Build A Saltwater Circuit

<< Back to Popular Projects

Did you know that you can use salt water to make a light bulb shine? It sounds
crazy, but it's true! This is because salt water is a good conductor of electricity.

Salt molecules are made of sodium ions and chlorine ions. (An ion is an atom that
has an electrical charge because it has either gained or lost an electron.) When
you put salt in water, the water molecules pull the sodium and chlorine ions apart
so they are floating freely. These ions are what carry electricity through water.
Watch it work in this project! (Adult supervision recommended.)

What You Need:

 Cup or beaker
 Masking tape
 Water
 Insulated copper wire
 Salt
 9-volt battery
 Aluminum foil
 3.7-volt light bulb in socket (or buzzer)
 Tongue depressors (or popsicle sticks)

What You Do:

1. Wrap two tongue depressors in aluminum foil. These will be your

electrodes.
2. Cut three 6-inch pieces of insulated copper wire and strip a half-inch of
insulation off each end.
3. Connect one end of a wire to the positive terminal of the battery - hold it in
place with masking tape. (If you are using a battery cap, connect it to the
red wire.) Connect the other end of the wire to the light bulb socket. (Just
wrap the wire around the bottom of the bulb, if you don't have a socket.
You may have to secure it with tape.)
4. Take the second piece of wire and connect the light bulb socket with one of
the electrodes. Use masking tape to stick the bare end of the wire on the
aluminum foil near the top the electrode.
5. Use the third piece of wire to connect the negative terminal of the battery
with the other electrode.
6. Test out your circuit by touching the two electrodes together. This should
complete the circuit and allow electricity to flow from one terminal of the
battery to the other, lighting up the light bulb in the process. If the bulb
 doesn't light up, check your wire connections to make sure they are all
secure and then try again.

Testing the circuit in water

1. Pour 1 cup water into a cup or beaker. (If you have distilled water, that will
work best.)
2. Put the two electrodes in the cup, but don't let them touch each other. What
happens to the light bulb?
3. Remove the electrodes from the cup and then stir in a teaspoon of salt until
it dissolves. Put the electrodes in the salt water without touching them
together. Watch the light bulb.

The light bulb lit up because the sodium and chorine ions conducted the
electricity from one electrode to the other. This completed the circuit, causing the
light bulb to shine. Try adding more salt and see if the light bulb shines brighter.
Use a buzzer instead of a light bulb and see if more or less salt in the water
makes the buzzer ring louder or softer.

Try this solar distillation project to get fresh water out of salt water and then use
your saltwater circuit to test the water you distill! Fresh water won't conduct
electricity as well as salt water.

Saltwater can serve as the electrolyte in a battery, generating electricity. A battery has
three parts: an electrolyte and two electrodes, which are made of different materials,
often metals. Some of the first batteries, made by Alessandro Volta around 1880, used
saltwater, silver and zinc to generate electricity. This type of battery is easy to build
and experiment with.

Electrolytes and Batteries

In water, table salt, or sodium chloride (NaCl), dissolves into positively charged
sodium ions (Na+) and negatively charged chlorine ions (Cl-). Chemists call a solution
of ions such as this an electrolyte. In a battery, one electrode, called the cathode,
sheds electrons into the solution, leaving it with a positive charge. At the same time,
the other electrode, the anode, collects electrons, giving it a negative charge. Ions in
the electrolyte help facilitate this process. The charge imbalance between the two
electrodes creates a electrical potential difference, or voltage. If you connect the
terminals in a circuit, the electrons built up in the anode will flow through the circuit
back to the cathode, creating an electrical current.
Your Own Voltaic Pile

Volta made his "Voltaic Pile" battery with units consisting of saltwater-soaked paper
sandwiched between a silver disk and a zinc disk. He stacked up this basic unit to
create a battery with significant voltage. The term for such basic units is cells. You can
make a similar battery quite easily with household items. You will need five pennies
made after 1982, cardstock or paperboard, salt, water, electrical tape, 120-grit
sandpaper and two wires with stripped ends. Pennies made in 1983 and after are
copper-coated zinc disks. Thanks to this fact, we don’t need two different types of
metal disks as Volta did.

