How to Make a Lemon Battery
What You Need
- A fresh, large, juicy lemon
- A galvanized nail, so that its coated in zinc
- A copper coin
4 Steps to Make a Lemon Battery
- Make a cut on one side of the lemon.
- Push the coin inside.
- Like this, make another cut on the other side of the lemon.
- Push the nail inside, but make sure the nail and the coin don’t touch.
Voila! This is a single cell battery. What are the electrodes and the electrolyte?
You can measure the voltage generated by the lemon battery with a voltmeter. However, this battery will produce very little current.
How can you increase the current it generates?
- You can combine battery cells. Make more lemon batteries and connect them with metal wires. The coin is the positive terminal and the nail is the negative terminal.
- Make sure you connect each wire from the coin to the nail. Measure the voltage generated again. Has it increased?
- Although the voltage is more than a single lemon battery, you will need more power to run a device. Make another two lemon batteries and connect them all. Again, measure the voltage generated.
- Now you can try lighting a Light emitting Diode or an LED. It requires little power. The LED will have a flat spot. Ensure that the wire coming out here connects to the nail or the negative terminal of your battery.
Note : Don’t forget to check out – How Do Batteries Work?
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