Electrical – Kirchhoff’s voltage law in a circuit with just a battery

kirchhoffs-laws

I am just starting to learn electronics. Today I encountered Kirchhoff's voltage law, and I don't quite understand how it works. From Wikipedia:

The directed sum of the electrical potential differences (voltage) around any closed network is zero

What about when you make a circuit by connecting one side of a battery to the other, without any other components in the circuit? For example, if I connect a 9V battery to itself, wouldn't the total sum of the voltage in the circuit be simply 9V? Am I missing a -9V source somewhere here?

Best Answer

Nope. You're missing the fact that a battery can only supply a certain amount of current - that is, it has an internal resistance. Then your circuit looks like

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

So there is an internal node which you cannot see (it's not actually a single point - it's part of the overall functioning of the battery) for which KVL applies.

Please note that, if possible, you should not try too hard to apply batteries to your thinking about circuits. They are very, very non-ideal devices. A voltage/resistor model does not do the device justice. The internal voltage depends on how fully charged or discharged the device is, and the resistance depends on things like state of charge, current level and temperature.

With that said, you should realize that, for instance, a 9-volt battery has a pretty high internal resistance - it won't provide much current. A car battery, on the other hand, has a very low resistance, and if you mess around with one you can do things like weld large wires together.