Can Hotdog Produce Electricity?

Most recent answer: 09/23/2015

Q:
Is hotdog can produce electricity like potato, cucumber and lemon does?
- Ariel Jefone (age 23)
Davao City, Philippines
A:

The reason why fruits and vegetable can generate electricity is because of their chemistry, it is not a bioelectric property. For short, all the chemicals that can dissolve in a solution by generating ions have different tendencies to be in the ionic and solid neutral states. If you dip 2 different materials (metals or gas electrodes) in a suitable solution, the electrode relax towards a new equilibrium state balancing this difference. Whether you will get a battery therefore also depends on what electrodes you chose. The medium does not need to be a potato, it can be just aqueous solution. But fruits have the advantage of being acidic.

Hotdog is quite high in sodium content and slightly acidic, so I believe you could possibly get a low voltage battery by using a good cathode such as lithium. (The lower the reduction potential, the better cathode candidate: http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Analytical_Chemistry/Electrochemistry/Redox_Chemistry/Standard_Reduction_Potential)

Tunc

I bet the usual electrode pair (zinc, copper) used in fruit batteries will work. My guess: the voltage won't be much different than in a potato or a lemon. The maximimum current varies more.  You can search this site for "fruit battery". Mike W.


(published on 09/23/2015)