Voltage of a Fruit and Vegetable
Introduction
Fruits and vegetables are effective and useful in many ways. I am going to see how much voltage we can produce from fruits and vegetables. We will see if there are any factors that can affect the amount of voltage such as temperature, salt water, and exposure to sunlight. We are going to place a fruit in the fridge, in the salt water, and one at normal conditions. We are going to test different fruits and see which one has the most electric current. The reason I want to do this is because most people don’t know that fruits and vegetables can generate electricity. This could be another reason why fruits and vegetables are important. I wanted to see which fruit or vegetable has the most electric current. I am working with Niraj Bhavsar.
I will be answering “Which fruit or vegetables generate the most power?” Niraj is doing “Will the temperature and salt water and the type of fruit and vegetable affect the amount of energy produced?” We are going to put one at normal, one in the freezer, one in salt water, and one in the sunlight. I think that the fruits will generate more power than the vegetables because the citrus fruits produce more acid. I think that if a fruits produce more acid, than they will produce more voltage.
NilayFinale.movResearch
Before we get to the fun stuff, we have to understand the basics. A battery is made up of lithium metal oxides, vanadium oxides, olivines, and rechargeable lithium oxides. Layered oxides containing cobalt and nickel are the most studied materials for lithium-ion batteries. (Daniel)
Now that we know what the materials of a battery are, we should know how it works. A battery has a cathode, negative, and an anode, positive. They are hooked up to an electrical circuit. The reaction causes an electron build up in the anode. This results in an electrical difference between the cathode and the anode. (“Power System”)
We should know who invented the battery. Alessandro Volta invented a wet pile battery called a Voltaic Pile. The discs consisted of copper and zinc. (“Count Alessandro Volta”)
We should get to know what role a battery plays in generating power. A battery can produce a limited amount of energy when it is needed. It flows through your house and into the wires. It slowly converts chemicals packed into electrical energy. This is released over a time of days to years. (Woodford)
Power is another important term that we need to learn. Power is a physics term in which the average amount of energy that is transferred per unit of time. It is measured in units of Watt. (Smith)
Power plays an important role in our daily lives by supplying electricity to many of our household items. Power can supply to televisions, fridges, computers, air conditioners, schools, and more. (Tudor)
Now that we know about the battery and when to use it, we should know how we get the resources for power. Power isn’t a magical thing that just appears. Power comes from many things. It comes from coal, oil, biomass, and other natural gases. (“Our Energy Sources”)
Some fruits or vegetables can produce electricity. Now we need to know what type of fruit or vegetables can produce electricity. If the fruit or vegetable wants to produce electricity, they must be able to conduct electricity. The stronger an acid is, the more sour it is. If it is sour then it will conduct more electricity. (“Q & A Fruit Batteries”)
Now that we know what fruits and vegetables can produce electricity, we should know what acid is. The effect that high acid content has on a fruit or vegetable to produce electricity is that the more sour a fruit is the higher acid it has. The stronger the acid, the sour the fruit is. ( “Q & A Fruit Batteries”)
We should know what other products contain acid. Some products that contain acid are vinegar, ketchup, citrus fruits, drain cleaners, and milk. (“ Which household items contain acid”)
Now that we know what acid is, we should know what a conductor is and what makes up a conductor. Metals are conductors such as copper. “Conductors” mean that the outer electrons are loosely bound free to move through the materials. (“Conductors and Insulators”)
We should know what voltage is and how we measure it. We measure voltage by using a “DMM.” You can also use a voltmeter which can be known as a “DVM.” A voltmeter can measure in DC or AC voltages. (“Measuring Voltage”)
The last thing we need to know is about sunlight exposure. We need to know if sunlight exposure can affect a fruit or vegetable. Sunlight exposure can affect a fruit or vegetable because the light leads to a loss of food quality degrading the flavor and color and also leading to fat oxidation. (“Which household items contain acid”)
Procedure
There are many steps to make a fruit/vegetable battery. The materials you would need to buy are a multimeter, galvanized nails, copper nails, and alligator clips. You will also need 4 oranges, 4 lemons, 4 tomatoes, and 4 potatoes. There will be four groups in which the fruits or vegetables will be placed in. The groups are sunlight, normal, cold temperature, and salt water conditions. The night before you do this experiment, place all 16 fruits and vegetables outside and keep them there until you do the experiment. Then you would place each group in their proper condition. After you place each group in its condition, you put an 8 hour timer.
