Don Bosco Technical College Mandaluyong

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Potato(Solanum tuberosum)
Powered
Battery

Submitted by: Eduard Joseph Militante

Jhules Daniel Bello

Submitted to: Mrs. Evelyn Calibo

Chapter I – The Problem and its Settings

Introduction

Energy, as we all know, cannot be created nor destroyed. It is an element that is

so essential in life that it is needed as we continuously live our lives. Due to the on-going

evolution of man’s mind and imagination, we advance level by level in using different

materials around us to improvise a better way to live.

With a fruit, a Miliameter, a copper and zinc strip, and alligator clips, we can

create an alternative for batteries since chemicals and wastes used to create these are

very harmful to the society’s health and to the environment. The researchers would

hope that this research would be a feasible and reliable topic to help reduce pollution

and usage of daily foods to be boosted.

Statement of the Problem

 The purpose of this study is to determine the electric current passing through the

potato and to validate whether it is ideal for an electric source.

 Can the researchers prove this experiment as a possible source for electricity?

 Is the current of the potato safe for electric gadgets?

 How long will the current of the potato last in powering a simple gadget?

Hypothesis

The researchers believe that:

 If more potatoes will be used to power up an electronic device, then the power

of the gadget will last longer.

 If the potato would be able to power up a small device, then it should power up

a larger device for a smaller certain amount of time.

Objectives

The main purpose of this experiment is to design a power source wherein people

would be able to access electricity despite the absence of a battery. With that the

researchers will:

 Create a power source that would be able to provide an environmental friendly

energy.

 Provide alternative use for potato such as a battery

Significance of the Study

 The purpose of this study is to provide information and to prove to the society

that there are more options for powering up devices that would require you to do a little

science experiment at your home. This study is also for the purpose of backing up proofs

and theories of using vegetables and fruits as sources of energy. It will provide farmers

better economics structures that would help them in their livelihood as well as in

helping circulate products in the industry.

Scope & Delimitation

This research mainly covers on testing & powering up a simple electronic gadget

using the current present in a potato. The probability of having a weak spot in this

research is slim since this research was already backed up by numerous scientists and

experimenters around the world. The researchers would use materials such as electrical

related materials. With all that said and done, they would require at the most 2 weeks to

finalize and fix common errors present in the experiment.

Limitations of the Study

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. That’s why energy from the potato is

transferred directly to the mini device. Since the energy of the potato may be small,

it may be incapable of fully powering the device and it can only power it up for a

limited time.

Definition of Terms
1. Tuber – type of modified plant that are enlarged to store nutrients

2. Sustainable Energy – sustainable provision of energy that meets the needs of the

present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their

needs.

3. Electric Charge – physical property of matter than causes it to experience a force

when near other electrical charge matter.

4. Electrolyte – a liquid or gel that contains ions and can be decomposed by

electrolysis

5. Electrolysis – method of using a direct electric current to drive an otherwise non-

spontaneous chemical reaction.

6. Voltage - electrical potential difference or electric tension (denoted ∆V and

measured in units of electric potential

7. Acid – corrodes a metallic material or object. Has a pH level of more than 8.

8. Maize – a type of vegetable also known as a corn

9. Germplasm - collection of genetic resources for an organism. For plants, the

germplasm may be stored as a seed collection or, for trees, in a nursery.

10. Cultivar - plant or grouping of plants selected for desirable characteristics that

can be maintained by propagation

Chapter II – Related Literature and Studies

 This chapter covers the ideal information related to the study of Potato Powered Battery.

Why Does Citrus Fruits Produce Electricity?

Complete Circuit
In order to generate electricity, there must be a power source and a complete circuit. When
using a citrus fruit to create electricity, these rules still apply. In a simple experiment using a
citrus fruit, the components of the circuit include: a lemon or other fruit, wire, two different
metal elements and a small light bulb. The lemon in this circuit serves as the battery and
power source.Two metals often used in this demonstration are zinc and copper. The acidic
juice of the lemon dissolves small amounts of the two metals and their electrons react with
each other. The negatively charged ions travel through the wires, creating an electrical
current. (Electricity is the movement of electrons.) This demonstration is a closed circuit,
which allows electrons to flow from the power source and back again, with no breaks.

