Problem46
Section 19.5: Capacitors and Dielectrics

Question

What charge is stored in a capacitor when 120 V is applied to it?

Question by OpenStax is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Final Answer

0.0216 C0.0216\textrm{ C}

Solution video

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Video Transcript

This is College Physics Answers with Shaun Dychko. A 180 microfarad capacitor has 120 volts applied across it and the question is how much charge is stored on each plate of the capacitor? So capacitance is charge divided by voltage and we can multiply both sides by V to solve for Q. So Q—the charge stored in the capacitor—is the capacitance multiplied by the voltage. So it's 180 times 10 to the minus 6 farads times 120 volts which is 0.0216 coulombs.

Comments

arinaz0911·
what would the answer be in mC
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ShaunDychko·
$0.0216 \textrm{ C } \times 1000 \textrm{ mC / C} = 21.6 \textrm{ mC}$. Hope this helps, Shaun
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physics2aand2b·
I thought the formula was cv^2/2?
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ShaunDychko·
That's the formula for the energy (in joules) stored in a capacitor, whereas this question is asking for the amount of charge (in coulombs).
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