calling Maxwell's Daemon

[XS-NRG]

Voltage may be above the thermodynamic value for an electrochemical process to take place but if no current passes then there will be no electrochemical reaction taking place -- that is, there will be no recharging. It's the current that characterizes the rate of an electrochemical reaction.

Here in this case it is puzzilng that the current is very low and yet there is a boost in the voltage upon recharging (that is, anode and cathode of the battery have undergone the necessary electrochemical conversion to get higher Gibbs energy potential difference than when battery is depleted). One thing that has to be seen, as was mentioned, is whether or not that is just the temprature dependence of the emf. As I understand, even at this point it can be eliminated as a probable cause, maybe. That has to be studied more. Then, the other point that was made, that the capacitors may somehow act as galvanic elements should also be dismissed on view of the low current level. So, there's something not very clear anout what's going on there.

SPAM

[XS-NRG]

spam

Omnibus the SPAM-Clown hahahaha

[Omnibus]

Omnibus the SPAM-Clown hahahaha

spam

[Omnibus]

SPAM

spam

[nul-points]

@Omni

the circuit is a current drain on the battery (although a proportion of the inductor-stored energy is recovered via the LED)

so it isn't the circuit which is providing the energy to recharge the battery (otherwise it would also be able to recharge the main capacitor without the battery present)

hence the excess charge in the battery is getting converted from a type of energy other than electrical (so an ammeter wouldn't help)

i believe that some form of thermoelectric conversion is occurring in the cells which is working synergistically with the more usual galvanic action to store the excess energy converted from heat

Mark has suggested that this heat might be arriving in the form of IR energy, with the cell acting as a kind of solar cell but responsive to the IR spectrum

i'm not equipped to measure those kinds of energy forms, so i can't comment on that


as far as the development of this particular battery is concerned, this is the fourth combination of metals and/or electrolyte with which i've experimented:-

- first of all i tested Cu & Al foil with just paper separator and starch glue as electrolyte

- secondly i replaced those metals with Ni & Zn foil

- thirdly i tested the original foils with honey, paper & starch

- finally i tried the present combination

since starting this thread, i've noticed a few other experiments on this forum which are reporting the same thermoelectric behaviour (all galvanic-related cells, all low-current, recharged by ambient heat) - although the cell construction varies quite significantly amongst them (and differs from the cells in my experiment)


my next development for this experiment is a baseline system with a similar circuit as load, in a similar enclosure, but using two NiMH cells in series as a battery

these NiMHs are both 1.24V nominal but have been in a discharged state for some months and their present total on-load voltage is 2.21V

i'll be monitoring the voltage and temperature of this system for a general comparison with the DIY cell behaviour (the two enclosures are adjacent)

in addition i'll be monitoring the (also enclosed) third DIY cell's open-circuit voltage & temperature, so i can report back on the thermal characteristic of an unloaded DIY cell


(@XS-NRG & @Omni - if you're going to have a pi$$ing contest then do it in your own threads)