Electric Fruit

Problem/Question

How much power can a fruit battery produce with different fruits?

electric fruit!

Hypothesis

Science Fair Abstract

The reason I chose this science project is because it sounded interesting to me, and I hoped to learn about how electricity is generated by certain objects and stops flowing through certain objects. I learned how electrical current is generated by fruits and is stopped by certain substances. The substances that keep it flowing are metals, like copper. The substances that stop electricity from flowing are called insulators, these substances are rubber, wood, and most plastics. The procedure was to measure the voltage, measured in millivolts, generated by an apple, a lemon, and a kiwi. Using an analog volt meter, the voltage generated by the fruit was measured by inserting a piece of solid copper wire into one end, and a galvanized nail into the other end. Using only copper wire in the fruit will not produce any readable voltage. Then you could put alligator clips on the copper and nails, but do NOT connect them!!! If you connect them, the electrical current will be grounded out and not work! The positive lead (red) on the voltmeter goes with the copper wire, while the negative lead (black) on the voltmeter goes with the nails.

Hypothesis One: When producing an electrical current with a Fruit Battery, different fruits will produce different amounts of electrical current.

Hypothesis Two: By wiring two or more pieces of fruit in series, the voltage will be increased with each piece of fruit added.

Results

Procedure

The voltage that the fruits produced is shown in the table on the upper right. The results were that kiwi had the most voltage (75 mV), lemons and apples were tied at 25 mV. The voltage increased for all fruit when more fruit was added. The data supports the hypothesis that voltage can increase with different fruit.

materials: copper wire, lemon(s), kiwi, apples, galvanized nails, voltometer

conclusion

Methods: I used copper wire and galvanized nails to get a reading for voltage, but it wasn't working. so i attached alligator clips to the copper and nails, and i got a reading for voltage.

The purpose of this experiment was to find the amount of electrical current, measured in millivolts, of different fruits. When the kiwi was tested, it produced 75 millivolts. Apples produced 50 millivolts. Lemons produced the least amount of voltage of the three fruits tested producing 25 millivolts. The size of the individual pieces of fruit did not affect the amount of voltage produced. The voltage was increased when more fruits were wired in series. The kiwi could be the best because it's not sectioned, and is not as dense as an apple. The test results were similar to what others have reported, except no reports were found testing the voltage produced by kiwi. Better wire for the alligator clips and a digital multi-meter are suggested for future experiments.