Why does a capacitor store energy but not charge?
capacitors store the separation of positive and negative charges. this is equivalent to indicating that they store an electric field and this is equivalent to indicating that they store energy (in the form of an electric field or charge separation).
It is said that a capacitor is charged not because it is charged, but because the electrons are transferred or pumped from one plate to another, which creates an imbalance of charges between the plates. there is only a transfer of charges. To carry out this transfer of charges, it takes energy.
I will not go into the situation where both plates are floating at another DC voltage.
If we consider a pair of plates separated by vacuum, one of the plates is positively charged and the other plate is negative. the capacitor stores many additional charges.
the situation where the capacitor is filled with dielectric is more complex and therefore easier to conceal, but the principle is in fact the same.
why does a capacitor store energy but not charge?
it stores energy in the form of being charged. all capacitors consist of a dielectric material, which includes a free space, which can be polarized by an external electric field inductor. therefore, no charge is stored, the dielectric material is biased by the externally applied inductor electric field and the energy stored in the electric field of the capacitor is due to this bias.
Thus, the induction causes the realignment of the dielectric on its polar charge, which results in the storage of the energy in the dielectric material. when a capacitor is discharged, the dielectric material depolarizes and thus loses all the energy stored by induction.
you and everything else is made up of atoms. but no one says that you are a storage of atoms. the same logic applies to load. every atom, and therefore all that is composed of atoms, already has a charge by the sole virtue of existing.
The capacitors are the same. they always have the charge. even a broken capacitor is charged. but what a working capacitor does is that it distributes the load so that one of its plates is positively charged with respect to the opposite plate.
whenever charges of opposite polarities are separated and maintained in this way physically close to each other to counteract their attractive force, you have managed to store electrical energy using the same charge that has always been present in the capacitor.
this stored electrical energy can be released when a path allows the charges to flow again, in order to mix and neutralize the potential difference created by the separation of charges.
Thus, a capacitor stores only energy. storing fees is not quite the same concept as storing a net fee. Positive and negative charges are usually mixed (so to speak) in a zero net charge object – for example, a metallic conductor. In the case of a voltage source connected to the conductors, a capacitor can separate some mixed charges in separate regions of positive and negative charges – on opposite plates of the capacitor. does this constitute a storage tax? it depends on what you want to emphasize about the situation of a charged capacitor.
consider a similar situation: the electrolytic separation of hydrogen and oxygen from water. Initially, h and o are mixed (so to speak) in the form of the chemical compound H2O. if current flows between two electrodes immersed in a container containing water, one electrode produces hydrogen bubbles (h2) and the other electrode gaseous oxygen bubbles (o2). the gases produced can be collected in separate containers for later use.
in the same way, it can be said that a capacitor stores a negative charge and stores a positive charge so that these equal and opposite stored charges can be used to do something in an electrical circuit.
