Natural accumulators of electrical energy, a fruit battery - is it possible? Let's try to deal with this issue in our laboratory.
It should be noted that this experiment is good for its simplicity and clarity. It can be used both for a school science project (especially by adding a theoretical section), and as an entertainment, making a good presentation, for example, for friends. This experience is great if you just decide to spend quality time with your child - both fun and educational!
In the previous article about, we touched a little on the history of the creation of a battery, found out where electricity comes from in it, and examined the processes taking place in a galvanic cell. And an incredibly useful method of knowing the world around us called "What's inside there?" helped us see what the battery is made of. True, I had to break several galvanic cells, but in this article, I promise, we will not break anything. Only create!
What do we need for this? As we have already found out, any galvanic cell consists of electrodes and an electrolyte. Following tradition, we will not use any exotic or hard-to-find materials. If you want to repeat the experiment, you will need the following:
- Vegetables or fruits that you have on hand. Just don’t tell others what you need them for, otherwise the next time you want, say, an orange, they won’t give you - they’ll say, they’re going to transfer products again 🙂 They will play the role of an electrolyte in our batch of batteries (or rather , the fruit juice contained in them, which, thanks to fruit acids, acts as an ion-exchange medium).
- Iron and galvanized nails. If there are no galvanized nails, you can take pieces of galvanized sheet. If after the previous article on battery arrangement you still have a zinc case, it's time to get it out of the treasured box. As you understand, all this will act as electrodes.
- Several wires. I took several strands from a multi-core twisted-pair cable. We need wires in order to organize an electrical circuit - the very bridge along which electrons run from one electrode to another.
- And of course, we need a current consumer - why do we need electricity if we have nowhere to spend it. As a consumer, you should use something low-power: for example, a calculator or an LED. Anything more powerful, such as an incandescent lamp, is not worth taking. Although, the last remark can be neglected if you have a truck with lemons in front of your house.
Let's lay out the components on our laboratory table.
We clean the ends of the wires from the insulation.
We begin to immerse the electrodes in the electrolyte. Well, if in a simple way - then stick nails and plates into prepared food supplies. First one electrode...
... and then another.
We fix the wires at the ends of the electrodes.
The galvanic cell is ready! Half a lemon shows almost half a volt.
Having done all the above procedures with an apple, we see that a galvanic cell from this fruit gives a similar voltage.
An orange provides a similar tension.
But the bow gave a surprise. The battery turned out to be high-voltage 🙂
And now let's see what all of our fruit-electric brethren are capable of. Of course, each of these elements is not capable of much. Is it just to demonstrate with a voltmeter that they actually generate electricity. Much more effective will be a demonstration of the operation of current consumers from our fruit batteries. As I have already noted, the voltage produced by a separate fruit galvanic cell will not be enough to power even low-power current consumers. Therefore, we need to increase the voltage. This can be achieved by connecting several galvanic cells in series, i.e. like this:
After connecting all our galvanic cells into a battery, we already get quite a solid voltage.
Let's try to connect the LED (when connecting it is necessary to observe the polarity) ... Lit !!!
Even the old calculator, which I have long ceased to consider working, earned from a fruit battery!
Well, the experience was a success! As you can see, a fruit battery is quite real. Of course, it cannot be considered as a serious power source. But as an excellent visual material about the nature of electricity, which for the uninitiated may even look a little mystical, it is quite!
Good luck with your experiments!
Many schoolchildren in the lessons of chemistry, physics or labor were lucky enough to make a battery out of a lemon. It sounds strange, because everyone is used to seeing standard-type batteries. But the source of energy from the fruit is something unusual!
How to make a battery out of a lemon?
In fact, you can build such an installation from any fruit. The only difference will be in tension. Lemon has the advantage of having citric acid. It is capable of generating more electrical current.
Here's what you need to create a lemon battery:
- Lemon - 1-2 pieces.
- Copper wire in the amount of 1 piece. For a large-scale experiment, you can take more. If not, you can use a coin.
- Zinc plate. In its role can be an ordinary metal bolt, screw or wire.
- Multimeter or tester to determine the voltage.
- Light-emitting diode. It will allow you to visually fix that there is a current.
As you can see, there are only three things at the heart of the manufacture of this battery.
Step #1.
Take a lemon and remember it a little. You can also wash and dry if you wish. Although it's not that important.
Step #2.
Place a copper conductor at a shallow depth of up to 2 cm and a metal conductor not far from it.
Connect wires to protruding twigs.
Test with a multimeter how many volts this installation produces.
As a result, 0.91 volts!
Collect the second lemon battery and connect them in series. Or stick another copper and metal wire. Then diagonally connect them together.
The fact is that the LED will not burn from one battery, so a second one is required.
Thus, a lemon battery can stably produce an electric current.
Explanation: The operation of such a battery is based on the interaction of two conductors of opposite metals. After they are placed in a lemon, they are surrounded by a medium of citric acid. This substance serves as an electrolyte. That is, a chemical reaction begins to flow and the ions move, giving out energy.
