Lemon Battery
What you will need:
Lemons (ripe, ‘juicy’ ones
work best)
Copper coins
Galvanized nails
Conduction wire. Crocodile
clips can also be of use
A light emitting diode
(LED)
Method:
1. Insert the copper coin and nail into the lemon, but leave a small portion exposed on the
surface. Make sure they don’t touch each other, either above or below the surface of the
lemon. This will create a small battery cell, with the positive terminal at the copper coin, and
the negative at the nail. Therefore if the two do touch, it would short-circuit the system.
2. Only a small amount of current is generated, so we have to connect more lemons in series. To
do this, we follow the above steps on another three lemons, which should provide us with
enough current to light the LED.
3. We then join the negative terminal of one lemon to the positive of another, but we don’t join
them all together, instead leaving out one positive and one negative terminal in which to join
the LED into the circuit from. Make sure the LED is integrated into the circuit the right way, with
the negative terminal of the LED connected to the nail, and the positive to the copper coin.
4. You should notice the LED lighting at this stage. If not, you may have to try and use different
coins. Also, you could try just using lemon juice, placing the nail and coin partially submerged in
a glass.
What actually happen!
Lemons are acidic by nature. When the acids present dissolve with the water in the lemon they break
apart to form positively and negatively charged ions. These charges create current which flows if the
battery circuit is complete.
This is the basic concept that electrical engineers use worldwide to produce electricity.