited supply. This is why you need to recharge your battery from time to time. Recharging restores anodes and cathodes to their original state to provide full electrical power.

Television

• Cathode ray tubes at the back of old-fashioned television sets make them bulky. The tube creates a picture by passing electricity through a wire from cathode electrons at the back of the television to the anode at the front. When you turn on your television set, you can feel the anode inducing a charge on the outside of the screen. If you touch the screen with your finger, you can hear the electric discharge.

Potato Battery

• Using wires on two halves of a potato to light a small lightbulb, you can demonstrate how electricity flows. For the anode wiring, wrap the end of one piece of electrical wire around a zinc nail and push it into one half of the potato. For the cathode wiring, wrap the end of a second piece of electrical wire around a penny and stick the copper penny into the other half of the potato. When you touch the end of the anode wire to the negative conduit on the lightbulb and the cathode wire to the positive conduit, electrons flow to power the lightbulb.

Reasoning

• Using the example of the potato, the phosphoric acid of the potato facilitates the reaction of zinc with copper. If you simply connect the wires attached to the potatoes to each other, the zinc and copper electrodes touch each other, and the electrons don't flow but generate heat. To create a current to power a small bulb, the zinc and copper, or anode and cathode, cannot touch each other.