Building Better Batteries

    This is my action project for my class Energy, in which we had to design a battery out of just household items. The question for this experiment was if either distilled water or vinegar made a better battery. My hypothesis for this experiment was that the vinegar would make a better battery than the distilled water, as the vinegar is more acidic. For the materials, I used vinegar, a penny, a nickel, a container, and a multimeter for my battery.


The materials

The steps for this experiment were as follows:

1. Pour vinegar into the container
2. Put the coins into the vinegar, making sure parts of the coins are exposed
3. Put the prongs of the multimeter on the exposed part of the coins and record the results
4. Rinse out the bowl and repeat this process with the distilled water

When I performed this process with both liquids, I got these results.

Left: Vinegar Right: Distilled Water


Since the vinegar, while still being a small amount, resulted in a higher voltage, my hypothesis was correct. To get an idea of how small 0.003 volts are, it would take 500 (1.5/.003) of the vinegar battery to equal one AA battery, and it would need about 33,334 (100/.003) amps to get  .100 volts. 

If I were to do this experiment again, I would try to see if the type of vinegar I used affects the results. I only used white vinegar, so I wonder if the voltage would change if I used apple cider vinegar or any other type of vinegar instead.

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