This instructable is a battery made of pennies, salt water, and nickels. It produces voltage much like a battery, but you use pennies and nickels instead. It is a fun project for those pennies and nickels you don't wish to use anymore. Most of us don't usually go to the coinstars, and our change just piles up, so make a battery out of them!

Go to the next step for Items you need.

Step 1: What Do I Need?

Here are the items you will need:

For about 1 volt, you will need:

(6)Pennies
(6)Nickels
(6)Pieces of paper towel cut to a size smaller than the nickel
(1)Glass of water with 2 Tablespoons of salt dissolved in it

Optional: Multimeter to measure the amount of voltage you have prodced.

Step 2: Mix Solution/Add Paper

Step 1Pour two tablespoons of salt into a glass of water and try to keep it mixed with the water.

Step 2Put in the pieces of paper towel that were cut to the size of the nickel. A little bit smaller will do the trick

We do not want the pieces of salt paper touching eachother

Moisten the pieces of paper with the salt, and put them onto each nickel.

Go to next step for more details

Step 3: Time to Stack!

Step 3Once you have each piece of salt moistened paper placed on the nickel, place a penny on top of each nickel.

Step 4Now stack all of the coins. The sequence should be:

(The Nickel, is the bottom)
Nickel
Paper
Penny
Nickel
Paper
Penny
Nickel
Paper
Penny
etc...
etc...
etc...

Step 4: Test With a Multimeter

Step 5Now it is time to test your battery with a Multimeter. The multimeter measures how much voltage is coming from the coin battery.

Please note, you can continue to add more coin sequences to the top of the other coins to get more voltage. I just happened to run out, so I could not get enough to light an LED.

For the Multimeter: Turn it to the number "20" for voltage, to get an accurate reading.

Step 5: Troubleshooting

If your battery does not make any voltage, check the following:

1)Make sure the coins are stacked in an orderly fashion. Make it as upright as possible.
2)If your multimeter does not show any number, do #1, and also try switching the multimeter leads around.
3)Taste the paper to make sure it is quite salty.
4)Make sure the pieces of paper are not touching eachother.
5)Add more coins! If you don't see much voltage, just add ore and more coins to get it to a good amount of voltage.

Step 6: How Does This Work?!?!?!

Well, its quite simple you see this is a single cell of a battery, so the zinc nickel and copper penny are called electrodes. The salt is called the electrolyte. As we know, all batteries have a "+" and a "-" terminal. Electric current is a part of current using electrons. Certain materials called conductors allow the electrons to flow through them. The two metals are good conductors, and so the current will flow from the "-" terminal through a conductor(salt mixture) to the "+" positive terminal.

If you don't get it, ask.