Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

URGENT: I HAVE TO SUBMIT THIS PROJECT TOMORROW
I am making the project called "A Battery That Makes Cents", from sciencebuddies.org. But I Have some IMPORTANT QUESTIONS to ask regarding this topic. PLEASE ANSWER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
1. What is most useful as electrolyte?
2. Does the material of coins matter? If so, then which ones will NOT work?
You can access the project details on this URL https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... shtml#help
THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!!!

nikhilfaips - This experiment calls for vinegar (acetic acid)) to be used as the electrolyte, although other similar experiments in Science Buddies also use lemon juice (citric acid). Many fruit juices can be experimented with as well as other electrically dissimilar metals for the battery construction. Copper and Zinc are often used. You can do some searches on the subject and create even more hypotheses about what combinations of metals, electrode area, and electrolyte create a range of results. Terminal voltage and current generating capability are very testable. Good luck.

Rick Marz

nikhilfaips - I noticed a few additional questions in the margin relating to powering an iPod or LED. There is an important power issue here. These cells, with say 1 square inch of electrode area, may provide a few milliamps of current. To increase the current, you will have to increase the area of both of the dissimilar metal electrodes. Also, there is a voltage threshold for either device and that is why you will have to alter your construction to have several cells connected in series to increase the output voltage. The LED example is pretty easy, and you should get pretty good illumination of a 'red' LED with about 5-10 milliamps and just over 1.2 volts. I think the iPod will need a dramatically higher voltage and current. I'm just guessing, but probably in the range of 3-4 volts and over 50 milliamps. Just a guess on my part as I haven't tried to measure power consumption on an iPod.

Rick Marz