Discharging a Cell

The Capacity of an electrical cell is its most important characteristic. It is defined as the amount of charge it can deliver to an external circuit in its lifetime.

• The bigger the current, the faster the cell discharges.
  • Bigger current correlates to more charge passing through it at a given moment.
• The terminal voltage – discharge time curves all have distinct characteristics.
  • Sudden initial drop.
  • Then, the terminal voltage remains almost constant until cell capacity exhaustion at the end of its lifetime.