Physics Project Report on Frictional Electricity

Contents

1) Certificate

2) Acknowledgement

3) Introduction

4) Positive and Negative Electricity

5) Insulators and Conductors

6) The Gold-Leaf Electroscope

7) Experiments with a Hold Leaf Electroscope

8) Electrostatic Induction

9) The Electron Theory = Atomic Structure

10) Electrification by Friction

11) Electrons in Insulators and Conductors

12) Distribution of Charge over the Surface of a Conductor

13) No Charge on the Inside Surface of a Hollow Charged

Conductor

14) Some Uses of Frictional Electricity

15) Bibliography
Certificate

This is to certify that the project report entitled "To Study

Energy Bands in Solids" submitted by Master Amit Singh is
original and has been completed by him under my
supervision and is completed in all respects for AISSCE.

Signature of Faculty Head Physics

Acknowledgement

As a student of Class XII, I did this project as a part of my

studies entitled Frictional Electricity.

I owe a deep sense of gratitude to my Physics teacher

whose valuable guidance, advice, lovingly nature helped
me in doing this project from conception to completion.
I thank the Principal of our school for his ever lasting
blessing and motivation.

I am thankful to my computer teacher for providing me

computer facilities.

Finally, I am thankful to my parents for helping me

economically and friends for giving me a helping at every
step of the project.

Signature of the Student

Introduction
Everyone is familiar with the fact that if a pen made of
certain plastic materials is rubbed on the coat-sleeve it will
afterwards attract dust and small pieces of paper. The
same, effect if noticed when a mirror or window-pane is
polished with a dry cloth in a very dry atmosphere. Dust
and fluff from the cloth stick to the glass and are difficult to
remove. Perspex, cellulose acetate and the vinyl
compounds used for gramophone records also show the
attraction, but to a more marked degree. The
phenomenon is called electric attraction, and the rubbed
materials are said to have become charged with frictional
electricity. Knowledge of it goes back as far as the sixth
century B.C., when the Greek Philosopher, Thales,
described the attractive properties of rubbed amber. The
word electricity has, in fact, been derived from the Greek
word "elektron", meaning amber.

Friction between certain textiles can also produce

electrification. Robert Symmer first described this in the
early eighteenth century.

Electrification by friction is sometimes associated with a

crackling sound. This may be heard when very dry hair is
combed with a vulcanite comb, or when an ebonite or
alkathene rod is vigorously rubbed with fur. The cracking is
caused by small electric sparks, which may be seen if the
room is in darkness. Sparks from frictional electricity can
be very dangerous when inflammable vapour is present.
Nowadays, accidents are prevented by allowing a short
length of chain to trail from the metal frame of the trolley.
This conducts the electric charge away to earth, where it
can do no harm.

Positive and Negative Electricity

Electric repulsion was first described in 1672 by Otto von
Guericke, who noticed that some feathers were attracted
to a charged sulphur ball and then repelled from it. One
hundred and fifty years later in France, Charles Du Fay
discovered that charged bodies did not always repel each
other, but that sometimes attraction took place. He came
to the conclusion that there were two kinds of electricity.
Charges of the same kind repel, while charges of opposite
kinds attract one another.
To distinguish between the two kinds, Du Fay used the
terms vitreous and resinous electricity. Vitreous (from the
Latin vitrum = glass) electricity is obtained when glass is
rubbed with silk, and resinous electricity is obtained when
amber, sealing-wax, sulphur, shellac, and a host of other
substances are rubbed with fur or flannel. Later on, these
terms were found to be misleading, since, for example,
ground glass gives resinous electricity and very highly
polished ebonite gives vitreous electricity. Accordingly,
Benjamin Franklin introduced the present day terms
positive and negative instead of vitreous and resinous
respectively.

