Making a Battery from Fruits/Vegetables

1. Making a Battery from Fruits/Vegetables By Ben Butcher

2. Abstract • Abstract • The purpose of this experiment is to see if you can make a battery out of a lemon, potato, apple, orange, and onion with the right materials and see if any of them have enough power to make a simple digital clock work. If you make batteries out of these objects correctly, then they will be able to power a clock. In this experiment, I will take one lemon, potato, apple, orange, and onion and, with these and other materials, attempt to make a battery out of each of them. Continued>

3. Abstract (continued) I will then test each one by connecting them to a clock and record if each of them work or not and by checking their voltage with a voltmeter. The type of experiment that will be conducted will be a research and field test experiment. I will record the data by writing it down when I test each battery to see if it powers the simple digital clock.

4. Background • For this project, I researched some sites from the Internet and a few books. The books included: • 100 Award-winning Science Fair Projects, by Glen Vecchione • So you have to do a Science Fair Project, by Joyce Henderson and Heather Tomasello • The web sites included: • http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/lemonbattery. html • http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/electro.htm#2 • http://scienceforfamilies.allinfo.about.com/features/fruitcell.htm • Continued>

5. Background (continued) From these sources, I learned that it is possible to make batteries out of lemons, potatoes, apples, oranges, and onions when you make them a certain way. This is because they, like batteries, have some form of acid in them that will charge a conductor and produce a small electric current. This electric current should be able to produce enough electricity to be about 1 volt.

6. Purpose The purpose of this experiment is to see if you can make a battery out of a lemon, potato, apple, orange, and onion with the right materials and see if any of them have enough power to power a simple digital clock.

7. Hyothesis If you make a battery out of a lemon, potato, orange, apple, and onion correctly using the right materials, then the batteries should each have enough power to make a simple digital clock work and will produce about one volt of energy.

8. Materials • For this experiment, you need the following materials: • One lemon, orange, onion, potato, and apple • Five copper metal strips • Five zinc metal strips • About a foot of copper wire • A simple battery-powered electronic device like a digital clock • Knife • Wire-cutter

9. Methodology/Procedure • Gather materials. • Read over procedure. • Form hypothesis. • With the knife, cut two holes in each of the fruits/vegetables about one inch apart. • Insert one copper and one zinc strip of metal in each of these objects in the holes you made with the knife. • With the wire cutter, cut five pieces of the copper wire a little more than one inch long each. • With this copper wire, connect each pair of copper and zinc metal strips. Continued>

10. Methodology/Procedure (continued) 8. Connect each of these objects to the simple battery-powered electrical device to see if they work or not. 9. Connect these objects to the voltmeter to see how much electricity they contain. 10. Make observations. 11. Analyze Results. 12. Make Conclusions.

11. The End... I hope you enjoyed the presentation.