The reason of the test was to find out if fruits and vegetables can make electricity.
I thought that fruits would make a little electricity and that vegetables would make more.
We began by gathering our materials. For the electrodes we used nails for steel. For copper we used an electrical wire. We removed the red plastic from the wire. For zinc we used normal screws. We got all of them from the garage.
We got all the fruits and vegetables from a store. We got a banana, apple, lemon, orange, cucumber, carrot, potato, tomato and a lime.
We also used an electrical meter, a battery, a ruler, and sandpaper.
This is how I did the experiment. First I started out by getting an electric meter. Then I got zinc and copper electrodes put into a banana one inch apart. Then I got the electric meter and measured the electricity in the banana. Then I wrote the measurement down. Then I took the copper out and replaced it with steel and measured it again and wrote it down. Then I took out the zinc and replaced it with copper I already used. Then I measured it and wrote it down.
Then I got an apple and did the same thing with the apple and the other fruits and vegetables.
| Volts measured from fruits and vegetables | ||||
|
Electrodes | |||
Zinc/Steel |
Copper/Steel |
Zinc/Copper |
||
| Fruits and vegetables | Apple |
0.27 |
0.39 |
0.82 |
Orange |
0.29 |
0.34 |
0.76 |
|
Carrot |
0.29 |
0.31 |
0.75 |
|
Banana |
0.26 |
0.37 |
0.73 |
|
Lime |
0.30 |
0.25 |
0.71 |
|
Tomato |
0.30 |
0.29 |
0.70 |
|
Lemon |
0.30 |
0.33 |
0.70 |
|
Potato |
0.23 |
0.31 |
0.64 |
|
Cucumber |
0.26 |
0.29 |
0.60 |
|
Then we had a question: Would a longer distance between the electrodes make more or less electricity? My dad thought it would be less and I thought it would be more.
We tested it by putting 1 copper and 4 zinc electrodes in the potato with 1 zinc at 1 inch, 1 zinc at 2 inches, 1 zinc at 3 inches, and one zinc at 4 inches.
Volts measured at inches on potato |
||
Inches |
|
Volts |
1 |
0.68 |
|
2 |
0.7 |
|
3 |
0.7 |
|
4 |
0.71 |
|
Because of the distance test I wanted to test everything side to side. I used zinc and copper because they make the most electricity.
| Volts measured on each fruit or vegetable at maximum distance using zinc and copper | |||
|
Volts |
Inches |
|
| Fruits and vegetables | Apple |
0.85 |
3 |
Orange |
0.67 |
3.5 |
|
Carrot |
0.69 |
8 |
|
Banana |
0.69 |
7 |
|
Lime |
0.7 |
2 |
|
Tomato |
0.67 |
2.5 |
|
Lemon |
0.71 |
2 |
|
Potato |
0.84 |
6 |
|
Cucumber |
0.67 |
7 |
|
To finish the experiment, we measured a nine volt battery. It measured 9.1 volts and we measured copper and copper in a potato and got 0 volts.