Building the Battery

Sand one side of four of the pennies all the way down to a flat zinc surface. Dissolve
one tablespoon of salt in one cup of water (heating helps). From the cardstock, cut out
four disks roughly the size of the pennies, and soak them in the salt water. Place one
penny copper side down on the table and place a soaked disk on top of it. Continue
stacking by alternating pennies and soaked disks, with the intact penny on top of the
last soaked disk. Holding one wire on the first coin and one on the last coin, wrap
electrical tape around the assembly to hold it together. Sealing the entire unit with tape
will inhibit evaporation, making the battery last longer.

Using the Battery

Each cell, consisting of the zinc side of one penny, a soaked disk and the copper side
of another penny, generates around one volt. With four cells, your battery will generate
roughly four volts. You can test this with a multimeter. Also, four volts is enough to
make an LED shine brightly. Connect the short lead from the LED to the end of the
battery that has the intact penny. This is the anode -- the negative pole of the battery.

Further Experiments

Almost any combination of two different metals for the electrodes will make a battery.
Different combinations yield different voltages. You can make a battery similar to
Volta’s by stacking up cells made of saltwater-soaked cardstock sandwiched between
two different metals. Ideas include pennies and nickels, pennies and aluminum (foil or
sanded pieces of pop cans), pennies and zinc-coated washers, and uncoated steel
washers and aluminum.

How Do Magnets Work in Saltwater?

Updated April 25, 2017
By Jack Ori
Water is dimagnetic, which means that it exerts a weak magnetic field, and repels
other magnetic fields. If a magnet is suspended over water, the water's dimagnetism
will repel the magnet. This weakens the magnet's effect on other objects. When salt is
added to water, it weakens the water's magnetic field further, so that it ceases to have
any significant effect on other magnetic fields. However, salt water conducts electricity
better than non-salt water, so magnets placed near it can cause significant turbulence
in the water.

Basics

Dimagnetism refers to an object's tendency to generate a weak magnetic field in

opposition to a magnetic field applied to it. Dimagnetic objects repel magnets. Water is
dimagnetic, although it is not as strongly dimagnetic as carbon-graphite. The presence
of a strong magnetic field can cause a dimagnetic object to appear to levitate.
According to wondermagnet.com, powerful magnets are able to make a frog levitate
due to the dimagnetism of the water in its body. There are no magnets strong enough
to make water itself levitate, but strong magnets can make a few drops of oil rise to
the top of a glass of water.

Salt's Effects on Water

The addition of salt lessens water's dimagnetic properties. In addition, salt raises the
freezing point and lowers the boiling point of water. Salt also strengthens the water's
ability to conduct electricity. Due to these effects, magnets do not affect salt water the
same way that they do regular water.

Dimagnetism, Levitation & Salt Water

A strong magnet placed near a dimagnetic object can cause the object to levitate; the
dimagnetic object repels the magnetic field, causing the object to move in the opposite
direction of the external magnet. However, salt water lessens this effect because the
salt lessens the water's dimagnetic properties. The addition of salt to water weakens
the opposing magnetic field so that the water no longer repels an external magnetic
field. Thus, it would be impossible to levitate objects by placing a strong magnet near
salt water.

Magnet Neutralization & Salt Water

Water's dimagnetism will neutralize the effect of magnets on objects on or near the
water. A magnet suspended or immersed in water will lose some or all of its effect until
removed from the water. Salt water has less of an effect on magnets placed near it
than regular water because the salt lowers the water's dimagnetism. A magnet placed
near or in salt water will continue to attract magnetic objects in the water.
Salt Water & Electromagnets

Salt strengthens water's ability to conduct electricity. When a electromagnet is placed

near salt water, it creates a moving magnetic field in the water due to salt water's
conductive properties. The salt water then creates an opposing magnetic field. This
creates water turbulence.