voltaic couple

American  

noun

Electricity.

1. a pair of substances, as two different metals, that when placed in a proper solution produces an electromotive force by chemical action.

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voltaic couple British  

noun

1. physics a pair of dissimilar metals in an electrolyte with a potential difference between the metals resulting from chemical action

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Example Sentences

The so-called gilding is really Dutch metal or copper, and the silver is tin or zinc, so that the two actually form a voltaic couple.

From Project Gutenberg

Or, bearing in mind the fact that an uninjured contact acts as the zinc in a voltaic couple, we might call it ‘zincoid,’ and the injured contact ‘cuproid.’

From Project Gutenberg

Reversals of position of two metals of a voltaic couple in the tension series by rise of temperature were chiefly due to one of the two metals increasing in electromotive force faster than the other, and in many cases to one metal increasing and the other decreasing in electromotive force, but only in a few cases was it a result of simultaneous but unequal diminution of potential of the two metals.

From Project Gutenberg

The electrical effect of heating a voltaic couple is nearly wholly composed of the united effects of heating each of the two metals separately, but is not however exactly the same, because while in the former case the metals are dissimilar, and are heated to the same temperature, in the latter they are similar, but heated to different temperatures.

From Project Gutenberg

Heating one of the metals, either the positive or negative, of a voltaic couple, usually increased their electric difference, making most metals more positive, and some more negative; while heating the second one also usually neutralized to a large extent the effect of heating the first one.

From Project Gutenberg