Insulators and Conductors

When current electricity was discovered, 200 years after
the publication of Gilbert’s book, it was found that an
electric current would flow through a non electric but not
through an electric. Accordingly, these terms became
obsolete. We now call an electric an insulator and a non-
electric a conductor.
Gilbert mentions the importance of dryness an electrical
experiments. Impure water is a conductor, and a film of
moisture from condensation or moist hands on the surface
of an insulator allows electricity to be conducted away to
earth. For successful results, all apparatus used in electrical
experiments must be thoroughly dry. Glass rods in
particular are best warmed before use.

The Gold-Leaf Electroscope

For the detection and testing of small electric charges, a
gold-leaf electroscope is used. This instrument was
invented towards the end of the eighteenth century by a
Yorkshire clergyman named Abraham Bennet. Fig. shows a
common type of electroscope. It consists of a brass rod
surmounted by a brass disc or cap and having at its lower
end a small rectangular brass plate with a leaf of thin gold
or aluminium attached. The leaf is protected from draughts
by enclosing it in an earthed metal case with glass
windows. The brass rod is supported by passing it through
a plug of some good insulating material such as alkathene
at the top of the case.
The three horizontal parallel lines shown at E in fig. is the
conventional symbol for an earth connection.

Experiments with a Gold Leaf Electroscope

(1) To detect the presence of charge on a body

If a rod of some suitable material is charged by friction and

then brought near to the cap of a gold leaf electroscope
the leaf is seen to diverge from the plate. A charge has
been induced on the leaf and plate, and consequently
repulsion occurs between them. On removing the charged
rod, the leaf collapses, showing that the induced charge on
the electroscope is only temporary.

Very small charges may be detected by this method.

(2) To Charge a gold-leaf electroscope by contact

An ebonite rod is given a small charge by rubbing with fur,

and is then rolled over the cap of an electroscope. The leaf
will be seen to diverge, and then the rod is removed. If the
leaf does not stay diverged the process is repeated until it
does. We may now assume that the electroscope is
charged with negative electricity by conduction from the
ebonite rod.

If the cap of the electroscope is touched with the finger

the charge flows to earth through the experimenter’s body
and the leaf collapses. This is called "earthing the
electroscope".

(3) To test for the sign of the charge on a body

Having charged the electroscope negatively, the ebonite

rod should be recharged and brought near to the cap. An
increase in the leaf divergence is noted.
A glass road rubbed with silk (positive charge) is now
cautiously brought down towards the cap from a height of
about 50 cm. This time, a decrease in divergence is
noticed.

The electroscope is discharged by touching it with the

finger and afterwards charged positively by contact, using
a glass rod rubbed with silk. We shall now find that an
increased divergence is caused by bringing a charged glass
rod near the cap decreased divergence by a charged
ebonite rod.

From these experiments we conclude that an increase in

divergence occurs when the charge on the electroscope
and the test charge are of the same kind.

The results of these experiments are summarized in the

table :

Charge on Electroscope Charge brought Near cap

Effect on leaf divergence
+ + Increase
- - Increase
+ - Decrease
- + Decrease
+ or - Uncharged body Decrease
(4) To test the insulating properties of various materials

The insulating or, conversely, the conducting property of a

given substance may be tested by holding a sample of the
substance in the hand and then bringing it into contact
with the cap of a charged electroscope. If the substance is
a good insulator there will be no leakage of charge through
it and the leaf divergence will not alter. If, however, the
leaf collapses instantly it shows that the substance is a
good conductor.

Electrostatic Induction
We saw earlier that a charged rod brought near to the cap
of an electroscope causes the leaf to diverge from the
plate, showing that a charge has been induced on both of
them. The following experiment provides more
information about the charges which are induced on an
insulated conductor when a charged rod is brought near it.

(a) Two insulated brass spheres A and B are placed

together so that they touch one another and thus form, in
effect, a single conductor.

(b) A negatively charged rod is now brought near to A. As a

result, a positive charge is induced on A and a negative
charge on B.

(c) Still keeping the charged rod in position, sphere B is

moved a short distance from A.

(d) The charged rod is now removed and A and B are

tested for charge.

The test is carried out as follows. Sphere A is brought near

to the cap of a positively charged electroscope. An
increase in divergence shows that it is positively charged.
Similarly, sphere B produces an increase in divergence
when it is brought near to the cap of a negatively charged
electroscope, thus showing it to be negatively charged.

