We utilize all sorts of batteries throughout our everyday lives. Cars, cellphones, and digital watches are all powered by some sort of a battery. But, we were curious what kind of basic principles create a “battery.” A battery is a container that consists of one or more cells that produce an electrochemical reaction when connected to a device.
The experiment we chose was to create a battery out of fruits (lemons, limes, oranges, bananas) using graphite/carbon as the constant element and switching out various conductive metals (zinc, copper, iron) as the second element. We hypothesized that the lemon would have the highest pH level and thus would generate the highest amount of voltage. We utilized a voltage meter to measure the voltage of each fruit/metal combination.

Our Results:

As shown in the chart above, we were wrong with our hypothesis. Surprisingly, the orange yielded the highest voltage when paired with a galvanized nail, but all the fruits we tried, even the banana, yielded some level of voltage showing that you can create a battery (though a weak one) out of fruits and conductors.