In place of the coin, it is best to use copper wire.
Juicy fruits, new potatoes and other food products can serve as food not only for people, but also for electrical appliances. To extract electricity from them, you will need a galvanized nail or screw (that is, almost any nail or screw) and a piece of copper wire. To fix the presence of electricity, a household multimeter will come in handy, and an LED lamp or even a battery-powered fan will help to more clearly demonstrate success.
Mash the lemon in your hands to break down the internal partitions, but do not damage the peel. Insert a nail (screw) and copper wire so that the electrodes are as close to each other as possible, but do not touch. The closer the electrodes are, the less likely they are to be separated by a partition inside the fruit. In turn, the better the ion exchange between the electrodes inside the battery, the greater its power.
The essence of the experiment is to place copper and zinc electrodes in an acidic environment, whether it be a lemon or a bath of vinegar. The nail will serve as our negative electrode, or anode. Let's assign a copper wire as a positive electrode, or cathode.
In an acidic environment, an oxidation reaction occurs on the anode surface, during which free electrons are released. Each zinc atom loses two electrons. Copper is a strong oxidizer and can attract electrons released by zinc. If you close an electrical circuit (connect a light bulb or a multimeter to an impromptu battery), electrons will flow from the anode to the cathode through it, that is, electricity will appear in the circuit.
Potatoes are by nature an excellent body and electrolyte for a galvanic cell. The potato consistently gave us a voltage of more than 0.5 V per cell, while the lemon showed a result in the region of 0.4 V. The voltage champion is vinegar: 0.8 V per cell. To get more voltage, connect the elements in series. To power more powerful consumers (fan) - in parallel.
On the surface of the cathode, that is, a negatively charged electrode, a reduction reaction takes place: the cations (positively charged ions) of hydrogen contained in the acid receive the missing electrons and turn into hydrogen, which comes out in the form of bubbles. Near the cathode, a concentration of anions (negatively charged ions) of the acid arises, and near the anode, zinc cations. To balance the charges in the electrolyte, it is necessary to provide ion exchange between the electrodes inside the battery.
Increased soil acidity is a problem for agronomists, but a joy for electrical engineers. The content of hydrogen and aluminum ions in the earth allows you to literally stick two sticks (as usual, zinc and copper) into the pot and get electricity. Our result is 0.2 V. To improve the result, the soil should be watered.
It is important to understand that electricity is not generated from a lemon or a potato. This is not at all the energy of chemical bonds in organic molecules, which is absorbed by our body as a result of food intake. Electricity is generated by chemical reactions involving zinc, copper and acid, and in our battery it is the nail that serves as a consumable.
MBOU "Secondary school No. 6 in Yurga"
Section: The world of my interests.
Fruit Battery.
MBOU secondary school No. 6, student of grade 4
Head: Belonosova T.V.
Yurga
2015
l Introduction.
ll. Main part.
How does a battery work.
Practical use of the battery to.
lll. Conclusion.
lV . Bibliography.
V. Application.
l Introduction.
M 
My work came about thanks to my passion for books and the desire to make crafts. For the first time I read about the non-traditional use of fruits in a book by Nikolai Nosov. As conceived by the writer, Shorty Vintik and Shpuntik, who lived in the Flower City, created a car that runs on soda with syrup.
And then I thought, what if fruits also keep some secrets.
I wanted to learn as much as possible about the unusual properties of fruits. Scientists say that if the electricity goes out in your house, you can light up your house with lemons for a while.
Purpose of my research:
Getting electric current from fruits.
Tasks are shown on the slide.
1. Familiarize yourself with the principle of battery operation.
2. Create fruit batteries.
3. Experimentally determine the voltage of such batteries.
4. Try to light a light bulb with a fruit battery.
Subject of study: receiving electric current.
Object of study: fruit batteries.
G 
mortgage:
Are fruits a source of electricity? Is it possible to make a battery out of fruit?
ll. Main part.
How does a battery work.
First, let's understand what an electric current is. Electric current is the movement of electrically charged particles. I decided to find out how a regular battery works. I did not disassemble the battery myself, I used the encyclopedia. Any battery or accumulator is two metal plates placed in a special chemical substance - an electrolyte. One plate is connected to the "+" terminal, the other to the "-" terminal.
Battery is a convenient storage of electricity that can be used to power portable devices. Some batteries are single use, others can be recharged. Batteries come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are small, like a pill. Some are the size of refrigerators. But they all work on the same principle. They create an electrical charge as a result of a reaction between two chemicals, during which electrons are transferred from one of them to another.
Zinc (galvanized plate) and copper (copper wire) are used as electrodes, and the electrolyte is a solution of salts and acids. Two metals immersed in a solution enter into a chemical reaction and an electric current is generated.
