How to get mechanical work from a capacitor and a couple of batteries

Abstract

The work done by a parallel plate capacitor is evaluated when the plate separation is changed. Two cases are considered: 1) when the capacitor has a constant charge; 2) when the capacitor is at constant voltage. The net work is calculated when the device follows a closed cycle in the charge-voltage space. For certain conditions a net mechanical work can be obtained from the cycling capacitor. The analysis is simple enough to be explained in a general physics course.