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The Power of Lemons
Alessandro Volta was an Italian physicist, chemist and a pioneer of electricity and power. He is the credited inventor of the first electrical battery and invented the Voltaic pile in 1799. Early experiments were conducted in an easy to reproduce method: plug two pieces of metal into a lemon.
Ifthe pieces of metal are made ofcopper for one (like electric wires or cents, the brown/ orange shining ones) and zinc for the other (like a paper-clip in a galvanized steel- covered by zinc - or old bars metal-sheet cover, gutters and Paris roof covers), both approximately 3cm", plugged at another 3cm of distance from one another, a tension of around 1V will be generated between them. The copper part will be the positive pole of this power generator, and the zinc one the negative pole.
To recharge a USB powered device you will need a pile of 5 lemon cells plugged in series (negative pole of the 1st to the positive pole of the 2nd, etc).
This method won't provide a lot of energy. so you'll need a lot of lemons (cut in four lengths and sliced for instance). The good news is that a lot of other fruits (oranges, grapetruits), vegetables (potatoes, plantain pith) or acid liquids (vinegar, grape juice, salt water) can be used as the acidic electrolyte for the reaction. They just need to be acid, and even a non-acid-tasting material can have a compliant pH, so being acid enough to produce electricity. All the given examples end up producing ~1V cells. Fruit is convenient because it provides both the electrolyte and a simple way to support the electrodes (metallic parts). pile of 5 lemon cells will deliver 5V and around 1mA. The bigger the electrodes, the bigger the current. For instance: 5cm by 5cm electrodes in 10cl of 8% acidic vinegar with 5g of salt will deliver pikes of 40mA slowly reducing to 10mA (in 5 minutes). A one meter long gutter, filled of sea water, with a one meter long plumbing copper hose in it, separated by a paper or fabrics layer should produce 500mA.
500mA, it's what a standard USB 1.0 plug provides. A battery of 500 parallel piles of 5 lemon cells would be required to produce the same energy (or one pile of five one-meter-gutter cells). Fortunately. your smartphone should be able to recharge even with a smaller current, it will just take longer. Some are able to take advantage of first 1mA, but wont actually recharge themselves if provided with less than their own idle power consumption (~20mA, screen off, airplane mode). Others will require at least the standard power to consider that they are plugged. Also, most smartphones will accept bigger charging power (a common value is 1A) which leads again to bigger cells But the quicker you recharge your battery, the more the battery will be damaged by the process. You can't prevent the battery from getting worn by the recharge process, but slower recharge will wear it down less.
Using a magnesium electrode instead of the zinc one makes a cell of a larger voltage (1.6V), and could allow you to build piles of only 3 cells. Magnesium is the soft-metal component of tempest friction-based sparking lighters that are usually embeded in survival kits. Other metals can be used also such as: lead, iron, aluminium..
As stated in Wikipedia, the energy comes from the chemical change in the zinc when it dissolves into the acid. The energy does not come from the lemon or potato. So the cells will run as long as you have zinc and lemon juice. One should pay attention to avoid evaporation of the lemon juice or salt water.
Volta himself would have interpolated a paper-towel soaked in salt water between metal discs (such as brown copper pennies, and silvery zinc ones) in order to have a pile of cells plugged in series, in a compact shape
Lemon powered clocks have been reported to run for several months with uncut lemons. Penny piles tend to dry quicker, reportedly 6h As long as you have metal in your electrodes refilling electrolyte will reactivate the cells.
7 сен 2024
