Lightning in Your Mouth

Materials

A roll of LifeSavers (Wintergreen flavor)

A dark room

A Mirror

I turned off the lights, unwrapped the Lifesavers and watched myself in the mirror as I bit into one.

Observations

As the title of the lab suggests, I saw tiny sparks coming from my mouth.

Crushing sugar creates electrical fields, which, when they recombine with their electrons, emit waves of blue, violet, and invisible ultraviolet light ("Lighting in your mouth," 2015). This particular brand of candy (all candy contains sugar) is special because "Wintergreen oil converts ultraviolet light into visible blue light, making the light you can see brighter" ("Lighting in your mouth," 2015).

References

Lighting in your mouth. (2015). Exploratorum. Retrieved from:

https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/activity-lightning.html

Make a citrus-powered battery

Materials

Citrus fruits (lemons, limes, grapefruits, oranges)

Nails (One copper nail, one zinc nail)

LED lightbulb

Electrical tape

Procedure

First, I rolled the fruit to soften it. Then I inserted both nails in the fruit, one nail on each side. I exposed the wires of the light bulb and wrapped each side's wire around the different nails (the copper and zinc), using the black electrical tape to keep both attached. The bulb lit up when I attached the wires to both nails.

Observations

According to the instructions, LED lightbulbs take the least amount of power to light and thus are the best to use to make the experiment work. "The zinc nail is an active metal, which reacts with the acid in the fruit. The active ingredient in the fruit are positively charged ions. A transfer of electrons takes place between the zinc nail and the acid from the fruit. The nails act as poles for the battery, one positive and one negative. Electrons travel from the positive pole to the negative pole via the light bulb wire (the conductor), generating enough electricity to light the bulb" ("Fruit battery power," 2015). The bulb lit up only when both nails were attached to the fruit.

Conclusions

Citrus fruits provide a source of reactive acid. However, other fruits also contain acids. According to the website Science Fair Adventure, tomatoes work particularly well for this experiment. So long as there is a source of acid and nails of opposite polarity, any fruit can be used to make a battery.

References

Fruit battery power. (2015). Science Fair Adventure. Retrieved from:

http://www.sciencefairadventure.com/ProjectDetail.aspx?ProjectID=154