Potato Battery
Pg1Pg1 SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS ON FILE ™? Revised Edition 5.40-1 Potato Battery Lois Fruen and Chelen Johnson
Topic Construction of a battery Time 45 minutes to 1 hour
Safety ! Please click on the safety icon to view the safety precautions. Adult supervision is necessary for the soldering of the alligator clips to the wire and when taking apart the battery. Dispose of the potatoes after the experiment; do not eat them.
Materials 12 fresh baking potatoes 24 alligator clips 1.5 m copper bell wire 12 hot-galvanized (not electro- galvanized) 11⁄? 2-in. zinc roofing nails 12 solid-brass wood screws wire cutters solder, flux, and soldering iron
Procedure PART A
one high-brightness red LED
(SLA-591LT3; available at Radio Shack # 276-006A) hammer (optional) voltmeter (optional)
6- or 9-V battery screwdriver 1. Using the wire cutters, cut 12 pieces of copper wire 10 cm long. Remove 1 cm from both ends of each piece of wire. 2. Have an adult solder the alligator clips to the wire pieces, one clip to each end. 3. Place one brass screw and one zinc nail 1⁄? 2 in. apart in each potato. Use the hammer if you find it easier, but be careful not to crush the potatoes. Make sure that the nail and screw don’?t touch inside or outside the potato. Leave the heads of the screws and nails approximately 1 cm above the potato (see figure 1). 4. Connect an alligator clip to the nailhead. Connect another clip from a different wire to the screwhead. 5. Attach the LED between the two clips left unconnected. Observe what happens. Turn the LED around so that the
Topic Construction of a battery Time 45 minutes to 1 hour
Safety ! Please click on the safety icon to view the safety precautions. Adult supervision is necessary for the soldering of the alligator clips to the wire and when taking apart the battery. Dispose of the potatoes after the experiment; do not eat them.
Materials 12 fresh baking potatoes 24 alligator clips 1.5 m copper bell wire 12 hot-galvanized (not electro- galvanized) 11⁄? 2-in. zinc roofing nails 12 solid-brass wood screws wire cutters solder, flux, and soldering iron
Procedure PART A
one high-brightness red LED
(SLA-591LT3; available at Radio Shack # 276-006A) hammer (optional) voltmeter (optional)
6- or 9-V battery screwdriver 1. Using the wire cutters, cut 12 pieces of copper wire 10 cm long. Remove 1 cm from both ends of each piece of wire. 2. Have an adult solder the alligator clips to the wire pieces, one clip to each end. 3. Place one brass screw and one zinc nail 1⁄? 2 in. apart in each potato. Use the hammer if you find it easier, but be careful not to crush the potatoes. Make sure that the nail and screw don’?t touch inside or outside the potato. Leave the heads of the screws and nails approximately 1 cm above the potato (see figure 1). 4. Connect an alligator clip to the nailhead. Connect another clip from a different wire to the screwhead. 5. Attach the LED between the two clips left unconnected. Observe what happens. Turn the LED around so that the