How can we get energy from a lemon? | Live Experiments | Head Squeeze | Earth Science

HeadSqueezer Jon Chase gets in lemons in a row to power a LED.

Live Experiments
Head Squeeze presents eight awesome tricks that you can try at home -- no special equipment required, no fuss, all you need is a table and a good sense of fun! Of course there's a science behind each trick, can you explain how they work?

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[Taino]

Thanks great energy experiment. And this presenter, Jon, is so great. . So full of life. The best.

[Xiloscient]

This guys is actually pretty darn awesome.

[sonoftunk]

FYI, you don't need more lemons. If you make a lemon that looks like Pinhead you'll get just about as much energy as the 10 or so lemons hooked in series in this video. The lemon acts as the electrolyte, but the power is in the electronegative difference of the copper and the zinc. The limiting factor is the surface area of each, so shove those pennies deep, those nails deeper, and fill that lemon up.

[miguelpugmire]

so what i learned from my physics class is that the lemons would be connected in series so the voltage would add up together for each lemon, and what i learned from chemistry is that you need a salt bridge for a voltaic cell to have a constant flow of charge. what would be the salt bridge?

[nickrich]

... Jon takes an old idea and sours it with lemons! Fun.. fun

[ekscalybur]

Volts are only one part the equation. The starter motor (the bit that gets all the parts moving before combustion takes over) requires some serious amperage, because moving all that iron takes quite a bit more work than powering a led.

[Lukeriddoch]

This guy is an Aerospace engineer in real life, people judge too quickly.

[sergheiadrian]

He should have put half of those lemons in parallel to get more intensity and make LED brighter.

[Laughing_Chinaman]

the salt bridge separates the two solutions, if the two solutions are mixed together you don't need a salt bridge

[DetonatorYellow]

No ceilings I'm roof-less and this one is a smash hit coming straight through the glass

[CaptinRusko]

Electrons are negatively charged, and so are attracted to the positive end of a battery and repelled by the negative end. So when the battery is hooked up to something that lets the electrons flow through it, they flow from negative to positive. Sothe negative end wont receive electrons like you said in the video.

[LordDemosair]

You could just put more Copper and more Zinc into the same lemon for the same (if not an even better) affect.

[Scoobacca]

Those batteries are very different from the kind of battery we use today. He was probably talking about the first multi-celled battery.

[gehoernkrank]

You can actualy just save a few lemons by sticking multible coins and nails in the same lemon since the electricity comes from the two metals.

[defeaterofgames]

i through this was Dave Chapplle in the picture of the video :P still happy with what i came across thanks Jon Chase!

[lesconrads]

voltage and current are different things - so a 230V lemon pile can't hurt you, because there is no power behind it.

[zigma]

At the start you show the electron going from neg to positive, and this is a common outlook. In fact the electron is a negative charge so it flows out of the neg side and then in to the positive.

[marcobruni]

The subscribe part in this video was actually cool

[TheDx]

I will fill a whole room with lemons and power my computer !!

[NumosG]

When life gives you lemons, you make an LED light up.