Penny Batteries

This is one of those cool projects that are easy weekend activity to teach you the basics of how a battery operates. A senior student put together directions to create this simple battery. After it is put together, we have a working battery and also a greater knowledge of what an inside of a battery looks like.

In order to turn pennies into batteries, another electrode and an electrolyte are needed. Dimes are used as the positive electrodes and salt water is used an electrolyte. A battery in its basic form is a pile of two different kinds of metals with an electrolyte in between. This type of penny battery is a wet-cell type battery, meaning that as the electrolyte evaporates, the voltage that the battery produces will also decrease.

You need to sand down the pennies to reveal the zinc inner core and then put together the sandwich of pennies and paper towels to create a voltaic pile. The LED acts as a visible sign of the power that is created by your battery, but any other type of output such as a motor or voltmeter can also demonstrate the voltage of your simple creation.

Rest of the project