5. Conclusion
5.1 Summary of findings
We have found that the greater the amount of salt we put into the Leyden jar, the greater the amount of short circuit voltage stored. Also, we have found that the bigger the surface area of the foil, the smaller the amount of short circuit voltage stored.
5.2 Practical Applications
A practical use would be for the usage of these Leyden jars as makeshift batteries. Leyden jars are essentially capacitors and capacitors are superior to batteries in certain aspects, that they can last for quite long, are 100% energy efficient, have no chemicals stored inside them and can be recharged very quickly. Leyden jars are also relatively easy to make, using only glass jars, aluminium foil and wires, which can be bought at an electronics shop. Recently, a team of researchers led by Richard Kaner, at UCLA discovered a way to make graphene-based supercapacitors that charge and discharge 3 times faster than normal lithium batteries. (UCLA Newsroom, 2013) These graphene supercapacitors were created with an inexpensive DVD burner. This shows the potential of capacitors as batteries.
5.3 Areas for further study
We could further study the effects of salt on water and how salt increases the conductivity of water.
As we have detected an anomaly in experiment 2, we hope to find out why a lower outer surface area leads to a lower storage voltage.
We would also like to know how we can store the charge in the jar for protracted periods of time.
