Potato Electricity

Generating potato electricity from something like potato may sound bizarre but it’s possible. Well, there are many people who are generating green electricity from potato for running small items like a clock or a small light bulb. 

We all know that the scientists are trying hard to find alternate energy resources that can replace the thermal and the nuclear energies to generate electricity. This is to both save the earth from the negative impact of pollution as well as bring down the costs that one has to bear for the use of electricity. 

People are trying new methods from using the wind power to the solar power and some of these are even showing great results. There is a real issue on our hands and we need to keep trying in order to find something that can replace the conventional energy resources. Potato electricity, we know, is not better than a normal torch cell but even if that much can be saved then why not?    

Let us look at the science behind this innovative energy resource:

Actually, it is a very simple logic of science that is at use for generating electricity from potato. Potato is made up of the elements like water, starch and salts. We all are aware of the fact that salts dissociate in water to release ions. Ions are the electrically charged atoms and table salt dissociates in water to release sodium (positively charged) and chlorine (negatively charged) ions. These ions can now be used to generate electricity by using conductors. 

So how do we use this logic to generate electricity from potatoes? Generating electricity from potatoes means that you would need a potato and two metal rods. The conducting rods need to be of different metals. For instance, one rod can be zinc and the other can be steel, copper or other. Following the method that is used in a physics lab to generate electricity, we would need different metal rods that can be used as the carriers of electricity. 

Put the rods into the potato battery and this would result in the reaction of the metal rod with the ions. The sodium ions would react with the metal to produce a positive charge in the rod while the same thing happens with the other metal that reacts with negatively charged chlorine ion to produce a negative charge. At this point of time if you connect a metal wire to both rods and connect the same to the two a clock or a bulb then you would see it working. Yes, if the wires are connected to a bulb you would see it instantly glowing or a clock ticking. 

Here is an interesting video I found about the potato power:

It is indeed a great thing if you are able to run your small household items with such innovative things. It would definitely save you a few dollars that you can put to better use. Potato electricity may be just a small speck among all the other larger electricity generation experiments around the world but it can definitely be your small natural battery to run a few household items.

 

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