TYPES OF ELECTRICAL GENERATOR

• Chemical Generator: to which the electric battery or dry cell belongs. Transform energy produced in certain chemical reactions into electrical energy capable of maintaining a constant potential difference between its poles or terminals.

• The Fuel Cell: The fuel cell is another type of chemical generator often used in the supply of electrical power to spacecraft. Named because the substances involved in the chemical reactions are partly introduced from the outside as if it were a fuel. A typical fuel cell is based on the hydrogen-oxygen reactions which occur with loss of electrons in an electrode and gain in the other, giving rise to a potential difference capable of producing an external electric current.

• Thermocouple: Is a thermoelectric generator that converts heat into electricity. Occurs when two lead wires connected together at their respective ends are subjected to a temperature difference, one of the solder dipping into ice and the other was applied to a burner flame. Points between which a potential difference increases with temperature and can be detected with an electric measuring apparatus is generated. This effect electricity generator known as the Seebeck effect is used mainly in the temperature measurement.

• The Photovoltaic Cell: Is a generator that transforms light energy into electrical energy. Is based on the, semiconductor ability to conduct electricity in a given direction but not the opposite. When light strikes the cell starts some electrons of atoms, electrons accumulate in a region at the expense of the loss of electrons in the opposite region. These two regions are the positive and negative poles, respectively, of the cell whose potential difference is kept constant while not vary the light intensity reaching the surface.

• The Electromagnetic Generator: Is based on the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction. When a closed driver is rotated within the magnetic field produced by a magnet a potential difference capable of producing an electric current is generated therein. It is called the generator type alternator used in large production of electricity. In them, different forms of energy, whose nature depends on the type of plant, invested in moving large rolls of wire, making them rotate within magnetic fields. Thus voltages across its terminals whose positive / negative polarity is reversed alternately in time at a rate of fifty times each second are produced. When this voltage is applied to an electric circuit, it produces an alternating current that is characterized by an alternative investment with the same frequency, the direction of movement of the charge carriers.