Electrolytic Capacitor

The amount of potential difference present across the capacitor depends upon how much
charge was deposited onto the plates by the work being done by the source voltage and also
by how much capacitance the capacitor has.

Capacitance is the electrical property of a capacitor and is the measure of a capacitors ability
to store an electrical charge onto its two plates. If a voltage of (V) volts is connected across
the capacitors two plates a positive electrical charge (Q) in coulombs will be present on one
plate a negative electrical charge on the other. Then the capacitor will have a capacitance
value equal to the amount of charge divided by the voltage across it giving us the equation
for capacitance of: (C = QV) with the value of the capacitance in Farads, (F). However, the
Farad on its own is an extremely large unit so sub-units of the Farad are commonly used
such as micro-farads (uF), nano-farads (nF) and pico-farads (pF) to denote a capacitors
value.

Although the capacitance, (C) of a capacitor is equal to the ratio of charge per plate to the
applied voltage, it also depends on the physical size and distance between the two
conductive plates. For example, if the two plates where larger or multiple plates where used
then there would be more surface area for the charge to accumulate on giving a higher value
of capacitance. Likewise, if the distance, (d) between the two plates is closer or a different
type of dielectric is used, again more charge resulting in a higher capacitance. Then the
capacitance of a capacitor can also be expressed in terms of its physical size, distance
between the two plates (spacing) and type of dielectric used.

An ideal capacitor would have an extremely high dielectric resistance and zero plate
resistance. This would result in the charge across the plates remaining constant indefinitely
once the source voltage was removed. However, real capacitors have some leakage current
which pass through the dielectric between the two plates. The amount of leakage current that
a capacitor has depends upon the leakage resistance of the dielectric medium being used.
Also an ideal capacitor does not lose any of the energy supplied by the source voltage as it is
stored in the form of an electric field between the two plates but in real capacitors power is
lost due to this leakage current and the resistance value of the plates.

The symbolic representation of a capacitor in an electrical circuit is that of two parallel lines
separated by a small gap with a positive plus (+) sign above the top plate if the capacitor is of
a polarised type. Like resistors, capacitors can be connected together in several ways either
in a series, parallel or a combination of the two. In a parallel combination the potential
difference across each capacitor is the same and equal to the source voltage, V and each
capacitor stores a charge. The total stored charge, (QT) will be equal to the sum of all the
individual charges. As charge Q = CV (from above) and the voltage across a parallel
combination is the same the total capacitance will be the sum of the individual capacitances
so C total = C1 + C2 + C3 + C4 etc. film capacitors