Can Gaining Protons Positively Charge an Object?

Positive or Negative

• Just because a proton has a positive charge, doesn't mean an object will become positively charged when an electrical charge is transferred. In fact, when an object becomes positively or negatively charged, it is electrons that are involved. Protons stay in the nucleus. All objects are considered neutral because they have an equal amount of protons and electrons. When an atom loses an electron, it becomes a positively charged atom because it will have more protons than electrons.

Static Electricity

• Conduct your own experiment to see how electrons are transferred to a neutral object. For example, if you rub a balloon against your hair, some of the electrons from your hair will be transferred to the balloon. This will give the balloon a slightly negative charge because it gained electrons. If you place the balloon against a wall, it will stick. This is because a charged object, such as the balloon, is attracted to neutral objects.

Opposites Attract, Like Repel

• A positively charged object and a negatively charged object will be attracted to each other. However, objects with the same charge (positive-positive or negative-negative) will repel one another. When you rub a balloon against your head, you are transferring electrons to the balloon. This will leave the hair on your head with a positive charge. Each positively charged hair is trying to get as far away as possible from the other positively charged hairs.

Triboelectric

• Materials ranked in the order of how they gain or lose electrons are called triboelectric. When you rub two materials together, such as a balloon and your hair, one object will lose electrons while the other will gain them. The material higher on this triboelectric list will lose electrons and thus obtain a positive charge. The object closer to the bottom of the list will gain electrons and therefore obtain a negative charge.