Resources: Where's the "Juice?" - Producing Electricity from Chemicals

• Essential Parts of a Lemon Wet Cell, a.k.a., a Lemon Battery (technically, a battery consists of one- or more cells; a one-cell battery consists of two half-cells):
  1. Container, e.g., lemon peel
  2. Electrolyte, e.g., lemon juice (citric acid) [Segue from The Name is Bond..., a(n) FCPS lab activity; see Chemical Bonding and Solutions.]
  3. Electrode pair, e.g., Mg/C, Cu/Mg, Zn/C, etc.
  4. Conducting pathway (completes circuit, changing an open circuit to a closed circuit), e.g., copper wire
• Vernier® Voltage Probe (measures voltage potential): User Guide; Technical Information. See also, multimeter, a useful tool for measuring electricity.
• Tables of Standard electrode potential:
  1. Electrode Potential Difference (Voltage), courtesy Dr. David Venezky, Research Chemist (retired), U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.
  2. Electric Potential, Hila Research Center
  3. Standard electrode potential (data page), Wikipedia
  4. Standard Electrode Potentials
• Post-Lab Demonstrations:
  1. Wire two- or more lemon cells in in series. Demo two low-power devices: light-emitting diode (LED); and piezoelectric buzzer. See also, Howstuffworks.com: How Light Emitting Diodes Work.
  2. The Daniell cell, also called the Gravity cell. See also, the Daniell's Cell.
• Alternate versions of lemon wet cell activity, plus related resources:
  1. ViewDo: How to Make a Lemon Battery [alternate link]
  2. Lemon Battery, Hila Research Center
  3. The Lemon Battery Challenge
  4. Experiments in Electrochemistry at Fun Science
  5. Lemon Power - Project to Make a Battery From a Lemon
  6. Dr. Dan's Homepage: The Official Lemon-Power Website!
  7. Lemon Cells Revisited, Journal of Chemical Education
  8. Vinegar Battery, Hila Research Center
  9. Frequently Asked Questions About Food Batteries
• Basic electricity - a quick reference guide
• Chemistry of Batteries
• Electrochemistry
• Dilbert comic re: a potato battery