Electrolysis cell good for two litres/min.

[SeaMonkey]

All of your connecting wires to the plates, or rods, should be insulated copper wire such as is used in house wiring. It has a very tough insulating material which can be immersed in electrolyte without problems. Even smaller diameter 'bell wire' with the plastic insulation is good too.

For your initial small scale testing just wrap a couple of turns of bared copper wire around the end of a carbon rod, with the insulation brought close to the rod. Then seal it well with a thin layer of silicone rubber and let it cure overnight.

Your connections to steel may be soldered. You'll need to use some zinc chloride (acid flux) to do it and you'll probably find that at any hardware store where little kits of solder and flux are sold for putting copper water pipe together.

As you experiment on a small scale and see how things 'develop' you'll get some great ideas on how to enlarge and improve your design for serious gas production.

If you're able to find the carbon-zinc cells among the pile they'll have the carbon rods you want.

The alkaline cells won't have a carbon rod - inside those you'll find a small 'nail' shaped connection terminal implanted into a mass of powdered carbon and depolarizing oxidizer. The mix of powdered graphite and manganese dioxide is potentially useful but you'll have to pulverize it and re-compress it into a long, cylindrical form. If you know anyone that has a 10 ton (or more) hydraulic press and some suitably shaped mold to press it into then you can 'roll yer own!'

Once you've powdered the graphite/MnO2 lumps, thoroughly mix in just a wee bit of linseed oil (from the paint section of the hardware store) to make the powder slightly moist but not sticky. Then pack it into the cylindrical mold and press it down with extreme pressure. Withdraw the press and fill again with material and press again, and after several cycles you'll have built up a very solid rod that can be carefully extracted and left to cure in the air for several days.

To make it easier to mix in the linseed oil into the powdered carbon, you can mix it with paint thinner to reduce the viscosity. Then after you've mixed it into the carbon powder just let it air dry for an hour or so to let the paint thinner evaporate.

If desired, the material can also be pressed into flat, rectangular plates.

It's called hydraulic ramming. Very useful process.

You'll have great fun on this adventure!


Oh, by the way. With the alkaline cells, just peel away the outer casing and what remains of the zinc electrode on the outside of the carbon mass in the center, then rinse with water to remove any residual 'salts' and chemicals from the outside. You'll get the idea once you've torn into one or two of them.

Rollin' yer own is a superb experience!

[mael]

So you are saying that using SS for the connecting wires isn't a good idea. I can understand that because I hear SS is used as a resistor and it'd be avoidably inefficient.

Silicone rubber is one choice. But how about one of the thicker varnishes? And what about making all the connections at base level and putting a thin even layer of epoxy all over the bottom of the container?

Steel for the negative electrodes gives me much more scope. I thought of narrow water pipe and a graphite centre electrode. Maybe three or four cut to the length of the graphite rod in glass jars.

Thanks for the info about the graphite found in alkaline and zinc/carbon. - I don't think I'll try to roll my own on this occasion.

I wanted to clean up the sides of the plates of those large 2 V cells. I used a steam gun and a screwdriver to prise out the asphalt. Then I suspended the cell by two bars through the connectors across two chairs. Then I heated it some more with the steam gun and worked the plates out.

The plates were shot to pieces, and I suddenly recalled it was the same when I took the plate assemblies out of the other one I had which I threw-out in bits a year or so back.

The neg plates were servicable but the positive plates were completely rotten and had mostly come apart at the top where they are attached to the connector. - It'll be the same story with the one remaining I have, It works to a degree but I don't think it'll be worth using it as a lead-acid battery.

Typical me, I put a crack in the top of the cell I pulled-apart tonight - but I think it can be fixed so it won't leak if I decide to use it for this project.

The plates were a devil to get out because they had swelled so much that the case was distended. There are deep scratches where the plastic spacers scraped as I prised the lid off with various screwdrivers and levers.

[SeaMonkey]

Yes, you're going to find that you can use a variety of materials such as epoxies and varnishes in addition to the silicone rubber for covering connections and sealing.

I should have mentioned that when you solder a copper wire to the steel Cathode Plate that the soldered connection and a porrtion of the wire insulation in close proximity needs to be sealed also. I suspect you'd already figured that was the case.

If you have some scrap copper water pipe that can be used as the Cathode as well. Real easy to work with.

Yes, this adventure will be one of your most interesting ones!

You'll be posting your updates and new adventures here for years to come!

[glenn_aircooled]

I tend to use a wide strip of stainless to connect to the plates, then by using
a stainless bolt through the top of the cell [ SEALED ] then join to the thick
copper wires there.
Please read through this experiment by Chris....especially the part about efficiency near bottom of page two.

http://oupower.com/index.php?dir=_My_Pr ... &PageNum=2

-
Glenn.

[SeaMonkey]

[mael]

[mrgalleria]