Apples or potatoes could also work, but a lemon works better because it is more acidic. The acid in a lemon is what makes it taste sour, by the way.
The idea is that if you stuck two objects made of different kinds of metal (like a penny and a zinc-coated nail) into different ends of the lemon, you have something that acts like a battery, with a negative and postive pole. The lemon gets its electricity from the chemical reactions between the acid and the metal, which creates a small negative charge on one end, and a small positive charge on the other.
If you do this, you should never try to eat the lemon or drink its juice because the chemicals created by the reaction between the juice and the metal are poisonous.
All batteries are basically made in the same way. Most batteries don't have a peel, but they usually have something solid which holds in an acid.
The acid in a car battery is much stronger than lemon juice, and you do not want it anywhere near your skin or your eyes! If any kind of battery is leaking, you want to throw it away very carefully.
If you throw away batteries in the regular trash, they often end up buried in a landfill, leaking poison into the earth. We hope these chemicals don't end up in your drinking water.
That's why it's not only cheaper to use rechargeable batteries, but also better for the earth and the people who live there. Rechargeable batteries are even more poisonous than other batteries, but since you use them much longer, you don't throw away as many batteries.
Now, the lemon battery isn't a very good battery. You could not light a light bulb with it because the charge is very weak. I saw one that was hooked up to a clock for about a year. The clock was running the whole time, but the time was wrong because the lemon battery was weaker than the kind you usually buy in the store.
The websites below may help you or your mom understand the lemon battery better.
2006-11-01 02:00:02
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answer #1
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answered by Beckee 7
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Most important, if you want to do research, check your spelling first.
"Nutural" will not help you get the answer you want.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The lemon battery is an experiment proposed as a project in many science textbooks around the world. [1]. It consists of inserting two different metallic objects, for example a galvanized nail and a copper coin, into a lemon. These two objects work as electrodes, causing an electrochemical reaction which generates a small amount of electricity.
A lemon cell battery is made with a lemon and two metallic electrodes of different metals. In practice, a single lemon cell is incapable of lighting a light bulb.The aim of this experiment is to show students how batteries work. After the battery is assembled, a multimeter can be used to check the generated voltage. In order for a more visible effect to be produced, the battery can be used to power a LED. Since the produced voltage is typically insufficient to power a standard LED, two or more batteries are connected in series.
In a lemon battery, both oxidation and reduction occur. At the anode, zinc is oxidised:
Zn â Zn2+ + 2 e-
At the cathode, hydrogen is reduced:
2H++ 2e- â H2
Potatoes [2], apples, or any other fruit or vegetable containing acid or other electrolyte can be used, but lemons are preferred because of their higher acidity [3] [4]. Other metal combinations (such as magnesium-copper) are more efficient, but zinc and copper are usually used because they are reasonably safe and easy to obtain.
Using a magnesium strip instead of zinc approximately doubles the current produced by the lemon cell (approx. 240 µA with zinc to about 400 µA with magnesium) and increases the voltage (.97 V with zinc to 1.6 V with magnesium). These numbers, of course, depend upon your lemons.
[edit] Warning
This experiment may leave the lemon's juice poisonous because of dissolved copper salts.
[edit] External links
Lemon Battery, Hila Research Center
The Lemon Battery Challenge, National Engineers Week
D.J. Swartling, C. Morgan (1998). Lemon Cells Revisited—The Lemon-Powered Calculator. Journal of Chemical Education, 75 (2), page 181.
[edit] See also
Daniell cell
electrochemistry
battery (electricity)
electrode
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_battery"
Categories: Electric batteries | Battery shapes | Disposable batteries | Biology
2006-11-01 01:37:05
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answer #2
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answered by grapeshenry 4
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You have to stick two pieces of metal into the lemon, like a steel nail and a copper coin. The acid inside a lemon causes a chemical reaction with the metals that releases and absorbs electrons at opposite sides, allowing them to flow across the lemon. If you close the circuit with something like a light bulb, current will flow through that as well, lighting it.
2006-11-01 01:38:44
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answer #3
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answered by DavidK93 7
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