Electric Circuit Experiments: Water Battery

Video Transcript

"So, we're going to talk a little bit about common electrolytes. And you might ask, what is an electrolyte? An electrolyte is simply a solution that has Ions in it. It has chemicals in it that are going to conduct electricity. And the classic example that I always use is if you've ever seen it, is the Potato Clock. It's a clock that's powered by a Potato. All you do is you buy this low powered clock and you plug one pin into a Potato, you stick it in there. You stick the other end into the other end of the Potato and the Potato becomes the battery. Why is that happening? Because the Potato has Ions, because it's an electrolyte. An electrolyte conducts electricity. And potentially some electrolytes like Potatoes, like my friend the Lemon here and even Jell-O can act as a battery. But let's start with just plain water. I've got a cup of pretty pure water right here. It's not a hundred percent pure, but we all know that water and electricity, water and electricity don't mix at high levels. You've got to be careful about that stuff. But let's actually see what's going on. My battery is putting out, it's putting out two point five volts approximately. But let's see how much actually travels though water. Much, much less, we're getting like point six five volts traveling through this water. And that's because it's a weak electrolyte. It's not the water that actually conducts the electricity. It's all the various salts, the metals all the stuff in it. In order to turn this water into an electrolyte I need to add something to it. So I'm going to add a little bit of my Hydrochloric Acid here. And I'm going to put it in, just let's add a couple drops, just a few drops of Hydrochloric Acid. It goes in there and it looks kind of pretty because it's sinking to the bottom there. And Hydrochloric Acid, it's Hydrogen and it's Chlorine and what happens when it dissolves in the water, we'll mix it up a little bit, the Hydrogen and the Chlorine turn into not Hydrochloric Acid, but just Hydrogen and Chlorine. Those are Ions. And now, if I measure how much voltage is going through my water, we've got one point one three volts. I can throw in a little bit more and we've got one point, ah yeah we've got a little, one point one four. We could add in more acid and it would become more conductive, but we've doubled the amount of electricity that's traveling through here by adding our acid. So, we can do the same thing with Lemons. Lemons of course being tangy have acid in them. Potatoes have things like Potassium and other stuff. And then of course we've got Jell-O, one of my favorites because it just looks cool. And that also contains electrolytes and can, can conduct electricity."