Do Electrolytic Capacitors Have A Shelf Life

In capacitors required to carry large currents the energy dissipation is a source of heating which, if not
adequately reduced or dissipated by thermal conduction, may cause rapid deterioration and failure of
the dielectric. Consideration of heat loss enters into the design and use of capacitors for low- frequency
operation in connection with power factor correction and, at high frequencies, in radio transmitting
electrolytic capacitors. In radio circuits, effective resistance becomes important in series coil and
capacitor combinations required to have low impedance at the resonance frequencies or parallel
combinations required to have high impedance at the anti-resonance frequency. This is because
resistance may add appreciably to the desired low impedance at the resonance frequency or reduce the
desired high impedance at the anti-resonant frequency.
In electric wave filters intended to pass one band of frequencies and suppress another, the transmission
loss is ideally zero over the pass-band and rises sharply beyond the edge or edges. Parasitic dissipation
in the reactive elements introduces unwanted loss which varies over the pass-band and reaches a
maximum at the edges resulting in distorted trans-mission. This source of loss may be seriously
objectionable, for example, in carrier-telephone systems where the cumulative loss of many filters in
tandem may result in considerable distortion which must be compensated for by means of attenuationequalizing networks.
In his efforts to limit the losses in capacitors required to pass alternating current in telephone and
electronic circuits, the capacitor engineer is usually primarily concerned with the effect of frequency.
This is because the effective resistance undergoes large changes with changing frequency and because
of the wide frequency-range such circuits are often required to cover. Consequently special attention is
given to the effect of frequency in the following discussion of the factors which control effective
resistance.
It is also assumed that the effective resistance is Independent of the appHed voltage. For practical
purposes, any changes in effective resistance with rising voltage are usually unimportant up to the
corona voltage. At this point, air be- tween electrodes and leads, air or gas trapped in the dielectric or
even the dielectric material itself starts to ionize that Is, electrons are hberated. Gathering velocity In
the electric field, these electrons collide with atoms and molecules to knock out more electrons. This
cumulative process produces electric current of greater intensity than the dielectric can stand with- out
disintegrating or literally burning up. Above the corona voltage point the effective resistance not only
becomes unstable in value but also usually undergoes large increases with further increases in voltage.
Capacitors should be rated to operate at voltages well under the corona point, and in this discussion
corona Is assumed to be absent.