In the whole experiment is carried out again using a

positively charged rod as the inducing charge, the induced
charges on A and B are reversed.

The Electron Theory Atomic Structure

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Sir J.J.Thomson
carried out some experiments with an electric discharge
through a tube containing air at very low pressure.
Following this investigation he came to the conclusion that
negative electricity consists of tiny particles which came to
be called electrons. During the succeeding years it became
apparent that these negative electrons actually formed
part of the atoms of which all substances are composed.

Electrification by Friction
When a glass rod is rubbed with a silk cloth some electrons
from the glass attach themselves to the silk. Consequently,
the glass becomes positively charged and the silk
negatively charged. Likewise when ebonite is rubbed with
fur electrons are transferred from fur to ebonite, thus
making the ebonite negative and the fur positive.

Electrons in Insulators and Conductors

The difference between an insulator and a conductor is
that, in an insulator, the electrons are firmly bound to their
atoms and will not move of their own accord, whereas in a
conductor the electrons are able to move freely from one
atom to another.

If an ebonite rod is held in the hand and rubbed with fur a

charge of electrons is formed on its surface. These
electrons cannot flow to earth through the hand, since
they are unable to move through the insulating ebonite.
When a brass rod is rubbed with fur it becomes charged
with electrons in just the same way as the ebonite.
However, the charge cannot be detected, since it is
immediately conducted through the brass and the hand to
earth. This may be prevented by mounting the brass rod
on an insulating handle. The charge cannot now be
conducted away, and its presence can be detected by
bringing the rod near a gold-leaf electroscope. The charge
can be tested and found to be negative by showing that
there is no increase in divergence when the brass rod is
brought near to the cap of a negatively charged
electroscope.

Distribution of Charge Over the Surface of a Conductor

A proof plane and gold-leaf electroscope may be used to
investigate the distribution of charge over the surface of a
conductor, by pressing the proof plane into contact with
the surface at various places in turn and then transferring
the charge to the electroscope. The divergence of the leaf
will give a rough measure of the amount of charge
transferred, and hence some idea of the surface density of
the charge.

Surface density is defined as the quantity of charge per

unit area of surface of a conductor.

Fig. also shows how charge is distributed over the surface

of conductors of different shapes. In these diagrams the
distance of the dotted line from the surface is proportional
to the surface density at any point. The most important
fact shown by this experiment is that charge is mostly
concentrated at places where the surface is sharply
curved. This is particularly noticeable at the pointed end of
the pear-shaped conductor.

No charge on the Inside Surface of a Hollow Charged

Conductor

The electric conductors used in the experiments we have

described are generally made of hollow brass or else of
wood covered with tinfoil. No advantage is to be gained by
making them of solid metal, since the charge resides only
on the outside surface. The following experiment illustrate
this fact.
Charles Coulomb demonstrated that charge always resides
on the outside surface of a conductor with the aid of two
hemispherical cups which fitted exactly round an insulated
metal sphere.

The sphere first charged, and afterwards the hemispheres

are fitted over it while being held by insulating handles. On
removing the hemispheres they are found to be charged,
but no charge at all remains on the sphere. This shows that
all the charge on the sphere must have passed to the
outside of the hemispheres.

Some Uses of Frictional Electricity

1. Photocopying machines or zerox machines

Based on the attraction of powdered particles to a metal

drum that carries a pattern of charge that is same as the
pattern of the desired image.

2. Paint Droplets become charged by friction

When they are sprayed. If the object to be painted such as
a car body, is given a charge of opposite sign the paint is
attracted to the object & covers it without wastage.

Bibliography

1. Modern’s abc of physics.

2. Pradeep Fundamental Physics.

3. Dinesh A to Z of Physics.

4. Comprehensive Physics.

5. Neelam’s Physics
6. Comprehensive Practical Physics.

7. N.C.E.R.T. Physics.

8. www.google.com, www.yahoo.com