Quote from: Doug1 on April 21, 2009, 10:56:03 AM
Solar battery? That would resolve needing batteries to store the power secondary to the cells.
  So what happens when you add iodine to a battery and leave the electrolite exposed to light? Clear case battery few mirrors to increase the light onto it.

No, it should be NO Battery, but just a solarcell !

The alufoil is only the electrode conductor.
You could also try to replace it with a stainless steel plate  for better conservation
against use-up.

Maybe it is also possible to just only use the SnO2 and TiO2
as a plate, as the SnO2 is conductive.
Maybe one can also use an acrylic binder with it and generate
SnO2 -TiO2-Paper as the Minus electrode of this cell.

So first mix SnO2 and TiO2 powder, then heat it ( sinter it)
add berry juice and let it dry in.
Then use acrylic binder to make a paste and smear this onto
wet towel paper and let it dry.

Then use this as the other electrode.
If you put this electrode horizontal into the iodide solution at the top
just only a bit "under water" (under iodide electrolyte)
then the sun can directly go in a better angle to this
SnO2 -TiO2-Paper electrode.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Stefan.

Here another picture to make it more understandable:

stannous chloride powder
I was looking this product up to see where it could be obtained from locally but found out what is.
Thats some pretty nasty stuff.
from this ref how to http://www.teralab.co.uk/Experiments/Conductive_Glass/Conductive_Glass_Page1.htm

To this ref http://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/4643 which says "Stannic chloride, anhydrous is a colorless fuming liquid with a pungent odor. It is soluble in cold water and decomposed by hot water to form hydrochloric acid with the evolution of heat. It is corrosive to metals and tissue. "

  So is that not a highly acidic layer bonded to the glass in a thin coat to form the transparent conductor? Much like the water and acid in a car battery is the conductor between electrodes.
  is it that when it is cooked to a high enough temp and turned to vapor it does not mix with water very well after it attaches itself to the glass? I know doing the vapor thing is not desirable but maybe once it is clear how it works a substitute can be found. Im surprised it does not desolve into the iodine or berry juice unless it becomes non soluble through the vapor process.

This is interesting about soluble in general http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solubility
  If there is a conductive material that is semi tanslucent non soluble in acidic conditions then it would be reasonable to expect it to not interact with O2 which should prevent oxidation or the galvanic effect between to materials which could be one used for P and the second for the N of a cell. If in contact with a highly photo active layer of substance inbetween the two that can shed off an electron in the presence of light that should the trick. There is a word used for the technical deffinition of a substance which will not mix with water at all it actually repels water I just cant remember what it is.
  It also got me thinking about the cloth used on the earth battery. If there is a way to figure out or locate some info about the cloth used for musket loader rifles way back in the stone age. They may have been adding a substance which repelled water to the cloth to keep the cloth dry even in humid conditions or in the rain. The cloth used in the earth battery may have been some old spools of such a cloth considering the time period and location of the invention wihch would seriously change the function of the cloth insulator on the earth battery coil. So who wants to do some digging on the history of the old ball and cap rifles the Kentucky long rifle and the type of pitch cloth they used for when it was wet or humid.

this may seem a bit off topic but not meaning to be.
as near as i can make of this the idea is to stack several elements with varing electric potential in such a manner that when a specific wavelenght of light with certain angular restraints strikes the sequence that an electron is moved across a barrier were it then recieves a resistance to return by the same path essentially using the light for the catalyst.
if this is the process then it appears to be much like a fire nitrogen takes on 40 times more heat than oxygen and carbon is the highest heat conductor when properly treated these were the nitrogen is removed or preheated so as to play a small part in the combustion the oxygen will burn or react with the carbon several times in order to satisfy the carbons need for energy intake yeilding a much hotter combustion than an ordinary fire.
the proscess seems to be very similar to peltier junctions with copper and steel wires my thought seems to be that the wave of light will strike the material weither it is transparent or not and would seem to initiate some reaction even as transisters are driven by energy sequence so adjusting the potential across the barrier would seem to be the better solution with posible electretsas base substraits.

just a thought.

Hi Neuview,

Yes, that is what I thought. That is why my cell used aluminum, magnesium, silver, and carbon. It gave increasing ionization potentials of 578, 731, 737, and 1087. I figured electrons would just move across from aluminum to carbon and create an electron flow.

I guess I was wrong.