After the 8 hours are done, you take each fruit/vegetable and put it on the counter. You first take the normal group and measure their voltage using the multimeter. Then you would put each fruit or vegetable in a container without a cover. You would do this because you need to keep the fruit steady and so it is easier to measure. When the fruit is placed in the container, put a galvanized nail and a copper nail into the fruits and vegetables. In a multimeter, there is a black and red cord that need to be connected. In the multimeter, there is a sign that looks like VMA and COM. You put the red plug into VMA and you put the black cord into COM. You put the black cord on the galvanized nail and you put the red cord on the copper nail. You would put the alligator clips on the nails and find the voltage. After measuring everything, make a 4x4 graph to write the results down.
Observations
In this experiment, there were many observations. Every two hours I would check to see if there was any change. I would take photos of them and feel it. An observation I could make was that the fruits and vegetables in the cold temperature were very hard. It was very hard to put the galvanized and copper nail in the cold fruits and vegetables. The tomato in the sunlight group was very soft. The salt water group had a really weird smell than the other three groups. Another observation I noticed is that when you use a multimeter, it isn’t steady and it takes a long time for it to find the exact voltage. I felt all the fruits/vegetables and I realized that the room temperature group and sunlight exposure group were very soft. When I was putting the nails in the cold temperature group, it was very hard and difficult unlike other groups. An observation I made by using the graph is that the potato has the highest voltage in every category. Another observation is that the group with the most voltage is room temperature group.
We used fruits and vegetables to illuminate the light.
Results/Conclusions
Conditions Orange Lemon Tomato Potato
Cold temperature 385 mV 375 mV 436 mV 521 mV
Room temperature 452 mV 468 mV 422 mV 488 mV
Sunlight exposure 424 mV 397 mV 399 mV 512 mV
Salt water 471 mV 441 mV 395 mV 500 mV
My hypothesis was that fruits would have more voltage than the vegetables in all conditions. My hypothesis was proven to be wrong. The potato had the most voltage in every condition. My purpose is that I wanted to find out to see if fruits and vegetables can produce voltage and how much can they produce. They are many changes I could do to this project if I did it again. I would change the conditions and make one of the conditions be darkness. I would change the amount of time that they had to spend in their conditions. I would change the time from 8 hours to 10 hours.
Works Cited
“Conductors and Insulators.” Conductors and Insulators, hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/conins.html. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.
“Count Alessandro Volta.” Super Scientists, 2006, www.energyquest.ca.gov/scientists/volta.html. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.
Daniel,Clause. “Materials and Processing for Lithium-ion Batteries.”TMS,Sept. 2008, www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0809/daniel-0809.html. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.
“ How do batteries work?”Qualitative Reasoning Group,www.qrg.northwestern.edu. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.
“Measuring Voltage.” Measuring Voltage, www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/mastascu/eLessonsHTML/Measurements/MeasVolt.html. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.
“Our Energy Sources.” What you need to know about energy, needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/energy-sources/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017
“Q & A: Fruit Batteries.” Q & A: Fruit Batteries.” 22 Oct. 2007,van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=2390. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017
Smith,Anthony. “How to Measure Power?” How to Measure Power, www.ehow.com/how_5317900_measure-power.html. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.
Tudor,Imani “Electricity Plays an Important Role in Our Everyday Lives” Prezi prezi.com/ngwxapgjcgq2/electricity-plays-an-important-role-in-our-everyday-lives-w/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.
“Which household items contain acids?” Which household item contains acid, www.reference.com/home-garden/household-items-contain-acids-4f7c60042b88e75a. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017.
Woodford,Chris. “Batteries.”Explain that Stuff, www.explainthatstuff.com/batteries.html. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017