Advanced Lemon battery!

[Dark_Fire]

Hey!

Well, we did the lemon battery in school. Re-did it at home. Played with my flashing LED's... And then realized I have to make a documentation on it. (boring part)

Anyway, the simple one page thing has grown to 5 pages. Teacher better like it. hehe.

2H+(g) + 2e- → H2 (g) is the cathode half reaction. But I wanted to go a step further and make the molecular reaction. Can someone help me by explaining where the H's come from? What kind of an acid is in lemons? Would this differ from bananas?

Also in the redox table for a Zinc-Copper cell, you have the following:
E°cell=E°cathode-E°anode
=0.34-(-0.76)
=1.1V @ Standard conditions.

In this one you still use copper, but hydrogen is being reduced. Does that mean you have to take it for Hydrogen or copper? Would it then be:
E°cell=E°cathode-E°anode
=0.00-(-0.76)
=0.76V @ Standard conditions.

Thanks. :D

[HallsofIvy]

The acid in lmeons is citric acid. Yes, that differs from bananas!

[Dark_Fire]

Hey,

Thanks for your reply. But I still don't know all the other questions...

This is what I did find out. The Cu is still the cathode. But instead its not really part of the reaction in some way. I'm guessing thou that the Cu might be eaten away the acid maybe?

All I know is that it is the Cathode. So the volts would be 1.1. :D

Next, I did research on citric acid. It has 4 OH groups, therefor it is able to release 4H's right?
C6H8O7 + 4e- --> C6H4O7- + 2H2
Is this right? Should the copper also come in somewhere?

I'm trying to find a redox table with citric acid on, seeing that the one in my book doesn't have it...

Thanks. :)

[Dark_Fire]

ok. I know this isnt right. But maybe it gives someone an idea to helo me.

Well I have been playing around with the exuations. Got out as something like this.

C6H8O7 + Cu + 4E- --> 2H2 + 2H2O +2CO2

Now the last bit I wasn't sure of. So I just tried to make something of it.

C6H8O7 + 7Cu + 4E- --> 2H2 + 2H2O +2CO2 + C4Cu7O

Dont know if you evin get something like that.

Anyway. Please guys. I seriously need this. Its due for tomorrow.

Any ideas yet?

[Dark_Fire]

Hey.

Is my question really stupid? Really hard? Under the wrong heading?

My project is already in so I can't get marks on it anymore. If that bothered anyone. But I still need to know.

Im as curious as hell and I don't know where to find out.

Please help me out.

Thanks.

Dark_Fire

[chemisttree]

Can't help you until you tell me how you conducted your lemon battery experiment. I don't think you were generating hydrogen, BTW. I believe that the acid was only the charge carrier (electrolyte) and didn't actually enter into the redox reactions. You were probably just using a couple of electrodes (zinc and copper?) inserted into a lemon. The lemon just acted as an electrolyte.

Citric acid has three acidic protons.