Making power with Lemons

[Eevegm]

Hey guys so I was wondering if this idea could work: so as almost everyone knows you can make electricity with lemons. I've been researching and found out that a lemon emits 0.7v. I was thinking: if i put 128 lemons in a parallel circuit then the output will be ~80v. If you short circuit the lemons tho, then the amperes should go up. There should be around 300k amperes if you let the short circuit work for a while. What if you cool the wires in which the high current goes trough and use the vapor to make a turbine spin to make more current??? (Like a nuckear reactor thing)

Is it possible that it could work or only a stupid idea?

[Jurrunio]

1. The lemons here arent the power source, the metal electrodes are (as the anode side erodes, while the ions that formed consolidate on the cathode) and the lemon can be easily replaced by anything else that conducts electricity. You can get more voltage with electrodes of greater difference in reactivity (so gold + zinc will give higher voltage than iron + zinc, at the cost of erosion rate).

 

2. Citric acid isnt good for conduction, which means it will act like a bottleneck for current and you will need a shit ton more lemons to get high current

 

22 minutes ago, Eevegm said:

use the vapor to make a turbine spin to make more current??? (Like a nuckear reactor thing)

3. What vapor? Nuclear reactors use heat to boil water into steam and use that to spin a turbine, I dont see how a huge amount of current that doesn't last long (since the cathode loses its function when its outside is coated by the anode's material) is any good for heating up something that soaks so much heat to get hot like water.

 

I hope you dont have any chemistry teacher, he/she must be greatly disappointed

[dfsgsfa]

20 minutes ago, Eevegm said:

Is it possible that it could work or only a stupid idea?

in theory vs practical

every scientist begin with mad scientist

 

21 minutes ago, Eevegm said:

There should be around 300k 

current isnt accumlative

v=ir

 

[Moonzy]

you must understand, V_oc (voltage when open circuit, no load) is not V_load because you might be current limited (mostly by internal resistance)

Lemon arent good conductors, so the current you can get is very low.

 

here's a video you can watch

Spoiler

 

 

[dfsgsfa]

31 minutes ago, Eevegm said:

if i put 128 lemons in a parallel circuit then the output will be ~80v. If you short circuit the lemons tho, then the amperes should go up

no

you should put lemon in series

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, dfsgsfa said:

current isnt accumlative

v=ir

yep, need to connect them in series to drive up the voltage (which makes acid bottleneck a big problem once again)

[dfsgsfa]

i think here is what op wants ...

lemon in series , connected in ring, nothing but heat generates then vaporise lemon juice. capture the whole sys gas by turbine and ....! ?

 

2 major flaws

you cannot create energy , 1st rule of whatever

total lemon electicity equals total output

 

once lemon jiuice dries, lemon is nolonger inductive and breaks the current

 

[mariushm]

Also... as current goes through the lemons they would heat up and the liquid would cook and evaporate so they'll degrade quickly.

 

Just like with 9v batteries,you can put loads of them in series and get high voltage and even power something up, but they'll discharge super fast and heat up fast due to the high internal resistance

 

 

[GhostRoadieBL]

starting with basic circuit info, not going too deep in potential differences and losses etc. 

DC sources in series + to - to + to -  add the voltage output so if you make a series circuit of 0.7 volt lemons ~80ish volts, parallel + to + and - to - would increase the amperage

 

if I understand correctly you want to "short" the circuit effectively using the wire as a resistor. This converts chemical potential energy to electrical energy then converting the electrical energy to heat in the wire then converting that heat to mechanical work through a turbine to try to generate more energy for the circuit. 

this ignores the conservation of energy where all sources of energy input will equal all energy converted and lost in the circuit. 

 

no it won't create more energy

[Roswell]

80v at 300 amps would be around... 24,000 watts. From 128 lemons. I don’t think that’s going to happen.  

 

...especially the free energy angle you threw in there at the end.

 

That said, I’m not here to dunk on you. It’s cool that you’re interested in the field/science. If you have a passion for it or find it interesting, think about going to school for it. It’s absolutely a lucrative field.