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Electricity from fruit and vegetable
Yes, you can make enough electricity from fruit and vegetable to power a light bulb, calculator or a digital clock! You can buy a kit from any one of the education stores or you can make one yourself.
How do you do this? First off, you just need to know that the fruit or vegetable only provides the medium through which chemical ions move from one metal to another. That medium is called an electrolyte. You can use a copper wire and a zinc wire as your electrodes and fasten a tiny penlight bulb to each end. To start getting electricity from fruit and vegetable of choice, stick the loose ends of these wires on opposite sides of whichever fruit or vegetable you've chosen.
How do the darned things work? The active metal (zinc) will attract the noble metal's (copper) ions through the electrolyte (fruit/veggie), eventually completely covering the zinc wire with copper. With each addition of positively charged copper ions to the zinc wire, an imbalance is created. Chemistry is all about balances and equilibria. The only way to correct this ion imbalance in this closed system is to get rid of the excess by creating electricity from fruit and vegetable and light the bulb!
As the electrons must move through the zinc wire to equalize the charge back on the copper wire--with the bulb, or clock or small calculator in between--0.015 watt of electricity is created (if you are using an average sized orange; other substances create varying wattages)! Yes, honest-to-goodness real electricity from fruit and vegetable! Since this is a closed system, you have created a battery, which powers your bulb.
There are water clocks on the market that use tap water, juices, beer or other liquids for the electrolyte. And you may have seen the potato clock available as well. The advantages of these is that the work of collecting the materials is done for you. You trade effort for cash. Any way you go, it is well within your abilities to make your own electricity from fruit and vegetable in your larder!
