Aluminium Graphite Fuel Cell

[Poit]

Hi everyone,
I set out today to buy the ingredients for a Aluminium Graphite Fuel Cell.
Which is basically;
Aluminium foil (supermarket) $3AUD
Graphite pencil (I used a 6B sketching pencil) $1.50 (for a pack of 5)
Cotten cloth (I used Cotten+Polyester, mainly because I couldn't find 100% cotten) $10 - it was actually a tshirt, but hey, 10 bucks is cheap
Two copper wires

Make sure to damp the cloth in warm salty water.

Thats it.. below are the pictures of my first attempt...

Oh, one more thing.... I am a little confused, my JT won't work on this, its 4 times more power than my other experiments and yet the JT won't light an LED, does any one know why?

[fritznien]

you have .55 volts dc and 42 ma out.
but not at the same time, the voltage is open circuit and the currant is short circuit.
under load there is not enough voltage to run the JT.
fritznien

[Poit]

you have .55 volts dc and 42 ma out.
but not at the same time, the voltage is open circuit and the currant is short circuit.
under load there is not enough voltage to run the JT.
fritznien

but on one of my salt water battery setups, I had .6volt @ 13mA out and that was enough to power the JT+LED.

[fritznien]

remeasure under load and you will see a big differance.
fritznien

[Poit]

remeasure under load and you will see a big differance.
fritznien

I made another one, twice as big, works great with a jt and led now... is there another cheap form of graphite (or carbon)? I know that certain battery types have a carbon rod. Ive also heard that a black n decker replacement brush is good too... surely there are other "everyday" items out there that can be used in these fuel cells... any ideas?

pete

p.s thanks for your input thus far...