Eighth Grade, Experiment with Fuel Cells Science Projects (6 results)
Learn how fuel cells convert energy in chemicals, even simple water, into electricity. Experiment with improving existing fuel cells. Or build a muddy microbial fuel cell that gathers electrons that soil bacteria give off after they eat.
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What can you do with a bucket of soil? You could use it to grow some beautiful plants and vegetables—or you could use it to produce electricity! Surprised about that? You actually can power electric devices with just mud! Are you curious about how this works? You need some little helpers in the soil—bacteria—that are able to turn their food sources within the soil into electricity in a device called a microbial fuel cell. But is this possible with any soil and does the soil…
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Have you heard that garlic powder is supposed to inhibit the growth of bacteria? Which do you think would make a better disinfectant: a solution of garlic powder or a solution of bleach? This project shows you a straightforward way to compare the effectiveness of different disinfectants (or other antimicrobial agents), by measuring zones of inhibition on a culture plate.
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You probably know that turning off the lights and the water, and not wasting paper are all ways to help the environment and conserve our resources. Did you know that another way is to use fuel cells? A fuel cell is a device that converts the energy in chemicals to electricity and it creates no pollution. The starting chemical does not have to be something complex — in fact you it can even be water! In this science fair project try your own hand at converting water to electricity with the…
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Remembering to take medicine at the right time can be hard, especially if you need to take multiple medications at different times of day. It might not be a big deal if you forget to take your daily multivitamin, but for some people, forgetting to take medication at the right time can be dangerous. What if you had a device that could not only set off an alarm at the right time, but also automatically dispense the right pills for you? In this project, you will build an automatic medicine…
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Solar cells are popping up on rooftops everywhere these days and are a model for clean, renewable energy.
Did you ever look at those solar panels and wonder how we can get electricity produced by solar cells
when the sun is not shining? It is a great question because solar panels do not produce electricity when
it is dark outside. One strategy to overcome this challenge is to store the energy produced by solar
cells during the day in the form of a fuel that can be used at a later time. In…
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Every day, we produce a lot of sewage (wastewater full of feces and urine). In fact, it adds up to 6.4 trillion liters of urine alone produced worldwide each year! The sewage is collected and then treated or disposed of. But what if, along the way, there were a way to make that sewage do something useful? Human urine is rich in nutrients, and some bacteria actually thrive on eating those nutrients. There are also devices called microbial fuel cells that can generate electrical power by using…
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Generating power from mud sounds like science fiction, but it is actually real science, and a promising source of alternative energy. Topsoil is packed with bacteria that generate electricity when placed in a microbial fuel cell. Because such bacteria-laden soil is found almost everywhere on Earth, microbial fuel cells can make clean, renewable electricity nearly anyplace around the globe. They are an up-and-coming technology that scientists and engineers are working to make even more…
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Engineers are trying to tackle the world's ocean pollution problem using robots. Some robots, like Mr. Trash Wheel and the ship featured in this Mark Rober video, are stationary and collect trash as it flows out of rivers before it gets into the ocean. Others, like the Jellyfishbot, are mobile and can squeeze into narrower spaces to collect trash:
Can you build and test your own trash-skimming robot? If you do not have access to a natural body of water to test it in, you can use a bathtub or a…
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Bacteria are powerful little creatures. They can dispose of contaminants, make us sick and did you know they can even generate electricity? In devices, called microbial fuel cells (MFC) they can extract electrons from their food sources such as organic materials and feed them into an electrical circuit to generate power. This way they can even turn plain soil into a source of energy! Does it matter though what kind of food the bacteria "eat"? Find out how bacteria grow in a microbial fuel cell…
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