fairfolio
Saved Projects

Electrical Conductivity of Three Types of Fruit Groups

CSEF · 2003 Electricity & Electronics

Ken L.M. Lozano · Covenant Christian School ISP, Orange

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective was to determine if there is a difference in the electrical conductivity of sweet fruits, subacid fruits, and acid fruits. Methods/Materials The materials and equipment used are Bananas, Dates, Papayas, Prunes, Apples, Guavas, Nectarines, Peaches, Pears, Kiwis, Lemons, Oranges, Plums, Strawberries, Ascorbic Acid , Citric Acid, Multimeter, pH Checker & buffer solutions, Cell kit with Copper(Cu), Zinc(Zn), Aluminum(Al), Iron(Fe), and Lead(Pb) electrodes, beakers, test tubes, glass plates, graduated cylinder, wash bottle, distilled water, knife, chopping board, & triple beam balance. The steps followed are Calibration of pH Checker, Assembly of the Electrical Cell kit and Multimeter, Preparation of fruit samples and standard organic acid solutions, & Measurement of pH and voltage using varying electrode pairs: Cu&Zn; Cu&Al; Cu&Fe; and Cu&Pb. Three experimental trials were conducted to determine the pH and voltage readings. The pH and conductivity readings were averaged and later used for the correlation and graphical analysis. Results The average pH readings showed that the acid fruits had the lowest value and the sweet fruits had the highest one while the average conductivity readings were also relatively higher for the acid fruits compared to the sweet fruits. The average conductivity was highest for the Cu&Zn electrode pair for the three types of fruits and organic acids and lowest for the Cu&Pb electrode pair. The conductivity readings for acid solutions using varying electrode pairs were close to each other for all the different concentrations. The correlation coefficient (r) between the average pH and fruits conductivity showed a weak negative correlation (r = -0.609) for the pH and Cu & Zn while it was not significant for the other electrode pairs. The plots of pH vs. fruits conductivity showed a weak and apparently linear relationship only for the pH and Cu & Zn electrode pair. Conclusions/Discussion There was some difference between the electrical conductivity of the sweet fruits, subacid fruits, and acid fruits. The conductivity readings were highest among the fruits and acid solutions using the copper and zinc electrode pair. A negative but weak correlation as well a plot of weak and linear relationship was shown between the pH and fruits conductivity using Cu & Zn electrode pair.

Summary statement

This project deals with the comparison of the electrical conductivity of three types of fruit groups namely sweet fruits, subacid fruits, and acid fruits.

Help received

Dr. and Mrs. Reynaldo Villareal of CIMMYT for project planning advice; Mr. Bill Harmon of BJU for project planning and experimental advice; my dad for helping me put together the display board and making the wood stands; and my mom for guiding me through all the steps of making a science project.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2003 Electricity & Electronics · Entry J0719

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google