The Lemon Battery That Broke a Guinness Record: 1,275 Volts with 2,016 Lemon Halves

The essential diagram of a battery is very simple: All we need is an anode, a cathode, and a medium that acts as an electrolyte. That means with a common copper nail, a strip of magnesium or zinc, and an acidic fruit like lemon, it is possible to build a basic and safe battery, with the ability to light an LED. Now, what happens if we increase the scale of that battery? The BBC answered that question in 2016 during one of its classic Christmas specials, and as if that were not enough, it broke a Guinness record in the process.

Do you remember that scene from Portal 2? "Bring Your Daughter to Work"? Wheatley reminds us of his catastrophic results, with 40 potato batteries as science projects, and even GLaDOS ends up surviving on one of them. The answer is yes, you can use potatoes as well as lemons, and nothing stops you from experimenting with other fruits or vegetables.

But what is the limit? To tell the truth, the most relevant of them is space. One, two, a hundred, how many lemons can you store and interconnect? The BBC explored this doubt at the end of 2016, in one of its Christmas specials, "Royal Institution Christmas Lectures". Logically, a single lemon battery is not so interesting, but if you take 1,008 of them and also cut them in half...

... what you have is a Guinness record. The official representative explained at that time that to break the current mark, the multimeter should register more than 1,000 volts. A single uncut lemon usually delivers a volt or less, but with the lemons cut in half and a larger surface, the super-lemon battery comfortably reached 1,275 volts.

The participants of the special received the certificate live and celebrated, but that record did not last long. A year and a half later, Mark Rober built a battery with 1,232 uncut lemons, using zinc and copper sheets for the connection, however, the way they were connected and natural variables among lemons resulted in barely 5 volts at 300 milliamps.

In summary, if you plan to build the world's largest lemon battery, you will only do it for that title, and not because it is particularly useful beyond an educational environment. And it is not exactly cheap. Besides the lemons, you have to get the copper and zinc...

Source: Xataka Ciencia