At Queenswood School in the UK, David Boyce and his class are at the forefront of an ambitious initiative: cultivating what they hope to call the world’s largest single crystal of copper sulfate. By expanding upon a traditional school experiment, they have successfully grown a crystal weighing approximately 3kg. Nonetheless, the title for the largest copper sulfate crystal still belongs to a group of 8th-year students in Germany, who in 2010 managed to cultivate an enormous 70kg polycrystalline crystal.
However, copper sulfate crystals aren’t the sole classroom experiments that have inspired world records. Let’s delve into other chemical achievements that have secured a place in the Guinness World Records.
When Life Gives You Lemons
A basic battery can be constructed with a lemon, a galvanized nail, and a copper penny. The citric acid found in a lemon oxidizes the zinc anode, releasing positively charged zinc ions as electrons travel through a wire to the copper cathode. The electrolytes present in the lemon complete the circuit, enabling electricity to flow. In 2021, the Royal Society of Chemistry oversaw the creation of a record-setting giant lemon battery utilizing nearly 3000 lemons. This battery generated more than 2300V, although with a current of only 0.9mA, it produced merely 2W of power.
Power from Potatoes
Potato batteries, akin to lemon batteries, are also featured in classroom experiments. They utilize phosphoric acid found in potatoes. The crisp company Lays achieved a record by connecting over 8500 potatoes to generate 11W of power, which was utilized to record a song by Brazilian artist Anitta.
Pacey Pipetting
In a demonstration of speed and accuracy, Sujoy Kumar Mitra in India established the record for transferring the greatest volume of water (45ml) via pipette in one minute in 2025. Mitra also holds the record for the quickest visit to all new seven wonders of the world, accomplishing this in 5 days, 17 hours, and 28 minutes.
Elephant’s Toothpaste
The “elephant’s toothpaste” experiment merges hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and yeast, rapidly generating foam due to the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by catalase enzymes. KiwiCo in the US executed the largest elephant’s toothpaste demonstration in 2022, producing 340m3 of foam—equivalent to the volume of a typical 25m swimming pool.
There’s Hydrogen and Helium…
The periodic table song serves as a resource for students, enumerating all the elements. Notably, Prithvi Vangaveti in India recited all 118 elements in 35.10 seconds in 2025, setting the fastest recorded time by Guinness World Records. “Chemistry World” also recreated Tom Lehrer’s 1959 elements song in 2019, incorporating 16 newly synthesized elements, with input from distinguished chemists, including Nobel Prize winners.