Fruit Conductivity Type of Battery

Citrus is often used in fruit-battery experiments.

For a low-powered alternative to an AA or an AAA battery, a lemon, orange, lime or even a tomato will work in a pinch. A fruit battery--while hardly portable or tidy--will generate enough electricity to power a small light bulb or a tiny digital clock.

Fruit Battery Key Ingredients

In order for a citrus-fruit battery to work, small pieces of steel and copper, several pieces of copper wire, and a light bulb or small digital clock are needed in addition to fruits such as lemons, limes, tangerines, kiwi fruit or grapefruit.

Battery Definition

A battery converts stored chemical energy to electrical energy. In a fruit battery, the juice in the fruit is a conductive pathway between the two types of metal--copper and steel--which are conductors for an electrical current.

Preparing the Citrus

Before citrus fruit can be used as a battery, the juice inside them needs to be stimulated or activated by rolling and squeezing. The pieces of metal that are inserted into the fruit serve as the fruit battery's two poles, one of which is positive, the other, negative.

Chemical Reaction

A fruit battery generates an electrical current due to the fact that a chemical reaction occurs between electrolytes (the fruit's juice) and the electrodes (the pieces of metal), which displaces charged particles, or electrons.

Completing the Circuit

When a bulb, digital clock or LED is connected with copper wires to the two metal "poles" in the fruit battery, it completes the circuit of electrical current--which is flowing in one direction--and powers the device.

References

• PBSKids.org:: Lemon Battery
• Cornell University: Lemon Battery
• ScienceFairAdventure.com: Fruit Battery Power