Citrus Battery Science Fair Project

CITRUS BATTERYBy: Seth Kessel

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that the electrodes in a single citrus fruit will be an alternative way to power something like a light bulb. I base my hypothesis on that there will be enough electrodes to power a light bulb.

Purpose

The purpose of this experiment was to see if there was an alternative way to have a battery source. I became interested in this experiment when I was putting batteries in my flashlight and I wanted to know what else could be used to power a light bulb. The information gathered in this experiment with help others by helping someone power something for a short period of time.

Materials2 Grapefruits

2 Lemons

2 Limes

2 Clementine’s

25 feet Copper wire

26 Copper nails

14 Zinc screws

1 Voltometer/multimeter

4-8 Pennies

1 Knife

1 AA 1.5v battery

1 Light bulb with leads

Procedures

1. Get your multimeter, pennies, knife, screws, bulb, and citrus fruits out and ready.

2. Take the lemon and make a small slice and put in the penny. Then push the zinc screw in and measure the voltage with your multimeter.

3. After put the copper screw into the fruit.4. Take the copper wire and wrap it around each screw

and see if you get it to light up the bulb.5. Record the data and move on to the next fruit.6. Once done with one type of each fruit repeat with

second of each fruit.7. Once you are done, record and compare your results.

Then pick the fruit with the highest range of voltage.

Log

April 25th, 2012 12:00pm Left house to get supplies for project. Went to Home Depot, Kroger, and Farmers Market. Worked on for an hour and a half.

May 1st, 2012 11:15am Used citrus fruits, pennies, zinc nails, copper wire, AA 1.5v battery, and light bulb with leads for experiment. Also used multimeter to measure the voltage of the fruits. Was unable to power light bulb with fruits. Worked on for one hour and fifteen minutes.

Results

The original purpose of this experiment was to see if one citrus fruit was an alternative way to power a light bulb and see how much voltage a single fruit could produce. The results of the experiment were that one fruit was not able to power a light bulb. Also the voltage of each fruit is as follows; Lemons produced 0.660v to 0.720v, the Limes produced 0.629v to 0.738v, the Grapefruits produced 0.602v to 0.730v, the Oranges produced 0.668v to 0.690v, and the Clementine’s produced 0.813v to 0.815v. From the results, on average, the Clementine’s produce the highest voltage.

Conclusion

My hypothesis was that one single citrus fruit would be able to power a light bulb. I base my hypothesis on the idea that if it were able to power a light bulb, it might have been an early version of a light bulb, to early people. The results indicate that this hypothesis should be considered false. The amount of voltage produced by one fruit is not strong enough. Because of the results of this experiment, I wonder if more than one fruit might have been able to power a light bulb. If I were to conduct this science fair project again I would try connecting more than one fruit together to try to get a higher voltage.

Abstract The purpose of this experiment was to see if there was an alternative way to

have a battery source. I became interested in this experiment when I was putting batteries in my flashlight and I wanted to know what else could be used to power a light bulb. The information gathered in this experiment with help others by helping someone power something for a short period of time. My hypothesis is that the electrodes in a single citrus fruit will be an alternative way to power something like a light bulb. I base my hypothesis on that there will be enough electrodes to power a light bulb. The constants and controls in my experiment were a regular AA 1.5v battery powering a light bulb and the fruits. The variable in experiment was the penny and the zinc nail. I measure the dependant variable by using a multimeter to measure the voltage. The results of the experiment were that none of the fruits were able to produce enough voltage to power a light bulb. The lemons produced 0.660v to 0.720v, the limes produced 0.629v to 0.738v, the grapefruits produced 0.602v to 0.730v, the oranges produced 0.668v to 0.690v, and the Clementine’s produced 0.813v to 0.815v. The results show that my hypothesis should not be accepted because the fruits were not able to produce enough voltage to power a light bulb and my hypothesis said that it would be able to. If I were going to do this experiment again in the future or expand on this experiment I would try connecting more than one citrus fruit together to try to get a larger voltage and try to power a light bulb.

Bibliography

Helmenstine, Anne M. "Fruit Battery." About.com Chemistry. Web. 07 May 2012. <http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/a/fruitbattery.htm>.

  "Lemon Battery." Lemon Battery. Web. 07

May 2012. <http://www.hilaroad.com/camp/projects/lemon/lemon_battery.html>.

Quiz

What device did I use to measure the voltage of the fruits?

How many fruits did I use? What fruits did I use? What do all of those fruits have in

common? Where did I go to get my supplies?