Potato battery

Potato battery

Potato battery can be used to power an alarm clock! The potato creates an electrochemical battery (or cell), which means it converts chemical energy into electric energy by a “spontaneous electron transfer.” As the experiment describes, “the potato acts as a sort of buffer between the zinc ions and copper ions” (from the nails and wire), allowing the electron transfer “to take place over the copper wires of the circuit, which channels the energy in the clock.”