when plastic is rubbed with silk cloth .why electrons move from silk to plastic and not from plastic to silk cloth?

Question

Harish · Answer

Hello Priya ! See your question seems to be somewhat wrong. Because plastic rod and silk cloth both are negatively charged materials. So we can’t predict what will happen when plastic rod is rubbed with silk cloth. This you can also understand by another means that it is the property of charges that like charges repel each other and unlike charges attract each other. So, since both plastic rod and silk cloth are negatively charged materials so they may repel each other and it may not be possible that electrons will flow from one material to another in this case. However, if your question changes to this that a glass rod is rubbed with silk rod, then electrons flow from glass rod to slik cloth. This is because glass rod is positively charged material so it easily looses its electron and becomes positively charged. Same goes with silk rod. Since it is a negatively charged material , so it easily accepts electron from glass rod . Hope this helps ! If I am wrong somewhere , please let me know !

swapnil · Answer

Because work function of silk cloth is less than that of plastic.Work function of an object is the minimum energy required to take out an electron from that object . When plastic and silk cloth are rubbed together, due to friction, heat energy is produced.Object with lower work function require less energy to loose it`s electron therefore when plastic and silk cloth are rubbed together heat energy reaches work function of silk cloth first so electrons transfers from silk to plastic

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when plastic is rubbed with silk cloth .why electrons move from silk to plastic and not from plastic to silk cloth?

when plastic is rubbed with silk cloth .why electrons move from silk to plastic and not from plastic to silk cloth?

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