Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am looking for results using regular backyard soil, agricultural soil and
fertilizer?

Hiya!

I looked types of soil + electricity and found some sites. They are more of a general view. I'm not sure if they are on a specific type of soil. Anyways...here are some of the websites:

1. http://ohioline.osu.edu/aex-fact/0565.html
2. http://www.ppi-far.org/ppiweb/ppibase.n ... SMG-30.pdf

I'm not sure if this is going to help you, but I hope it will!

How do you define "produce electricity".

An interesting fact you may not be aware of is that most electricity in the world is done by nothing more sophisticated than you could do by sticking a tea-kettle on the stove and putting a pinwheel in front of the spout where the steam comes out.

Even nuclear power plants work pretty much by heating up water and having the steam spin a turbine, which translates the energy of the spinning turbine into electricity. Coal, Gas, Oil all work the same way, as do some forms of solar (but not all, I think, I'm not sure). Only hydroelectric power is really different, and only because the motion of the river water spins the turbine directly instead of requiring you to heat up the water first and use steam to spin it.

So...I can make electricity out of fertilizer if I use the fertilizer to start a fire, heat up water and spin a turbine. But I'm not sure that is what you have in mind. (some forms of earth burn....but not many)

Then there are batteries, which store energy in the chemicals inside, that react as the battery is put under load ("draining" it). The thing about batteries though, is the energy was usually stored in the first place electrically, running a charge in the other direction, separating the chemicals. (I am paraphrasing the chemistry here, but this is why your automobile engine can charge your battery - the gasoline engine spins your alternator which generates more power than the car needs, the excess goes to moving the chemicals around in your battery so it is fully charged, then the battery kick-starts the engine...)

The reason why almost all sources "spin" before generating power has to do with the way magnetism works. It's more than I can go into here, you'll need to read a basic physics text on electromagnetic forces to get teh whole story. Briefly though, if you spin a magnet, you get a current.

There is another principle which is useful for very small amounts of electricity - some materials generate current when you squeeze them. Look up "Piezoelectric". I don't know if any soil materials fit this category, but it might be closer to what you have in mind)