Lemon Battery

A lemon battery is a simple battery. It would produce electricity. The juice of a lemon is acidic and works as an electrolyte. When the two electrodes, copper and zinc, are suspended in the lemon juice, the atomic structure of the atoms of both the electrodes starts breaking. It leads to the production of individual ions and electrons.

The copper acts as a positive electrode and the zinc acts as the negative electrode. Zinc atoms enter the electrolyte as ions missing two electrons. Two negatively charged electrons from the dissolved zinc atom are left in the zinc metal. Two of the dissolved protons in the acidic electrolyte combine with each other and two electrons to form molecular hydrogen, which bubbles off of the copper electrode. The electrons lost to the copper are made up by moving two electrons from the zinc through the external wire. This experiment proves that electricity can also be generated just by plain chemical reaction.

The voltage produced by a single lemon is not very high. When a series of lemons are connected it could generate a higher voltage. A lemon battery can light an LED.