Voltaic or Galvanic Cells Generating Electricity from Spontaneous Chemical Reactions

3 Voltaic (or Galvanic) Cells Generating Electricity from Spontaneous Chemical Reactions 

Electrical current is the flow of electric charge. Electrons flowing through a wire or ions flowing through a solution both constitute electrical current. Since redox reactions involve the transfer of electrons from one substance to another, they have the potential to generate electrical current as we discussed in Section 18.1. For example, consider the spontaneous redox reaction  

Suppose we could separate the zinc atoms and copper ions and force the electron transfer to occur another way—not directly from the zinc atom to the copper ion, but through a wire connecting the two half-reactions. The flowing electrons would constitute an electrical current and could be used to do electrical woik. 

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The idea that one electrode in a voltaic cell becomes more negatively charged relative to the other electrode due to differences in ionization tendencies is central to understanding how a voltaic cell works. 

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