alufoil cell

[hartiberlin]

Hi All,
enclosed is a picture of the alufoilcell in a drinking glas.
There the inner walls are covered with alufoil, then comes the papertowel,
then the active charcoal powder and inside the active charcoal powder
is the stainless steel wool.
Over here on the pic you can see only the alufoil and the red-white papertowel.

The cell was connected to the 50 ohm load already now for 3 days and the voltage
is now down to 0.28 Volts.
If I am going to let it rest a few hours and add some fresh water, it will
again start at around 0.5 Volts with the 50 Ohm load.

Regards, Stefan.

[Walter Hofmann]

hi stefan,
what is the reason that you have the stainless steel wool inside the charcoal? You would be better on to use only for contact a strip or thin rod of graphit, because you got aluminum foil as the negative and charcoal as the positiv if you put a second positiv with the SS wool inside the charcoal the output will be reduced.
SS wool and charcoal build a cell on its own and the next cell is SS wool and the aluminum foil, to check this just connect the meter leads on the aluminum foil and the charcoal and then on the ss wool and the charcoal.
the only what you need is a contact to the charcoal and there the best is a smal graphit plate strip or a thin graphite rod then you can let out the SS wool and will see more output.
greetings
walt

[Kysmett]

The steel wool is good....it has tremendous surface area vs. mass.  But I agree with Walt.   There are better materials.   If you can get them spun like wool...

I saw online an electrolysis setup excerpt (The book was $2000 that I didn't have) that involved the cathode and anode being extremely porous, allowing for a surface area that far surpassed anything solid, and it increased efficiency by many orders of magnitude.

[hartiberlin]

Hi Walter,
you are absolutely right,
but I wanted to make a cell, that everybody can make from things
he can buy at the supermarket !
Where can you buy graphite these days ?
It is pretty hard to come by and has its prize...

So stainless-steel dish-cleaner is easy to get in every bigger supermarket.

Okay, if you will find the older Zinc-Carbon batteries still anywhere ( not over here
in Germany anymore in supermarkets) you could buy one of these batteries and
remove the graphite rod out of it and use this, but as I said, it is hard to get for
the average person, who does not like to order special expensive graphite plates
from a special graphite company...


Regards, Stefan.

[Walter Hofmann]

hallo stefan,
the easyest and cheapest contact graphit are the pencil lead from a carpenterpencil or afrom one of this thick pensils.The SS in connection with graphit powder gives a loss of around 0.2 V.
Dont take the graphit rod out of a zinc carbon battery because they are formulated to work with acidic paste and they are  after my experience bad connector.
greetings
walt