A capacitor is a two passive terminal device which has the ability to store energy like fully charged electric batteries. They are mostly used along with resistors and inductors in electronic circuits. Their common applications include local energy storage, voltage spike suppression, and complex signal filtering.
What are the key applications of various type of capacitors?
There is a wide range of capacitors, and each has its own set of features and applications.
Types of capacitors
1- Electrolytic Capacitor
Electrolytic capacitor is a type of polarized capacitor that utilizes an electrolyte to gain a higher capacitance than a certain form of capacitors. By polarized, it implies that they can be linked to DC source taking their polarity into account. If the connection gets wrong, it can result in permanent damage. They are used where high capacity is needed which can go up to 1000 μF.
Electrolytic capacitors can be either liquid electrolyte or solid polymer. They are typically made of tantalum or aluminum, even though other materials are used. Supercapacitors are a specific subtype of electrolytic capacitors, also known as double-layer electrolytic capacitors, with a range of hundreds of thousands of farads.
Uses of Electrolytic Capacitors
They are widely used for storing energy in low power applications.
2- Mica Capacitor
It is a type of capacitor which uses natural mica as the dielectric between the plates. Silver mica capacitor is capacitors which are dielectrically using mica plates of high quality. These have high-frequency properties attributable to low resistance and inductive losses and are very robust over time.
These capacitors are available in the range of 50pF to 500pF and have working voltage up to 500V. Clamped mica capacitors and silver mica capacitors are two types of mica capacitors.
Uses of Mica Capacitors:
These capacitors are now being substituted by glass, polystyrene or styroflex capacitors with the latest pattern in miniaturization.
3- Paper Capacitor
This type of capacitor is also known as a fixed capacitor, constructed with a paper as the dielectric medium that is adequately capable of holding the electrical charge.
Uses of Paper capacitors:
These capacitors are substituted by polyester capacitors owing to leakage and high resistance.
4- Film Capacitor:
It is one of the most popular non-polarized capacitors that has been used widely. These types of capacitors use a thin plastic film as dielectric. There is a variety of film such ad metalized, polyester (PET), polystyrene and polypropylene film.
They are available in ranges from 5pF to 100μF. This type of capacitor has lower tolerances and operates at high temperatures. Due to their reliability, low inductance and low cost, they are used in many applications.
Uses of Film capacitors:
5- Ceramic Capacitor
These types of capacitor are the most widely produced used capacitors. A ceramic capacitor is non-polarized fixed value capacitor in which the ceramic material serves as a dielectric. The types of ceramic capacitors most commonly used in modern electronics include a multi-layer ceramic capacitor, otherwise referred to as a ceramic multi-layer chip capacitor (MLCC) and a ceramic disc capacitor.
Ceramic condensers are usually made with very low capacities between 1nF and 1μF, but up to 100μF are possible. Ceramic capacitors are very smaller in size and have a low voltage rating.
Uses of Ceramic capacitors: