What Is the Lemon Battery Experiment?
What is the lemon battery experiment? Batteries seem to provide an endless supply of energy to power the things that we use, but a battery is not the only way to conduct electricity. Surprisingly, using only a few lemons and other simple household items, anyone can create an electric current that will act as a battery. The lemon battery experiment involves proving this fact by creating a system where a lemon conducts electricity.
You can do the lemon battery experiment yourself at home by following the simple steps below.
Gather Your Materials
There are a few different ways to create the electric current in the lemon battery experiment. In general, you can construct a homemade battery using:
- Lemons
- Pennies
- Paper clips
- Alligator clips
- A Voltmeter
All of these items, aside from the lemons, can likely be purchased at local hardware stores, making this experiment easy and convenient.
Conducting the Lemon Battery Experiment
Once you have all of the required items, you are actually ready to start doing the lemon battery experiment. The steps are:
- To best prepare your lemon for the experiment, first soften the fruit by applying direct pressure while rolling the lemon back and forth until the inside feels more malleable.
- Once the lemon is properly softened, place a penny and a paper clip firmly into one side of the lemon until each has pierced the skin of the fruit.
- Next, you will use the Voltmeter, which is a tool used to gauge the amount of electricity flowing through something. There will be two wires that are already connected to the Voltmeter, one red (+) and one black (-), which will work similarly to the positive (+) and negative (-) ends of a battery.
- Connect the red wire to the penny, and the black wire to the paper clip, and put the Voltmeter at the proper settings to record the flow of electricity through these two points.
- If executed properly, the readings taken from the Voltmeter should then show the user that there is a flow of electricity through the lemon.
Why a Lemon Conducts Electricity
So, now you know what the lemon battery experiment is and how to do it - but why does it work?
- The lemon juice, which is very acidic, basically produces a chemical reaction with the paper clip which is made of zinc, and the penny which is made of copper.
- The acids of the lemon juice and the raw elements of the penny and paper clip meet, and they simultaneously produce a reaction of which the result is an electric current much like a battery makes.
- Essentially, what the Voltmeter is then recording is the movement of electrons—or the tiny particles that make up an atom—from the paperclip to the penny, and outward to produce recordable electricity.
It is possible for this experiment can be further conducted to visibly show the electricity simply by connecting a copper wire from the lemon to a small battery operated calculator or a small light bulb.