I heard a student asking a question... Since capacitors and batteries stores charge, then whats the difference. Why cant capacitors be used to power a phone?

Any Engineer scientist or professor in the house, i need you to share your knowledge here because some people are getting confused in this aspect.

We were told in theory, that capacitors store electrical energy when charged and supplies or gives out the stored energy in the process of discharging, so as batteries too; just that they store energy in chemical form.

The question is if they both do the same thing and only the composition differs, can they be used inter changeably? Can a battery be used for smoothing in power curcuit and can a big capacitor e.g 1farad be used to power transistor radios, phones tabs etc?

Whats the major difference in their operation practically speaking.

battery is capacitor nd capacitor is battery.

Battery cell capacity is bigger

Battery stores Direct current while capacitor store alternating current.

admox2003:
Battery stores Direct current while capacitor store alternating current.

Jesus! Which book that one dey... Or are you just guessing

If so, then we dont need an inverter any longer. We should just get banks of 400v/10F capacitors and power problem is solved in nigeria

1. capacitors can discharge the whole of its charge at once but a battery can not
2. A capacitor can either be an AC or DC capacitor while a battery only discharges a DC
current
3. A single small size capacitor is capable of storing and discharging an high voltage (according to its build) but batteries don't have an high voltage capacity
4. Capacitor can serve as a voltage divider in a circuit whereas battery can not
5. Capacitor is useful in wireless devices for tuning and achieving resonance (frequency modulation)

*Its different from a battery due to its frequent/instantaneous charge and discharge capability

Batteries and capacitors are different. Even inductors store electricity too but they are all different.

Voltage across each device:

V_B = E
V_C = 1/C *§i dt
V_L = L * di/dt

Savotech:
I heard a student asking a question... Since capacitors and batteries stores charge, then whats the difference. Why cant capacitors be used to power a phone?
Any Engineer scientist or professor in the house, i need you to share your knowledge here because some people are getting confused in this aspect.
We were told in theory, that capacitors store electrical energy when charged and supplies or gives out the stored energy in the process of discharging, so as batteries too; just that they store energy in chemical form.
The question is if they both do the same thing and only the composition differs, can they be used inter changeably? Can a battery be used for smoothing in power curcuit and can a big capacitor e.g 1farad be used to power transistor radios, phones tabs etc?
Whats the major difference in their operation practically speaking.

This is a good question.
Capacitors and batteries do almost the same thing just that the capacitor stores its charge on the surface of the di-electric material while battery stores its charge as chemical energy in the atoms of the electrolyte. Thats why capacitors charge discharge quickly while battties takes time because of time taken for the chemical reaction to take place. Practically speaking, The difference me i see there is that capacitors are used when quick charge and discharge is needed in a circuit and it doesnt wear out like battery. It will surprise so many engineers that a rechargeable battery can also be used to smooth a AC-DC circuit.
On a final not here, if you are still confused about capacitors and battery an analogy will do. A capacitor is like a covered bottle dipped into a jar of oil, the oil stays on the body only and can easily be wipped off with a rag. A battery is like dipping an uncovered bottle in an oil wholly emersed and the oil is allowed to fill the bottle until its filled up, the oil takes time to fill the bottle and takes time also to be emptied. The capacitor is easily charged and discharged while the battery takes time to charge and discharge. I hope this helps someone out there. I would not hesitate to answer if anyone still has further question

Thumbs up guassian. Thanks for that analogy. Thanks to abithel too. All your posts has been helpful

Savotech:
I heard a student asking a question... Since capacitors and batteries stores charge, then whats the difference. Why cant capacitors be used to power a phone?

Any Engineer scientist or professor in the house, i need you to share your knowledge here because some people are getting confused in this aspect.

We were told in theory, that capacitors store electrical energy when charged and supplies or gives out the stored energy in the process of discharging, so as batteries too; just that they store energy in chemical form.

The question is if they both do the same thing and only the composition differs, can they be used inter changeably? Can a battery be used for smoothing in power curcuit and can a big capacitor e.g 1farad be used to power transistor radios, phones tabs etc?

Whats the major difference in their operation practically speaking.

The battery can store charge for a long duration thus it is used as a primary source for powering circuits. While the capacitor holds the charge for a short duration thus it is not used as a source