On Thursday, December 6, 2012, Michel, Fatumata and I want to O’Bryant High School in Roxbury to present an experiment we had been working on. In this experiment, we used lemons to generate electricity. The main goal of the experiment was to show the students how can we use clean and renewable energy sources to generate electricity.
The Experiment:
For this experiment you’ll need:
1- Two fresh lemons.
2- Two Pieces of Copper.
3- Two Pieces of Aluminum.
4- Two Wires.
5- Small battery-operated clock.
All you have to do is the following:
1- Gently squeeze each lemon without breaking the skin of the lemon in order to soften the lemons which would allow for internal release of more citric acid
2- Insert into each lemon a small piece of both metals being used. In this case insert a small piece of aluminum and copper into different areas of the lemon as to prevent them from touching.
3- Connect the aluminum from lemon 1 to the copper of lemon 2, then connect the aluminum from lemon 2 to the negative wire of the clock. Finally, connect the copper form lemon 1 to the positive wire of the clock.
When you do that, you should get the clock up and running.
What Happen?
At the aluminum end, the aluminum is oxidized (or more commonly; “rusted”) by the acid in the lemon which creates a bunch of negatively charged electrons. Those electrons really want to zip over to the copper to balance things out, but they cannot flow through the lemon. Only when the aluminum is connected to the copper by a wire will the electrons be able to move across. Along the way they will provide electricity to the clock in its path.
Note: you can get approximately 0.6 Volts from each lemon. Also, if you connect two lemons in series, you can get 1.2 Volts.
Application:
“Malaysian scientists use tropical fruits to make batteries. They have discovered that bamboo, coconut shells and durian fruit skins can be converted into an activated form of carbon used to make the components of electric batteries known as ‘supercapacitors’.
Activated carbon is normally made from coal but now researchers say it could be sourced from a natural, renewable source, providing income to rural people.” (http://www.scidev.net).
In conclusion, using lemons to generate electricity was a fun experience for all of us. We also had fun explaining it to the students in O’Bryant High School.