Do you need light or power to light up your place when you have no electricity or in an emergency? Then here's a boiled potato for you; it can give you the energy to light up your room for almost 40 days.
As you know, potatoes are the most versatile vegetable in the whole wide vegetable world; you can even make anything out of it. It can be mashed, boiled, roasted, or obviously fried. However, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem named "Haim Rabinowitch" with his team; experimented with boiled potatoes to supply off-the-grid electricity. In this experiment, they succeeded lighting a bulb by attaching the vegetable to metal plates and wirings.
Potato Made Batteries
Even with this ridiculous idea, Haim Rabinowitch's team demonstrated that potatoes could generate electricity. According to him, a single potato can power enough LED bulbs in a room for 40 days.
As people think this is only a classic science experiment performed in high schools, Rabinowitch, and his team discovered that potatoes may be a more promising energy source than they thought.
They used Zinc, Copper, and 1 potato to make Potato batteries. Zinc acts as the negative electrode and anode; Copper is the positive electrode and the cathode.
In the 1780s, Luigi Galvani, an Italian physician, and biologist who studied animal electricity, discovered that boiled potatoes can be used as a conductor. In his experiment, when he tried to link two metals to his test subject, at that point, it was a frog, and the muscles of the issue began to twitch. On the other hand, Galvani's contemporary, alexander volta, used saltwater-soaked paper with comparable results.
Low-Cost Alternative Energy
Despite being a high school staple, potatoes have never been officially explored as a power source. As a result, in 2010, Rabinowitch accepted the challenge. His partners were Boris Rubinsky of the University of California, Berkeley, and Alex Goldberg, a Ph.D. student.
"We examined 20 different types of potatoes and analyzed their internal resistance, which allowed us to calculate how much energy was lost owing to heat," Goldberg explains.
After eight minutes of boiling, the organic tissues in the potatoes degraded, lowering the barrier between electrons. As a result, more energy is generated. They increased the strength further by slicing the potato and sandwiching each piece between metal plates.
"We discovered we could increase output tenfold, which made it economically appealing because energy costs are decreasing," Goldberg explains.
"It's low voltage energy," Rabinowitch says, "but it's enough to make a battery that might charge mobile phones or laptops in areas without a grid or power connection."
This potato technique costs nearly six times less than regular kerosene lighting. It might also cost $9 per kilowatt-hour instead of a standard battery's $49–84 per kilowatt-hour. Not only that, but potatoes are cheap and straightforward to store.
Why potato batteries aren't popular?
"We anticipated groups would be interested," Rabinowitch adds. "We assumed Indian politicians would pass them out with their names etched on them." They're less than $1.
Years have passed since the first experiment, but 1.2 billion people still need access to electricity worldwide; why haven't leaders and corporations embraced the modest potato battery?
"The basic explanation is that they aren't aware of it," Rabinowitch says, but there is a more sophisticated one.
To begin with, utilizing food to generate energy is problematic; according to Olivier Dubois, a senior natural resources officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), this form of energy might reduce food supply and compete with farmers who cultivate them for the market.
"First and foremost, check to see if there are enough potatoes to go around." So, are we competing with farmers who make a living by selling potatoes? "So, absolutely, it can work if eating potatoes is covered, selling potatoes is covered, and there are some potatoes left," he says.
"Out of fashion boiled potatoes"
Second, the idea of cooking potato batteries could be more attractive. It's challenging to eliminate the idea that they're just cheap vegetables.
"At the end of the day," says Gaurav Manchanda, creator of One Degree Solar, "they are all consumers," and they must realize it's worth in terms of performance and status.
Alternative energy is currently assuming the more fashionable forms of solar and wind power, as recent infrastructure expenditures indicate. Still, Rabinowitch's prototype has yet to be expanded by any investor or organization.
Thank You for Reading.