How do you positively charge and negatively charge electrodes? Is this done with some type of equipment or can it be done with batteries? Need to know for school homework. Thanks.

 

Here is one way - http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_1/1.html

If you are not speaking of static electricity, then the electrodes of a battery carry a charge.

 

beenthere,
Thank you for the reply. To use a battery would I just connect the anode, for a positive charge, to the surface of the item I want to positively charge? Don't I have to also hook up the cathode to get a closed circuit?

 

You can transfer a static charge, per the Ebook chapter, but merely touching an item to the battery's anode will not charge it. The terminals of the battery are electrodes, and are changed by the internal electrochemical activity.

A connected external circuit is not usually though of as having it anode connected to the battery positive terminal, nor the cathode to the battery negative terminal. They are simply electrical connections.

Can you expand on what is is you mean by "electrode".

 

All I mean by electrode is a conducter used to connect to the component (or substance) I'm trying to ionize. So the electrode is basically the end of a wire.

 

This is a link to the subject - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionization_energy

One used-to-be very common item where you saw the electrodes and the ionization effect was through the glass envelope of a NE-2 neon lamp.