CHEMISTRY COMMUNITY

How do galvanic and voltaic cells relate to spontaneity of a reaction?

Galvanic cells are related to a positive standard cell potential, which means the process will occur naturally without work having to be put in (spontaneously). Voltaic is another term for Galvanic. On the other hand, an electrolytic cell is related to a negative standard cell potential, so the process would not happen spontaneously.

Galvanic and Voltaic cells are the same thing. They are related through the equation deltaGº = -nFEº, where n is number of moles of electrons being transferred by the reaction, and F is Faraday's constant, 9.6485X10^4 Colombs/mol.