Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I know some food does conduct electricity as i have performed an invesigation. I connected the said food up by inserting 2 electrolytes and using the food to act as the elctrode (battery) in the circuit. I then measured the voltage with a voltimeter. I tried to measure current but it was not strong enough to give us any reading even with the nano amp option.

We thought that potatoes, lemons oranges etc would give us the highest voltage reading form research we have done; but it was 'hot tea' for liquid and 'cheese' for food by quite a big margin. I have researched from the internet so far.

Why was the cheese and tea the best producer/ conductor?

Why was the cheese and tea the best producer/ conductor?

We need to know a lot more about your test setup:
1) What electrode materials did you use?
2) What model meter did you use?
3) How far apart were the electrodes?
4) What cheese did you use?

Tea has tannic acid in it. If you made a really acidic tea, then it will be an excellent electrolyte so I'm not surprised at this one.

Solids like cheese usually aren't good electrolytes so you have me stummped on that one.

I tried to measure current but it was not strong enough to give us any reading even with the nano amp option.

You probably have some problem with your test setup on this one. If you can read a voltage with a meter when attached to a circuit, then by definition, the meter is drawing some current from the circuit. This means that you should be able to measure current in the same circuit.

Sensitive current meters often have fuses in them to protect them. Did you or a previous user send too much current through the meter and blow the fuse or destroy that function?

Test your DC current scale out by building a circuit with a 1.5v AA or AAA cell and a 1.5K ohm resister in series with the current meter. You should read 1 mA. (or 15 K ohm resister and 100 uA).