Question: Whats a penny battery?
Antony: Its a battery made out of pennies, more specifically copper and zinc.
Question: Sounds cool, so how can I make a penny battery?
Antony: Its quite simple really but before you can make a penny battery you're going to need these materials:
- Pennies after 1982
- Sand paper
- Electrical tape
- Vinegar
- Salt
- Cardboard or paper
- Aluminum foil
- Wires
- L.E.D light (to test your battery)
Question: Okay so how do I get started?
Antony: Well first you're going to have to sand off one side of your pennies to expose the zinc. Do that with about 5 or 6 pennies.Make sure you sand off the penny to where you will not see any copper coating left. Then you will need to cut the cardboard into 5 or 6 circles the same size as the pennies.
Question: What do I do after I've sanded the pennies and cut the cardboard?
Antony: After you've done that you're going to make a mixture of salt and vinegar. The amount of vinegar and salt doesn't really matter but I used about 1/4 cup of vinegar and a couple tablespoons of salt. Oh and make sure you stir thoroughly until the salt dissolves. Then dip the cardboard cuts into the mixture and allow them to soak it up.
Question: Whats next?
Antony: Well next all you have to do is stack them in the right order. Place a piece of aluminium foil on the bottom then place a penny with the copper side facing down and the zinc side facing up. Then gently dry 1 cardboard cut enough so that it wont drip and place it on top of the penny. Repeat this until you've used all of your pennies. Make sure that the cardboard cuts do NOT touch!
Question: How is it that this will make a battery?
Antony: Batteries are devices that convert chemical energy into electrical energy. When two different metals are connected by an electrolyte, a chemical reaction occurs at each metal surface, called electrodes, that either produces or uses electrons, electrons will move from one surface to the other, creating an electric current.
Question: How will this penny battery light up the LED light?
Antony: Well if you followed the previous steps your penny battery should have at least 3 volts which is enough to power most LED lights. From there its very simple just place the (negative) short leg of the LED light on the aluminium foil and the (positive) long leg on the last penny on the top of the penny battery.
Question: What if the LED light wont stay in place?
Antony: If your LED light wont stay in place then you can simply use the electrical tape from the list of materials in the beginning and carefully wrap electrical tape around it to keep it in place.
Question: Alright so am I done with my penny battery?
Antony: Well yeah you're done with the battery, but how about we take it a step further and add a switch.
Question: A switch? How do I do that?
Antony: Well you're going to need some wire (3 pieces). First you have to connect one piece of wire to the (negative) short leg of the LED light and the bottom of the penny battery. Use a bit of electrical tape to keep it together.
Question: Okay whats next?
Antony: Okay next connect another wire from the top of the penny battery to one side of the switch. From there connect the last wire from the (positive) long leg of the LED light to the other side of the switch. From there your switch should be able to turn your LED light on and off as you please.
Question: That's pretty cool, but is there any way that we can take this even further?
Antony: How about a phone charger? Take a look at the schematics I made for it!
To be continued....
