How to ignite a candle with a battery

Starting a fire with a battery

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Ob­serve safe­ty mea­sures when work­ing with an open flame and hot ob­jects.

Reagents and equip­ment

  • AA bat­tery;
  • a chew­ing gum wrap­per;
  • a can­dle;
  • cot­ton wool;
  • scis­sors.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Use the scis­sors to cut the gum wrap­per into three even strips. Take one strip and make cuts on both sides to form a 2 mm thick arc. Close the AA bat­tery ‘cir­cuit’ with the sil­very side of the wrap­per and hold the con­trap­tion to the cot­ton wool. The cot­ton ig­nites and lights the can­dle.

Process de­scrip­tion

Bat­ter­ies are chem­i­cal sources of di­rect cur­rent. The gum wrap­per is made of pa­per coat­ed with a thin lay­er of alu­minum. Since alu­minum is a good elec­tri­cal con­duc­tor, the wrap­per starts con­duct­ing elec­tric cur­rent when we use it to close the bat­tery cir­cuit. The alu­minum heats up, and the pa­per ig­nites and lights the cot­ton, which in turn ig­nites the can­dle.

Try it