Working Air Battery

[stephenafreter]

Ok, here is a trial with silver and magnesium in tap water.
Voltage with 1 red LED lit brightly is 1.59V
Of course my electrodes are much bigger than Rock's ones.
I don't have silver wire on hand yet.

THE MOST "AMAZING" is that when I replace the silver electrode with a graphite pencil or carbon tube or copper wire, the red LED doesn't have enough power to light up brightly, and the voltage readings are lower.
So it seems that potential of the material is important, but electrolytic reaction is different and could give more power output even with lesser potential difference ...

[stephenafreter]

A quick update to say that it works great with silver leaf.
Having no silver wire, I glued a silver leaf on a PVC pipe and it gives the same result as with the piece of silver.
Of course it's just short term results.
I am happy because I had difficulties to conceive a thin conductive graphite layer.
This silver is interesting. Using for example copper pipe plated with silver would be cheap and long lasting. Silver plating is also available everywhere, for jewelry, and it uses just a micro size layer of silver.
I hope to try soon to wrap some magnesium ribbon around my PVC-silver pipe to make a Lasersaber kind of battery.
1 leaf only used on the picture, enough for this 32mm diam. pipe.
Cost for 1 leaf is 0.10 Euro (10 for 1 Euro, from Thailand sold on ebay).

[stephenafreter]

Should also try silver plated copper wire.
1 layer of this wire, 1 layer of paper towel, 1 layer magnesium ribbon, 1 layer paper towel, and another layer of silver wire ... double power
180 meters for 5 Euros, and it shouldn't corrode, so it should last a long time ...
Might find this kind of wire in HiFi/electronic shop, like Litz wire.

[rock321]

Good job stephenafreter! I didn't spell out exactly what I was using because I wanted you all to think a little bit. There are only a few silvery metals that are good conductors. If I really wanted to "tease" you (Conrad) then I would not have shown any clear images of the metals I was using or not posted at all and left everyone in darkness. Silver plating is all that is needed on the wires and this is very inexpensive.

Rather than just duplicating experiments, I want everyone to start thinking about WHY this works better. What is actually happening with the energy? What is the energy? How is it moving? What would make it even more efficient?
"[It is] the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings [is] to search out a matter."

Be kings (and queens for the ladies).

Blessings,

Littlechristgod (aka rock321)

[stephenafreter]

1 leaf of silver (25 micro thick) around 32mm PVC pipe
+ 3 feet magnesium ribbon
paper towel soaked in NaCl water (still waiting for my Epson salts)
Cost is very low, I am happy, Magnesium is the most expensive part, the fuel ...

Results are better when immerged in tap water, but magnesium might oxydise faster.