Battery made from 2,923 lemons breaks Guinness World Record

Feb. 4 (UPI) -- A team of chemists gathered 2,923 lemons in Britain to break the Guinness World Record for the highest voltage from a fruit battery.

Guinness said the Royal Society of Chemistry, an international organization of scientists, cut the lemons in half in Manchester, England, and hooked strips of zinc and copper to each end to extract a total 2,307.8 volts from the fruit.

The resulting battery broke the previous record by 1,521 volts, Guinness announced.

Professor Saiful Islam, a material science professor from the University of Bath who participated in the attempt, said the lemon juice acts as an electrolyte, with the zinc and copper acting as electrodes.

The lemon battery was used to activate an LED attached to a light sensor that triggered a relay and activated a pyrotechnic system to kick off a go-kart race.

The lemons used in the attempt were processed by Refood, a company that uses food waste to generate renewable energy for the National Gas Grid, and the remaining liquid was used to make bio-fertilizer for local farms.