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What happens if all the electrons from a lump of material are removed?
RoGeorge:
The atoms and/or the molecules are kept together by electrons. In fact, most of the properties of any material are given by the electrons that keep the nuclei in certain arrangements or shapes, right?
If so, will the material suddenly atomize if all the electrons were to be pulled away? The remaining positively charged nuclei should repel each other.
So why materials doesn't disintegrate when positively charged? How many electrons can be removed before noticing different properties in the material? Why, for example, the electrostatic charging (by induction) doesn't disintegrate the positively charged side of a material?
Are these assumptions correct just that quantitatively their effects will be insignificant, or am I missing something?
retiredfeline:
You would not be able to remove enough electrons before the force gets considerable. Plug in 1C x 2 and 1km into this calculator and you'll get 9000N force.
https://www.calctool.org/electromagnetism/coulombs-law
The electrostatic force is very strong.
jpanhalt:
EI (and other) ionization techniques are used in mass spectrometry to make the resulting positively charged ions break apart. I am relatively sure that's not what you mean, but the longest journey begins with the first step.
Just what sort of energies would be needed to completely ionize any bulk material?
richard.cs:
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on August 20, 2023, 09:04:25 am ---The atoms and/or the molecules are kept together by electrons. In fact, most of the properties of any material are given by the electrons that keep the nuclei in certain arrangements or shapes, right?
--- End quote ---
Yes correct.
--- Quote ---If so, will the material suddenly atomize if all the electrons were to be pulled away? The remaining positively charged nuclei should repel each other.
--- End quote ---
If you were able to remove all the electrons, yes, but it's essentially impossible for any significant amount of bulk material. The forces required would be vast, and if you somehow managed it the material would be so charged as to rip electrons from surrounding matter.
--- Quote ---So why materials doesn't disintegrate when positively charged? How many electrons can be removed before noticing different properties in the material? Why, for example, the electrostatic charging (by induction) doesn't disintegrate the positively charged side of a material?
--- End quote ---
Because you never remove very many of the electrons. Something that is electrostatically positively charged still has the vast majority of it's electrons. Consider if you take a 1 kg block of copper, it contains something like 1e25 atoms of copper and 3e26 electrons. Form that copper into a sphere and it's around 6 cm in diameter, with a capacitance to free space of 3 pF. Let's say you charge that sphere to 10 million volts, you have then removed Q=V*C = 3e-5 Coulombs of charge which we divide by the charge per electron (1.6e-19 C) to show is about 2e14 electrons. Out of 3e26 electrons you have only removed 2e14 of them which is less than one in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
dietert1:
Didn't follow the calculation completely but the last division gives 1.5e12. For all practical purposes it's similar to the 1e22 you wrote down..
Regards, Dieter
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