Battery Properties
At first glance, it appears this circuit lacks the crucial component of a battery or power
source. The lemon, with the zinc and copper, becomes a battery. A battery is composed of
two metals and an electrolyte. An electrolyte is a conductive liquid; here, the lemon juice
performs this function. A chemical reaction takes place between the metals within the citrus
fruit. This creates voltage, which pushes the electrons through the circuit.
A common misunderstanding is that citrus fruits create electricity. What happens is the
electrolyte (the citrus juice) combined with the zinc and the copper form a battery, which in
turn completes an electrical circuit.

Multi-Cell Battery
Citrus fruits like oranges and lemons are excellent conductors. They don't produce much
energy on their own, but if you utilize a few of them in a series within the circuit, you can
produce enough electricity to power a light bulb. This creates a multi-cell battery, which
makes the citrus fruit electricity more powerful and practical.
 Variations
Citrus fruits are not the only sources of electrolytes. Other juicy fruits, like apples, can be
used. Potatoes are good conductors, too. Vinegar is also a viable conductor. Many small
items can be powered using an electrical circuit with citrus fruits, such as penlight bulbs.
LEDs can be powered with citrus fruits; they use less electricity than light bulbs. Calculators
are a useful tool that can be powered by this method, too.

(Griffis, Sunny. Why Do Citrus Fruits Produce Electricity? .Retrieved September 13,
2012, from http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5167602_do-citrus-fruits-produce-
electricity.html)

How to Light Up a Light Bulb With Citrus Fruit

You can use citrus fruit to light up a light bulb by making a fruit battery.
Fruit batteries are an ideal science fair project for elementary and middle
school students. They're fun, safe and inexpensive.

Here's the simple version of how fruit batteries work. When you put two
unlike metals in a liquid, they generate electricity. The metals are called
the electrodes. The liquid is called the electrolyte. How much electricity is
generated depends on how different the metals are on the atomic level.
Copper, for instance, has 29 electrons in each of its atoms. Zinc has 30.
Gold has a whopping 79. A lemon or grapefruit works great as a self-contained package
of fluid, and the acidity of the juice conducts electricity better than an alkaline or neutral
liquid. Attach the light bulb's wires to the electrodes, and you have a fun demonstration
of how electricity works.

Things You'll Need

 Large lemon
 Empty egg Carton
 2-inch Copper Nail
 2-inch galvanized nail
 6-volt miniature lamp with leads
 Wire Stripper
 2 Alligator Clips
 Micro Voltmeter

Instructions

o 1 Roll the lemon between your palm and the kitchen counter-top until
you feel it soften. Don't break the skin or cut it. Rolling the lemon will release the
juice inside the peel, and help the electricity flow between the electrodes.

o 2 Place the rolled lemon in a compartment in the egg carton to keep it

from rolling away.
 o 3 Push the nails half-way into the fruit about 2 inches apart. Don't let
them touch, and don't push them in so far that they pierce the skin on the
opposite side.

o 4 Check the leads on the bulb. If the wire is insulated to the end of each
lead, strip off 1 inch of insulation with the wire stripper.

o 5 Wrap one end of the bare wire lead around the copper nail; wrap the
other around the galvanized nail.

o 6 Apply the alligator clips to the wrapped wires to keep them in place
around the nails.

Tips & Warnings

 This principle is why a little piece of foil can make a filling in your tooth
hurt. Your saliva helps the aluminum in the foil and the metal in your filling
create an electrical charge. You can attach a micro voltmeter to your lemon
battery and track the voltage. You can experiment with different kinds of
fruit and vegetables to see which produce the most electricity. Try using
different kinds of nails or other metal objects. Supplies for this project can
be purchased at electrical supply and home improvement stores. Also
consider shopping at military surplus store.

(Cable, Hilary. How to Light Up a Light Bulb with Citrus Fruit. Retrieved September 17,
2012)

Fruit Battery Experiment

Ever heard of a fruit battery? Who knew we could make our own batteries?
Batteries are the most common source of electricity especially for smaller gadgets and
devices that need electric power to work. It comes in different forms, in varying voltages;
again depending upon the power requirement of the gadget or device we will be using
them for.

Batteries store chemical energy and transform this energy into electricity. This is
how batteries make gadgets and electronic devices work, like mobile phones, MP3
players, flashlights, and a whole lot more.
 There are two main types of batteries based on the type of electrolyte it uses.
There is what we call the wet cell, which makes use of liquid electrolytes in the form of a
solution, and there is also what we call dry cell, which makes use of electrolytes in the
form of paste. There are many more types of batteries available in the market now, like
carbon-zinc cell, alkaline cell, nickel-cadmium cell, Edison cell and mercury cell.

