KARPEN PILE

[MarkE]

The secret electrode was graphite

I would have incorrectly guessed some metal that is quick to develop an oxide layer like Cu or Al shutting down the reaction.

[profitis]

Uhhmm,nah try it markE.its just reversible spillover.it'l last past that expiry date.

[profitis]

Yes only you wouldve guessed Al mark E.we was taught in high school that Al dissolves in NaOH sol.the power wouldve been monstrous and steady if it were Al.

[profitis]

You shoulve kept the graphite experiment going pomodoro,that current was ready to switch polarity lol.but it wouldve been weak anyway.

[pomodoro]

Yesterday, the graphite was giving many 10's or peak mA and a constant current of 2mA when shorted through the meter. Quite impressive. However, I recall that I was bubbling the hydrogen constantly, not diverting it to the top of the flask after having saturated the solution.

Today, I cathodized it in a separate KOH beaker, with a Pt counter electrode and a power supply, just to clean it with fresh H2 bubbles.

When I dipped it in the cell and waited a while, a whopping 1.2V developed. WOW I thought , but as you saw each time it was used it never recovered.  I'm not sure but I guess it cant sponge up the hydrogen from the solution very well.

I also tried palladized silver. Again excellent fresh from the beaker, but quickly died down as well.
Same thing for shiny platinum, got zero volts real fast.

I still need to try lead,nickel,copper and a few others.

So Mr Profitus, I must admit that you did come up with a system that seems to work well at this stage of the research! well done!!!

Back to the basics,  everyone, lets start from step 1.

1.  Why alkaline and not acid as used by Kapern?  I realize  it lowers  the E of the H/H2O couple - well it did as Nernst would have predicted at the Pt, from 0 to -800mV.  I dont know about the shift at the Silver.


2. The Pd/Pt voltage is very rock steady when discharging, no wonder a similar electrode is used as the zero volt standard. The 1cm square has in reality a much larger surface area.


3. The silver is another story.  What formula exactly can be used to predict the voltage that I would expect there?  Is it the same as the platinum plus the hydrogen overpotential on silver?  I need to read the paper on the studies of this overpotential, but I did not think it was as huge as 0.9V.  Even the CV scans I did did not show such a massive difference in the cathodic scans.


4. Why does the silver electrode look more like a capacitor , being charged up by the Pt/Pd when they are connected, which then slowly discharges upon disconnection?