Scribd
Upload
1K views

Make A Battery From Potato

The document describes an experiment to create a battery from a potato. It includes a hypothesis that potato juice will cause a chemical reaction between electrodes to produce electricity. It then provides background on how electrochemical cells work and lists materials needed. The procedure inserts electrodes into a potato and uses a multimeter to measure voltage. Observations found the potato battery produced 1.2 volts, though not enough current for applications. The conclusion is that creating electricity is easy, but challenges remain in producing larger amounts of power.

Uploaded by

api-311981872
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
1K views

Make A Battery From Potato

The document describes an experiment to create a battery from a potato. It includes a hypothesis that potato juice will cause a chemical reaction between electrodes to produce electricity. It then provides background on how electrochemical cells work and lists materials needed. The procedure inserts electrodes into a potato and uses a multimeter to measure voltage. Observations found the potato battery produced 1.2 volts, though not enough current for applications. The conclusion is that creating electricity is easy, but challenges remain in producing larger amounts of power.

Uploaded by

api-311981872
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 10

Make a Battery from

Potato
By Kayla scott
3/ 16/ 2016

Hypothesis
Potato juice contains water soluble
chemicals that cause a chemical
reaction with one or both of our
electrodes. So we may get some
electricity from that.

Background research
A potato battery is an electrochemical battery,
otherwise known as an electrochemical cell. An
electrochemical cell is a cell in which chemical energy
is converted to electric energy by a spontaneous
electron transfer. In the case of the potato, the zinc in
the nail reacts with the copper wire. The potato acts as
a sort of buffer between the zinc ions and the copper
ions. The zinc and copper ions would still react if they
touched within the potato but they would only
generate heat. Since the potato keeps them apart,
the electron transfer has to take place over the copper
wires of the circuit, which channels the energy into the
clock. Presto! You have potato power.

Material list

A fresh potato
Copper Electrode
Zinc Electrode
A Digital or Analog Multimeter to
measure Voltage or Current of
produced electricity.
Alligator clips/ Leads

Procedure
We insert copper and zinc electrodes in to the potato,
close but not touching each other.
We use Clip leads to connect our electrodes to the
Multimeter to measure voltage between two
electrodes or current passing through the multimeter.
remove the shell of a broken AA battery for our Zinc
electrode.
test your multimeter by connecting it's Positive and
Negative wires to each other that should show no
current and no voltage.

Observations and data


A digital multimeter showed 1.2 volts between the
electrodes, but the analog multimeter showed a much
smaller value. even though the voltage between electrodes
is 1.2 Volts the speed of making electricity is not high enough
for an analog multimeter to show the exact voltage.
Analog multimeter gets it's power from our potato to show
the voltage, but digital Multimeter gets it's power from an
internal battery and does not consume any of the electricity
made by our potato, that is why it shows a larger value.
I did this experiment with some other fruits and all resulted
almost the same. In all cases the produced voltage is
between 1 and 1.5 volts, and in all cases they do not produce
enough current to turn on a small light.

Data Analysis and


discussion
A potato battery provides a potential
difference like in a car battery. Two dissimilar
metals are put in the lemon's juice which
acts as the electrolyte. The wire and nails
act as the cathode (+ terminal) and anode (terminal). Simular chemical reactions take
place when the voltmeter is hooked up. Ions
flow through the electrolyte and electrons
flow through the wire.

Conclusion
I learned from this experiment is that
creating electricity and making a battery is
easy. The main challenge is producing a
battery that can continue to produce larger
amount of electricity for larger amount of
time. even though the voltage in a potato
battery isn't strong enough for an analog
multimeter to show the exact voltage, it is
the same process that makes a store bought
battery work.

Bibliography
http://
www.kidzworld.com/article/4726-howpotato-batteries-work
http://
www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Potato-Ba
ttery
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/text
book/experiments/chpt-3/potato-batte
ry
/

You might also like