Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am an 8th grader doing a project on the topic "Will varying an object in place of a nickel or zinc washer in a voltaic pile vary the electrical charge produced due to varying levels of zinc" and had questions regarding this.

1. Does the zinc have to be exposed in the object varied, or does it still work with zinc enclosed (such as a penny)?

2. How many volts does a single cell produce in a voltaic pile?

3. Does the ratio of cells-to-voltage ever change as you add more cells to the pile?

4. How does the amount of electricity in a wet cell battery compare to a dry cell battery?

5. Are you required to use a copper wire attaching the voltaic pile to the voltmeter, or will another type of wire work?

6. If you can only use a copper wire, why?

7. How many cells should be included in each voltaic pile I create for each trial?

8. What would be a suitable scale of voltages to use in the voltmeter according to question 7?


Thanks for your time in answering these questions.

Hi,

This is a very interest area of study.

This forum, "Ask an Expert", is intended to provide specific guidance to students doing science projects. We can answer specific questions, or help you with specific experiment problems. You have asked such a broad range of questions, we'll need to ask you to do some basic research first.

Once you have done your research, and designed an experiment, we'll be happy to help you with specific problems.

Enjoy your research and have fun with science!

I finished conducting my last research and first trials, and these are the questions I could not find the answer to. Time is of the essence here, so if these questions could be answered quickly..

1. Does the ratio of cells-to-voltage ever change as you add more cells to the pile?

2. How does the amount of electricity in a wet cell battery compare to a dry cell battery?

3. If you can only use copper wire to wire a voltaic pile, why?

4. Why does salt make coins patina faster? This is learned both from research and personal experience.

5. Will time affect output electricity produced of a voltaic cell?

6. With this experiment, should volts or ohms be the used?

7. If the voltaic pile is built larger, will it lose any conductivity because of sheer length or any other factors?

Again, time is of the essence and thank you for answering these questions.

I'm going to echo Ed Neu's comments here and suggest you continue your research, as these are still very broad questions. If you haven't seen Wikipedia's description of a Voltaic pile, look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaic_pile. Follow any of the links which look like they might help you, such as the one on electrochemistry. We cannot do your basic research for you, but are happy to answer questions regarding specific issues in your project.
Keith