Generating Electricity from a Lemon

 

Noah Nishihara Homegroup 909                                         Wednesday, 28 October 2015

Generating Electricity from a Lemon

Aim

To successfully light up the red LED by improving the original method of creating a lemon battery.(And using zinc and copper plates)

The problem: the voltage or current was too low for the LED to light up

Hypothesis: If the circuit is well structured (special), the LED should light up with just four lemons. (or cut up pieces)

Materials and equipment

·        Maximum of 4 lemons

·        Many wires and alligator clips (insulated lead wires with alligator clips on the ends)

·        Copper plates (8 sheets) positive terminal

·        Zinc plates (8 sheets) negative terminal

·        Red coloured LED (because it lights up at a more lower voltage than the other colours) it still requires more than 1.9V to light up (exactly four-five lemons) it lights up when it is over 1.8 V，0.1 mA

·        Cutting equipment

·        Cooking salt (to make the resistance of the lemon battery smaller) or table salt

Method

1.      Cut the four lemons so that it is stable on the bench.

2.      Add (sprinkle) cooking salt onto the lemon battery.

3.      Stick in the copper and zinc plates.

4.      Connect the short end of the LED with the zinc plate of the first lemon using a black coloured wire.

5.      Connect the copper plate of the first lemon with the zinc plate of the second lemon using a red coloured wire.

6.      Connect the copper plate of the second lemon with the zinc plate of the third lemon using a black coloured wire.

7.      Connect the copper plate of the third lemon with the longer terminal of the LED using a red coloured wire.

8.      The steps can be repeated if there are more lemon cells.

Results

 

 

Notes

The freshness of the lemon does not affect the amount of electricity produced. Juicy lemons are more likely to have a higher voltage.

·        Zinc, copper and iron plates (without rust)

After the experiment, the fruits must not be eaten as the metal will have melted. (zinc ions)

The longer terminal of the LED is + and the shorter terminal is –

Due to the high inner resistance of lemons, the voltage decreases rapidly after allowing an electric current to flow. Because of this, only a small amount of the current can flow and regular bulbs cannot be lit up. Without allowing the current to flow, the voltage of one lemon is 0.9V. 0.9V×number of lemons= total voltage of the current without a current flowing.

The bulb not lighting up is also a very important thing to learn.

There are three ways of doing a lemon battery experiment.

1.      Using whole lemons and connecting wires between them. (wastes lemons)

2.      Cutting up lemons and using copper and zinc plates.

3.      Using the juice of the lemon in some way; (paper towels with lemon juice absorbed)

Lemons that have already been used may not necessarily have a higher or lower voltage than a brand new lemon.

 

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