The University of Cincinnati students, staff and faculty and Reading High School students work on creating a potato battery with 1,846 potatoes to break a world record for the highest voltage from a potato battery on May 4.

The University of Cincinnati students, staff and faculty and Reading High School students work on creating a potato battery with 1,846 potatoes to break a world record for the highest voltage from a potato battery on May 4.
By Kelly Doran
Sun staff

The University of Cincinnati Clermont College may be featured in the Guinness World Records book after breaking a record for the highest voltage from a potato battery.

On May 4, UC Clermont students, staff and faculty and Reading High School students worked together to connect 1,846 potatoes to break the current record with 1,390 volts, Nick Abel, associate professor of physics, said.

The Guinness World Record is 1,224 volts, which was achieved in Germany in July 2012, according to the Guinness website.

Abel does a demonstration every year in his physics class of turning a lemon into a battery. However, lemons can become pricey, so Abel began looking for other food items to use, which is when he stumbled upon the world record.

About 40-50 people volunteered to help create the battery and at least that many showed up to watch, Abel said. It took about 90 minutes to get everything ready and another hour to test the potatoes and make sure everything worked.

Abel asked Kroger for 1,500 potatoes, but Kroger donated even more than that, somewhere between 400 and 500 pounds of potatoes. He didn’t use all the potatoes, because he ran out of clips to connect the wires together.

“It was entertaining. It was many things: it was hilarious. It was neat to see that many students engaged in something like this,” Abel said.

Abel did the project in collaboration with Cliff Larrabee, a professor of chemistry, and Sandy Ruschell, a Reading High School teacher and an adjunct professor of chemistry and physics.

This project was an application of physics material that students discussed in class, said Jeff Bauer, the newly appointed dean of UC Clermont.

“It’s really cool,” Bauer said.

Abel was pleased to see how many students were interested in the project, he said.

“It’s something that’s memorable, it will stick with them,” Abel said.

Jordan Harris, a freshman at UC Clermont, was one of the volunteers. He helped because he wanted to be part of a world record.

Harris enjoyed the process, but said it did become frustrating at times.

Abel is considering starting a high school competition where students could get 25 fruits or vegetables and see who can get the most watts. He believes that would help get students interested in science.

Bringing a Guinness representative to UC Clermont would have cost $10,000, Abel said, so he chose to send evidence to Guinness. Everything they did was justifiable and a valid scientific technique, but it is a matter of if Abel has the information Guinness wants.

If the evidence Abel sends to Guinness is not enough to make this the new official world record, Abel plans to try again next year, with the knowledge of what Guinness needs to make it official.

Abel plans to donate the potatoes they didn’t use to a food pantry. The potatoes he did use should not be consumed by humans, but could be fed to pigs or used for compost, Abel said.

Abel is hoping to find a farmer to take the used potatoes.