Question

Explain whether the wood is a good conductor of electricity or not?

Answer 1

Hint: Wood can be called the exoskeleton of a tree, its composition mostly depends on its type but the primary constituents are carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Also, the flow of free electrons is what we call electricity and a conductor’s property is that it allows the electricity to flow through it with little to no resistance.

Complete answer: We know that every matter is made up of atoms and atoms have electrons revolving around the nucleus just like the Earth revolves around the Sun.
And we consider a ‘good’ conductor has a lot of free electrons and a zero to no resistance to the flow of electrons.
But wood is not a conductor, although it has n numbers of electrons present in it, these electrons are tightly bound to the nucleus of the atom. And since, there are no flow free electrons, there is a flow of electricity either.
These properties of wood make it a bad conductor but a good insulator.

Additional information: Insulator- An insulator is just the opposite of a conductor, it is highly resistive in nature and does not allow the flow of electrons, as it does not possess enough free electrons.

Therefore, we can conclude that wood is not a good conductor of electricity, as it does not have free electrons.

Note: Although dry wood is not a good conductor of electricity, if we have a water-soaked wood piece that would act as a conductor, and that’s why it is advised to not go under a tree during thunderstorms. water has impurities in it like salts, ions, minerals, etc that can easily conduct electricity