How to make a small battery for a toy car?

I need to build a toy car for a class and we are supposed to build the batteries but we can buy the engine. So how would i come about making this battery.





So two questions...





How do i make the battery and what are the materials that i need?|||If you want to "do it with carbon" take a look at the Leclanch茅 cell; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leclanch%C3鈥?/a>


Or the carbon zinc dry cell; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc-carbon鈥?/a>





However, I suspect it may be somewhat difficult to find materials, unless, perhaps, you start by taking apart commercial carbon zinc batteries. Since manganese dioxide is not soluble in water, and ammonium chloride is, it wouldn't be too hard to seperate all the materials and then rebuild the cell. Perhaps reassembling a dry cell as a Leclanch茅 sack cell would make it look like created something yourself.


I suppose you might also look at the Bunsen cell; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunsen_cell but while sulfuric acid might not be too hard to get as battery acid, nitric might be a harder to get, and chromic acid may present a disposal problem|||This seems a fairly tall order and I wouldn't want my kids to play with a toy car that contains a "home made" battery.





However, it is possible. Carbon will work as a good positive electrode, zinc as a good negative electrode when both put into some kind of electrolyte such as an acid. Copper works instead of carbon and is probably easier to handle.





Lead acid batteries use lead oxide for a positive electrode, lead for the negative electrode and sulfuric acid solution as electrolyte. This is probably the way I would do it because the lead acid battery works very well and will allow for inefficiencies in your construction and still work. You need a container that will hold the acid (many plastics and metals will not) and a way of dangling the different plates into the electrolyte where they are spaced apart and cannot touch each other.





The grave dangers in all this are that the acid obviously burns in contact with the skin and hydrogen gas is produced during charging that is highly explosive.|||Lead-acid battery. Get lead plates/foil from roofing supplies and battery acid from the auto store. Charge it with a power supply.





That's probably your best bet to make a powerful enough battery for a small electric motor.





Certainly better than any lemon battery.








PS: Please dispose the heavy metal solution and plates responsibly. And be careful with the acid. IT WILL burn holes into your cloth and skin.


:-)|||Use copper and zinc plates, and sulfuric acid.








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