In this simple experiment, we will be creating our own battery with the use of
citrus fruits, with a power that is strong enough to make a small bulb light up. Later on,
we will discuss how citrus fruits work as batteries.

MATERIALS

To make our fruit battery work, we have to secure the following materials:

 citrus fruits such as lemons, limes, oranges, etc

 copper nail (recommended size in length is 2 inches or longer)

 small light bulb (preferable coloured or opaque with a 2-inch lead with enough
wire to connect it to the nails)

 electrical tape

 zinc nail or galvanized nail (also 2 inches or longer)

 micro ammeter (optional)

PROCEDURE

The estimate experiment time for this activity is about five to ten minutes. It does not
take long to create your fruit battery!

Now, the first step is to take your citrus fruit of choice, and squeeze it on all sides with
your hands without breaking the skin. Your aim is to soften the citrus fruit enough to
extract its juices. Next step is to puncture and insert the nails into the fruit, about 2
inches away from each other, in such a way that the two ends of it stops at the centre of
the fruit without touching each other. Insert each nail slowly so that it does not go
through the fruit completely.
After doing this, take your bulb and peel off its plastic insulation exposing the wire
underneath. Wrap the exposed wires around the head of the 2 nails. Use the electrical
tape to secure each end of the wire on the nails. Soon as you attach the wires on both
the copper nail and the galvanized nail, your coloured bulb will light up!

DISCUSSION

Citrus fruits have an acidic content, and the more acidic it is, the better it is for
conducting electricity. This is the reason why even though the nails were not touching
each other, your fruit battery still worked! The fruit contains positively charged ions.
When you inserted the galvanized or zinc nail into the fruit, the negatively charged ions
or the electrons started to move from the fruit to the zinc nail thus leaving the protons
in the fruit. This transfer of electrons generates electricity as soon as you attach the
wires to the nail, and the bulb lights up! Amazing huh

(Shuttleworth, Martyn. Fruit Battery Experiment.Retrieved September 19, 2012 from

http://www.experiment-resources.com/fruit-battery-experiment.html)

Where there’s a potato, there could be light

In a discovery with far-reaching implications for the developing world, Israeli researchers
have created organic ‘potato batteries’ that can power lights, computers and more.
Cheap, and widely available in most countries of the world all year round, Potatoes make
an ideal source of power.

Potatoes offer more than just a valuable source of nutrition, now they can also power
your lights and computers, say Israeli researchers.

The scientists from Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ) have discovered that potatoes
can be used as organic batteries, providing a cheap, immediate and easy to use source of
green power to parts of the world that currently lack electrical infrastructure.

It’s a development that could improve the quality of life of 32 percent of the developing
non-OECD populations – some 1.8 billion people.

The new organic electric battery can provide the power source to meet significant, low-
power needs such as lighting, telecommunication, and information transfer.

“A person with two left hands could do it,” Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch of the university’s
Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment tells ISRAEL21c. “It’s like making a
sandwich of two metal sheets and a piece of cooked potato in between.”

Humble potato is the top choice

Rabinowitch, research student Alex Golberg from the university’s School of Computer
Science and Engineering, together with Prof. Boris Rubinsky at the University of
California at Berkeley, have been studying the electrolytic process in living matter for use
in various applications, including the generation of electric energy for self-powered
implanted medical electronic devices.

The professor explains that all organic tissue can serve in the construction of such a cell
and generate electricity. “It is possible to replace the potato with liver tissue (for
example) or any other tissue in our body for self-powered implanted medical electronic
devices. Think of a pacemaker that gets its power by contact with the heart tissue or
muscles. Such a pacemaker does not require a battery and never stops – as long as the
tissue is there.”
Practically all organic matter can be used to generate electrical current through
electrolysis, but some produce electricity more efficiently than others do. The humble
potato was selected for the study because it is widely available almost all year-round, is
grown in 130 countries over a wide range of climates (in 2007 alone 325 million tons of
potatoes were produced), it isn’t messy, stores well for months and is cheap to buy.

In their research, the scientists found a new way to construct an efficient battery using
zinc and copper electrodes and a slice of potato. They also discovered that the simple
action of boiling a potato prior to use in electrolysis increases electric power up to 10
fold over an untreated potato, and enables the battery to work for days, and even
weeks.

Israel’s potato battery is freely available to the developing world.

Initially, the researchers believed that the energy stored in the potato tuber (which is 15
to 22% starch) was the main source of power, but they then saw that output was low.
Hypothesizing that the resistance of the tissue was reducing the output efficiency, they
applied a technique called irreversible electroporation which damages membranes but
not a cells’ other components or molecules.

