Creating a battery out of magnets?

[Holland44]

Is it possible to create a battery from magnets? The idea came to me when I was in biology learning about cellular respiration. ATPs, or Adenosine Triphosphate which uses a negatively charged phosphate in concentration to energize the body. So my question is, can you make a battery harnessing the energy created by 3 negatively charged magnets being forced together. Would the magnets be enough to create a substantial amount of excited electrons? Could these electrons be used for energy?

[farmboy]

Unfortunately dude, I don't think that is how batteries or magnets work. I'm not seeing any reason that forcing magnets together would do anything like what you are suggesting, it is the fields of magnets that repel one another, not the actual electrons. The electrons will always remain inside the material, it is only the force that they exert which extends beyond the surface.

 

ATP is fundamentally different in that it (by the sounds of things, I don't know much biology lol) is like some sort of bio battery which converts chemical energy into electrical energy for our needs. Unless I am missing something, the molecule is probably liberating an electron from some other fuel molecule, which is different from the magnets where the electrons stay firmly in their original atoms.

 

You are sort of on the right track though. For a start little bateries do work just like this too. There is a chemical fuel inside that acts as a source of electrons which we use to power our phones and stuff. And it is also actually possible to create an electric current in a wire using a magnet. The process is called electromagnetic induction, you were beaten to it though, this technology is used in about a billion different things lol.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction

[swansont]

When you press like poles of magnets together, the energy stored comes from the mechanical work you do on them, not the magnets themselves.

[lemur]

I tend to think of force-fields, including those of bar magnets, as media for energy not energy itself. This gets confounded in discussions about matter being reducible to energy, though, but unless you are dealing with nuclear fusion or fission, I think it is safe to say that force is conserved while acting as a medium for energy-transfer, including magnetic field force.

[Stefan-CoA]

What about using induction?

 

You have a smooth barrel, with coiled wire around it and inside you have a magnet. On either side of this barrel you have stronger magnets with opposite poles that could "bounce" the "floating" magnet back and forth? It probly won't work, but when I thought of this in 1st year physics I felt really smart.

[Fuzzwood]

You eventually reach a state of equilibrium where all forces cancel eachother out. Next.

[PhDwannabe]

[bonker]

Is it possible to create a battery from magnets? The idea came to me when I was in biology learning about cellular respiration. ATPs, or Adenosine Triphosphate which uses a negatively charged phosphate in concentration to energize the body. So my question is, can you make a battery harnessing the energy created by 3 negatively charged magnets being forced together. Would the magnets be enough to create a substantial amount of excited electrons? Could these electrons be used for energy?

 

Hmmm, magnetism and electricty are intimately linked, in fact magnetism is a sort of moving electric field. So I suppose if you want to make a battery out of a magnet, you simply move the magnet around a conductor to produce a current?

[Moontanman]

I would think you could store energy by forcing magnets together but it would not create any new energy.

[Light Storm]

 

I just couldn't resist

[swansont]

I just couldn't resist

 

!

Moderator Note

Try harder

[Steam_cannon]

Yes, bacteria have been found to use magnets (magnetite) as batteries for fueling cellular energy as well as using nano-wires for electron exchange instead of the usual atp process. This enables deep layers of bacteria to engage in purely electrical metabolisms, energy exchange with other bacteria & probably mineral trade reaching into low oxygen and low caloric environments.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn27246-bacteria-power-up-by-using-magnets-as-batteries/amp/

[John Cuthber]

The bugs use magnetite, but not because of it's magnetic property- they use it because it can be reversibly oxidised or reduced.

 

Incidentally, if anyone is counting,  I liked the first video better.

[Steam_cannon]

4 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

The bugs use magnetite, but not because of it's magnetic property- they use it because it can be reversibly oxidised or reduced.

 

Incidentally, if anyone is counting,  I liked the first video better.

Lol, you're right that the bacteria use oxidation and not opposing magnets. So the answer is not a mirror of the question. What I Like is the intuition of the person asking this question. It's rare I see someone with the intuition to conceptualize that bacteria could use electrical charges in metabolism which is both fundamental to our expanding understanding of biology and was considered heresy by many people at the time this person asked their question on this website. Like this posters question I think good research usually starts with experience and a hunch, then either turns out to be false or turns out to be close but not exactly as predicted. Also it's facinating the unrelated developments in battery technology that integrate the use of magnetite. I'm sure people fine tuning batteries human made or biological batteries (bacterial batteries, earth batteries) could find this modern research useful & inspiring.

http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/1418709/Multifaceted_Magnetite_Promising_for_Batteries.html