Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

In this voltaic pile experiment I was wondering which one was the cathode and which one was the anode out of the two different metals, pennies and nickels. It would be of so much help because I only need one more sentence for my sixth paragraph on my review of literature.

Hello harrisNH01,

I’m assuming that you are working on the project described here:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p015.shtml

You might want to review the tutorial at the following link. There’s a diagram showing how current flows into the negative terminal and out of the positive terminal of a battery

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... lectricity

Current flows into the anode and out of the cathode. Knowing this you can use your multimeter to find out if the penny or the nickel is the cathode. Set up your multimeter to measure DC voltage. Connect the positive probe to the nickel and the negative probe to the penny. Does the multimeter show a negative or positive voltage? If the voltage is positive then current is flowing into the penny and out of the nickel. And it means the penny is the anode.

I hope this helps. Please post again if you have more questions.

A. Norman