Cooking adds power

“It worked like magic,” Rabinowitch reports. “Such a device is costly and is not readily
available, especially in developing countries, and thus we looked for a simple, cheap,
universally-available technology to achieve that goal: Cooking was the answer.”

The scientific basis of the finding is related to the reduction in the internal salt bridge
resistance of the potato battery, which is exactly how engineers are trying to optimize
the performance of conventional batteries. The ability to produce and utilize low power
electricity was demonstrated by LEDs powered by treated potato batteries.

Cost analyses showed that the treated potato battery generates energy which is five to
50 fold cheaper than commercially available 1.5 Volt D cells and Energizer E91 cells,
respectively. The clean light powered by this green battery is also at least six times more
economical than the kerosene lamps often used in the developing world.

Yissum Research Development Company, the technology transfer arm of Hebrew

University, has decided to give the invention away free of charge in an effort to help the
1.8 billion people in the developing world not connected to electricity.
Giving to the developing world

Rabinowitch expects that charity funds will take the initiative and start providing
economically disadvantaged people with the two sheets of metal and a short piece of
electric wire, “so that they can make their own ‘potato sandwiches.’”

“The ability to provide electrical power with such simple and natural means could
benefit millions of people in the developing world, literally bringing light and
telecommunication to their lives in areas currently lacking electrical infrastructure,” says
Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum.

The research findings were published in the June issue of the Journal of Renewable and
Sustainable Energy and were also featured in the Research Highlights section of Nature.

Interest in the new potato battery is growing. Rabinowitch recently received a letter
from an entrepreneur in India interested in community building and environmental
solutions. He is hoping to work with the Israeli team to mainstream the concept by
creating kits for Indian schoolchildren and their families.

(Hoffman. Gilah K. (2010, September 20).Where there’s potato, there could be light.
Retrieved from http://israel21c.org/environment/where-theres-a-potato-there-could-
be-light/)

Conclusion

The researchers concluded that the topic chosen was a great stock hold of
knowledge that would help the community in understanding significant uses for other
materials around them in their daily life. They also concluded that even though the
related literature were not as exact as it should be to the topic, it provided evidences
and recommendations of a potato being able to conduct electric currents and circulate it
towards a simple device such as a calculator.

Chapter III – Methodology

Introduction

The researchers used the experimental method to work on proving potato as a

viable source of energy. Its purpose is to discuss “could it be”.
 The data gathered were analysed and interpreted to determine if there really is a
probability that you can power up a small electronic gadget using a potato.

We required and used ourselves, the researchers, who are willing to conduct the
experiment happily and willing and is capable of observing electrical phenomenon and
identifying basic current parameters and such.

Materials

The researchers, in order to conduct the study, will need the following materials
to make such experiment:

o Potato – main source of energy/current

o Pennies – conductor of the current from the power source
o Zinc Plated Nails – gate of the pathway of the currents so that the current would
transfer to the gadget
o Copper Wire – pathway of the current
o Incandescent Light Bulbs – receiver of the current
Procedures

1. Cut the potato in half, then cut a small slit into each half, large enough to slide a
penny inside.
2. Wrap some copper wire around each penny a few times. Use a different piece of
wire for each penny.

3. Stick the pennies in the slits you cut into the potato halves.

4. Wrap some of the third copper wire around one of the zinc-plated nails and stick
the nail into one of the potato halves.

5. Take the wire connected to the penny in the half of potato with the nail and wrap
some of it around the second nail. Stick that second nail into the other potato
half.

6. When you connect the two loose ends of the copper wires to the light bulb or
LED it will light up

Design

The independent variables are the size of the potato used and the amount of
voltage produced of the experiment.
Checklist/Observations

Observed Activity: _______________________ Date: _______

Directions: Please fill up the form along with the appropriate

and related answers.
Observations:

Did you enjoy the experiment? Yes No

Did the experiment thought Yes No
you a lesson or two?

Comments:

Observer’s Signature

Chapter IV – Presentation, Analysis and Interpretation of Data

Usage of Potato as a battery source

 A. Textual Presentation of Data

The research is bounded by representation of data. As of the results from the

researcher’s observation, these are the following:

i. The potato powers up the device

ii. The method is safe to do

iii. The materials are easy to acquire

All of these data came from the experiment done by the researchers.

B. Tabular Presentation of Data