Electrodes & Electrolytes Experiment
First you need to gather up all of the materials you will need. Below is a list of the following items needed to conduct this study:
• Zinc sheet
• Copper sheet
• Lead sheet
• Zinc nitrate solution 200 ml
• Copper nitrate solution 200 ml
• Lead nitrate solution 200 ml
• Porous cup
• 2 Beakers
• 1 Voltmeter
• Gloves
• Safety goggles
• A piece of sandpaper
• A couple of feet of wire
Are you ready? Let’s get started. First, make sure you put on the safety glasses and gloves. Grab the sandpaper and rub the zinc, copper and lead sheets to remove any debris. Pour 100 ml of zinc nitrate into a beaker and drop the zinc sheet into the solution. Pour 50 ml of the copper nitrate into the porous cup and drop the copper sheet into that solution. Cut 2 pieces of wire – about 10 cm in length for each of them. Connect one wire to the copper sheet and the other end to the voltmeter. Repeat with the other wire using the zinc sheet. Place the cup into the beaker and record the reading on the voltmeter. Repeat this process 5 times and record all readings. Take your other beaker and pour 100 ml of lead nitrate solution into it. Place the copper strip into the solution followed by the porous cup (after it’s been rinsed in distilled solution. Record reading on the voltmeter and repeat this process 5 times.
What happened? Our observations suggest that the lead-copper cell produces the most voltage in a battery. What findings do you come up with?
There are a couple of other ideas that you could do to change up the project a little bit and see what happens. You could try adding more of the electrolyte solution, increasing the temperature of the solution or replacing materials used in this project with different ones.