Potato Battery

What is this?
This is a way to generate electricity by using a potato.... Yes you read correctly... A Potato...!!
Here are the details:

What do I need?...

• One large Potato.
• A strip of Zinc. (A galvanized material will do too. Rough GI wires will also do)
• A piece of thick copper wire.
• A Multimeter / Voltmeter to measure the voltage.

The basic experiment is based on the principle that potato and many fruits and vegetables work as potential batteries!

For the zinc electrode, a large galvanized nail works well. Nails with a thick, rough zinc texture are preferable to galvanized nails that are smooth.

What Should I do?

Push both the nail and the wire deep into the potato. Measure voltage output by the potato battery with a voltmeter. Now, wasn't that easy?

Seriously, though, experiment with different metals, electrode depths, and electrode spacings to obtain the greatest voltage possible from the potato. Try other vegetables or fruits and compare voltage output with the same electrode metals.

It can be difficult to power a load with a single "potato" battery, so don't expect to light up an incandescent lamp or power a hobby motor or do anything like that. Even if the voltage output is adequate, a potato battery has a fairly high internal resistance which causes its voltage to "sag" badly under even a light load. With multiple potato batteries connected in series, parallel, or series-parallel arrangement, though, it is possible to obtain enough voltage and current capacity to power a small load.

I need an Illustration, please...