Coulomb

For other uses, see Coulomb (disambiguation).

(or +1 C the charge of that many positrons or protons),

where the number is the reciprocal of 1.6021771019 .

The coulomb (unit symbol: C) is the International System of Units (SI) unit of electric charge. It is the charge
(symbol: Q or q) transported by a constant current of one
ampere in one second:

The proposed redenition of the ampere and other SI

base units would have the eect of xing the numerical
value of the fundamental charge to an explicit constant
expressed in coulombs, and therefore it would implicitly
x the value of the coulomb when expressed as a multiple
of the fundamental charge (the numerical values of those
quantities are the multiplicative inverses of each other).

1C=1A1s
Thus, it is also the amount of excess charge on a capacitor
of one farad charged to a potential dierence of one volt:

3 SI prexes

1C=1F1V

See also SI prex.

It is equivalent to the charge of approximately

6.2421018 (1.036105 mol) protons, and 1 C is
equivalent to the charge of approximately 6.2421018
electrons.

4 Conversions
One coulomb is the magnitude (absolute value) of
electrical charge in 6.24150934(14)1018 protons
or electrons.[1]

Name and notation

The inverse of this number gives the elementary

charge of 1.6021766208(98)1019 C.[7]

This SI unit is named after Charles-Augustin de

Coulomb. As with every International System of Units
(SI) unit named for a person, the rst letter of its symbol
is upper case (C). However, when an SI unit is spelled out
in English, it should always begin with a lower case letter
(coulomb)except in a situation where any word in that
position would be capitalized, such as at the beginning
of a sentence or in material using title case. Note that
degree Celsius" conforms to this rule because the d is
lowercase. Based on The International System of Units,
section 5.2.[2]

The magnitude of the electrical charge of one mole

of elementary charges (approximately 6.0221023 ,
or Avogadros number) is known as a faraday unit
of charge (closely related to the Faraday constant).
One faraday equals 96485.3399 coulombs. In terms
of Avogadros number (NA), one coulomb is equal
to approximately 1.036 NA105 elementary
charges.
One ampere-hour = 3600 C, 1 mAh = 3.6 C.

Denition

One statcoulomb (statC), the obsolete CGS

electrostatic unit of charge (esu), is approximately 3.33561010 C or about one-third of a
nanocoulomb.

The SI system denes the coulomb in terms of the ampere

and second: 1 C = 1 A 1 s.[3] The second is dened
in terms of a frequency naturally emitted by caesium
atoms.[4] The ampere is dened using Ampres force
law;[5] the denition relies in part on the mass of the 5 Relation to elementary charge
international prototype kilogram, a metal cylinder housed
in France.[6] In practice, the watt balance is used to mea- The elementary charge, the charge of a proton (equivasure amperes with the highest possible accuracy.[6]
lently, the negative of the charge of an electron), is apSince the charge of one electron is known to be about proximately 1.6021766208(98)1019 C[7] . In SI, the el1.6021766208(98)1019 C,[7] 1 C can also be con- ementary charge in coulombs is an approximate value:
sidered the charge of roughly 6.2415091018 electrons no experiment can be innitely accurate. However, in
1

other unit systems, the elementary charge has an exact value by denition, and other charges are ultimately
measured relative to the elementary charge.[8] For example, in conventional electrical units, the values of the
Josephson constant KJ and von Klitzing constant RK are
exact dened values (written KJ- and RK-), and it follows that the elementary charge e = 2/(KJRK) is also an
exact dened value in this unit system.[8] Specically,
e90 = (2109 )/(25812.807 483597.9) C exactly.[8]
SI itself may someday change its denitions in a similar way.[8] For example, one possible proposed redenition is the ampere...is [dened] such that the value of
the elementary charge e (charge on a proton) is exactly
1.6021764871019 coulombs,[9] (in which the numeric
value is the 2006 CODATA recommended value, since
superseded). This proposal is not yet accepted as part of
the SI; the SI denitions are unlikely to change until at
least 2015.[10]

NOTES AND REFERENCES

Electrostatics
Elementary charge
Faraday (unit), an obsolete unit
Quantity of electricity

8 Notes and references

[1] 6.24150934(14)1018 is the reciprocal of the 2010 CODATA recommended value 1.602176565(35)1019 for
the elementary charge in coulomb.
[2] SI Brochure, Appendix 1, (PDF). BIPM. p. 144.
[3] SI brochure, section 2.2.2. BIPM.
[4] SI brochure, section 2.2.1.3. BIPM.
[5] SI brochure, section 2.2.1.4. BIPM.

In everyday terms
The charges in static electricity from rubbing materials together are typically a few microcoulombs.[11]
The amount of charge that travels through a
lightning bolt is typically around 15 C, although
large bolts can be up to 350 C.[12]
The amount of charge that travels through a typical
alkaline AA battery from being fully charged to discharged is about 5 kC = 5000 C 1400 mAh.[13]

[6] Watt Balance. BIPM.

[7] CODATA Value: elementary charge. The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. US National
Institute of Standards and Technology. June 2015. Retrieved 2015-09-22.
[8] Mills, I. M.; Mohr, P. J.; Quinn, T. J.; Taylor, B. N.;
Williams, E. R. (2005). Redenition of the kilogram:
a decision whose time has come. Metrologia 42 (2):
71. Bibcode:2005Metro..42...71M. doi:10.1088/00261394/42/2/001.
[9] Report of the CCU to the 23rd CGPM

According to Coulombs law, two negative point [10] Anon (November 2010). BIPM Bulletin (PDF). BIPM.
Retrieved 2011-01-28.
charges of 1 C, placed one meter apart, would
experience a repulsive force of 9109 N, a force
[11] Martin Karl W. Pohl. Physics: Principles with Applicaroughly equal to the weight of 920000 metric tons
tions (PDF). DESY.
of mass on the surface of the Earth.
[12] Hasbrouck, Richard. Mitigating Lightning Hazards, Sci-

The hydraulic analogy uses everyday terms to illusence & Technology Review May 1996. Retrieved on
trate movement of charge and the transfer of en2009-04-26.
ergy. The analogy equates charge to a volume of
water, and voltage to pressure. One coulomb equals [13] How to do everything with digital photography David
Huss, p. 23, at Google Books, The capacity range of an
(the negative of) the charge of 6.241018 electrons.
AA battery is typically from 11002200 mAh.
The amount of energy transferred by the ow of 1
coulomb can vary; for example, 300 times fewer
electrons ow through a lightning bolt than in the
discharge of an AA battery, but the total energy
transferred by the ow of the lightnings electrons
is 300 million times greater.

See also
Abcoulomb, a cgs unit of charge
Ampres circuital law
Coulombs law

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