The first source of electric current was invented by accident, at the end of the 17th century, by the Italian scientist Luigi Galvani (in fact, the purpose of Galvani's experiments was not to search for new sources of energy, but to study the reaction of experimental animals to various external influences). The phenomenon of the appearance and flow of current was discovered by attaching strips of two different metals to the muscle of the frog's leg.
Galvani's experiments became the basis for the research of another Italian scientist, Alessandro Volta. 200 years ago he formulated the main idea of the invention.
Invented 200 years ago, the very first battery worked on the basis of fruit juice.
Alessandro Volta made a discovery in 1800 by assembling a simple device from two metal plates (zinc and copper) and a leather gasket between them soaked in lemon juice.
Alessandro Volta discovered that there is a potential difference between the plates. The unit of voltage measurement was named after this scientist, and his fruit energy source became the progenitor of all current batteries, which are now called galvanic cells in honor of Luigi Galvani.
On the Internet, I saw a photo that shows a device that you can assemble with your own hands. This is a digital watch that uses fruit instead of a battery.
I conducted a survey among students in my class to find out what they know about batteries about the existence of a fruit battery.
What is in a battery?
Based on the results of the questionnaire, I can conclude that: the guys know what is contained inside the battery and how it works. And the guys heard about the fruit battery. (Fig. 1)
Fruit juice is a weak acid in its composition, so if you insert 2 electrodes into the fruit: one copper - the other zinc, then a weak current will flow between the electrodes, sufficient to power the watch. But I'm not used to taking a word, so I decided to personally check whether it's true or not.
Battery experiment.
To create fruit batteries, I needed:
M 
materials:
Galvanized plate
A multimeter is a device for measuring current and voltage.
4. Fruits.
I'm starting to measure the current in fruit.
With the help of my dad, I made galvanic cells from pear, apple and lemon. Each element was measured with a multimeter. (fig.2)
We were surprised that lemon, pears and apples give electricity! I entered the results of voltage measurements in the table. (fig.3)
I found out that an ordinary finger battery gives 1.5 volts.
So, the hypothesis was confirmed: different fruits give a different current in strength.
V. Application.
Picture 1.
Questionnaire.
What is in a battery?
All the guys answered yes to this question.
Are there fruit batteries?
Figure 2.
We take a pear on one side, insert a copper wire, and on the other, a zinc plate.
The battery is ready, we measure the voltage.
We take an apple on one side, insert a copper wire, and on the other, a zinc plate. The battery is ready, we measure the voltage.
We take a lemon on one side, insert a copper wire, and on the other, a zinc plate. The battery is ready, we measure the voltage.
An ordinary penlight battery gives 1.5 volts.
Figure 3
Voltage measurement results.
Fruit
Voltage, V
Pear
0.90
Apple
0.87
Lemon
0.90
Figure 4
We took a small LED light bulb. Connected it to the contacts of the lemon.
My blue LED starts to glow!
It happens that you find yourself in a difficult life situation when you urgently need a source of energy. For example, you need to charge your mobile phone, turn on the radio, and so on. Elementary knowledge of physics and chemistry will allow you to find a way out of such situations. For many, it will be interesting to know that you can “power up” a radio or charge a mobile phone from an apple or a lemon.
For these purposes you will need:
- steel contact (nail, paper clip, piece of steel wire, steel coin and so on...);
- copper contact (copper coin, piece of copper wire, any copper plate, etc.);
- lemon, and if an apple is used, you need to choose as sour as possible;
- two wires for connecting to the "battery".
Procedure:
Stage 1. Looking for a suitable "energy source"
The easiest way is to find an apple when you are in a country house, village, or simply lost in the forest. The best option would be a sour apple, since acid is a key component in the work of the "battery". If there is a lemon, then this is the most suitable option. You can also use oranges, kiwi and other similar fruits.
Stage 2. We establish contacts
You need to insert contacts into a lemon or an apple, first they need to be thoroughly cleaned with sandpaper, a file, or rubbed against a stone. Contacts are inserted at a distance of 2-3 centimeters from each other. The wider and longer the inserted electrodes, the more voltage the battery will produce. If coins act as contacts, then they must be inserted in parallel.
Stage 3. We connect the battery
Now it remains to connect two wires to the established contacts. You can simply gently stick them into a lemon or apple along with the contacts. That's it, the battery is ready to use. There will be a plus on the copper electrode, and a minus on the steel. The voltage will depend on the area of the electrodes and the acidity of the apple or lemon.
One such battery is capable of delivering about 0.5-0.8 volts. In order for a simple receiver to work or a mobile one to charge, a voltage of at least 3-5 volts is required. To get such power, you need to make several of these "batteries" and connect them in series. In our case, to get 3 Volts, you need about 5-6 of these "batteries".
Stage 4. Charging lemons
An interesting fact is that the "batteries" created in this way can be fully charged. For these purposes, you can use a charger from a mobile phone. The author decided to use a Krona battery for these purposes.
The red positive wire is connected to the copper electrode, and the black negative wire to the steel one. After charging, a voltage of 1-1.3 Volts will appear on the contacts of the "lemon".
