Download Homemade Batteries

Homemade Batteries
Equipment per person/pair/group
A battery is made up of two electrodes and an electrolyte connected into a circuit. To make your
own batteries, you can use various things around the house.
Fruit/Fizzy drink batteries
- Electrolyte: variety of citrus fruit – lemons, oranges etc, a potato or a fizzy drink
- Wires and something to connect the wires to things, e.g. crocodile clips
- Electrodes: 2 made of different metals e.g. copper coin or nail, aluminium foil, galvanised
zinc nail, paperclips
- Light to power, e.g LED or ammeter or multimeter to measure the current.
Coin battery
- Electrolyte: filter paper/kitchen towel soaked in salt
solution (salty water)
- Wire and something to connect the wire to things
- Electrodes: 2p coins and 2p sized aluminium foil
- Ammeter
Hand battery
- Electrolyte: yourself
- Wire and something to connect the wire to things
- Electrodes: A piece of aluminium foil and copper coin.
- Multimeter or ammeter to measure the current.
Instructions
Fruit batteries
- Stick two electrodes made of different metals, e.g. a
copper coin and a zinc nail into either side of your fruit,
making sure they don’t touch each other.
- Attach wires to both electrodes.
- Attach the other ends of each wire to either a multimeter
or a light and you should see a current on the display, or the bulb will light up.
Coin battery
- Attach a wire to a 2p coin.
- Take bit of the tissue paper and the soak it in the salty
water.
- Lay the tissue on top of the coin.
- Next put the aluminium foil disc on top of the tissue to make
a sandwich. This is one cell and attaching the other wire to
the aluminium foil will show a reading on the multimeter.
- You can make a battery by putting several cells together on
top of each other. Do this by putting a 2p coin directly on top
of the foil layer, then repeat with a layer of tissue and a layer of aluminium foil. Attach the
wire to this foil layer instead. Is the reading bigger or smaller? You can continue with further
stacks of sandwiches.
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Hand battery
-
Attach a copper coin to a wire and attach this wire to a multimeter
Attach a piece of aluminium foil to another wire and attach this to the other end of the
multimeter.
Now hole the copper coin in one hand and the foil in the other.
You should see a reading of current and voltage on the multimeter whilst you are touching
both of them.
What is going on?
When the metal electrodes are connected together into a complete circuit with the wires and the
electrolyte, a chemical reaction can occur. One of the metals (usually zinc or aluminium) reacts
with the electrolyte to release negatively charged particles called electrons into the electrolyte
which then get taken up by the other metal. The electrons then flow around the wires to the
ammeter or light bulb and then back to where it they started. This flow of electrons is called a
current and can power electrical devices. i.e., electricity is made.
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