49.  The membrane that surrounds a certain type of living cell has a surface area of

5.0 x 10-9 m2 and a thickness of 1.0 x 10-8 m. Assume that the membrane behaves like a parallel plate capacitor and has a dielectric constant of 5.0. (a) The potential on the outer surface of the membrane is +60.0 mV greater than that on the inside surface. How much charge resides on the outer surface? (b) If the charge in part (a) is due to positive ions (charge +e), how many such ions are present on the outer surface?

 

For a parallel Plate Capacitor

 

 

Charge on outside is positive since the potential is higher on the outside.

Total Charge is found from

Solve for Number

 

 

 

Please send any comments or questions about this page to ddonovan@nmu.edu

This page last updated on June 11, 2018