How to Use a Potato to Power Electronics.

Doing the regular method that is used in a physics lab to generate electricity, we would need different metal rods that can be used as carriers of electricity. One of the metal rods can be a galvanized zinc nail and the other one a cooper nail, penny or anything made of pure copper.

Tip: The conducting rods need to be of different metals. For example, one rod can be zinc and the other can be copper.

a large potato

two wires

two metal rods (at least)

Put a zinc nail and the copper object into the potato (battery).

Make sure the zinc and copper objects are separated from each other. The further away they are from each other, the higher the amount of electricity is going to be produced.

Now you connect one end of the first wire to the zinc nail and the other end to the negative terminal (-) of the electric device. Then use the second wire to connect the copper rod (or penny) to the positive terminal (+) on the electric device. Now the electronic device should turn on as long as the potato has plenty of ions. The electrons (what makes up electricity) will start moving from the zinc nail through the wire into the electronic device and from the device to the copper object.

You might want to use a voltmeter instead of a electric device to make sure there is enough electricity being made by the potato to power the device. If that’s not enough, several potatoes connected in series might be necessary to power the device.