How to Make a Battery From Fruit Juice

Fruit juice contains acid, which conducts electricity. A fruit juice battery converts chemical energy into electrical energy. To make a fruit juice battery, connect wires between coins inserted in fruit and a voltmeter. Your electric fruit salad may include a lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, apple and banana--or any fruits you choose. Record on paper the results of turning fruit into mini-power plants.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Pieces of fruit
• Nickels and pennies
• Sand paper
• Alligator clip wires
• Voltmeter
• Paper and pencil

1. Roll the citrus fruits on the counter to loosen the juices inside. Do not roll the apple and banana.

2. Cut two slits about a fingerprint apart in each piece of fruit.

3. Rub the pennies and nickels with sandpaper.

4. Insert a nickel in one slit in each piece of fruit and a penny in the other.

5. Connect a pair of alligator clips, located on each end of a connector wire, to a nickel inserted in a piece of fruit, and to one of the leads on the voltmeter. Test the fruits one at a time.

6. Repeat the step by connecting a pair of alligator clips to a penny inserted in the same piece of fruit to the other lead on the voltmeter.

7. Record and compare voltmeter readings, rating the fruits from the most powerful to the least.

Tips & Warnings

• Try the experiment with vegetables.
• Use a speaker from a transistor radio if you don't have a voltmeter. It will click when it registers electric current.
• Do not eat the fruits used in the experiment.