Electrolyte problem

[Zipster]

Hi there,

Here is some background: I'm building an electrolyzer of the "dry cell type" in order to make a welding setup. My design is based on the Smack Gen IV. The plates are 300mm X 150mm (10mm gasket surround). The gaskets are 3mm thick. The stack is a dual cell 13 plates running on 24v battery bank.

Getting to the problem: I'm testing my cell at the moment and something inexplainable is happening. I'm using pure KOH and yesterday my concentration was 3 table spoon/L the cell was pulling 10 amps. Today I doubled the amount of KOH to 6sp/L and the amperage is the same... 10amps..! I have checked all my leads and tubes to see if any kind of restrictive problem was occurring. The leads are not heating at all (10A/600v rated), same for the connections, no heat, good contacts, the tubes are doing well (10mm id). The batteries are full, they are delivering a bit over 24v.

Do you have any idea why the amps are not going up when I'm doubling the amount of electrolyte? I should have at the very least 20A at this stage and I do not understand what is happening. The solution is far to be saturated. Maybe I should try with NaOH.. Let me know if you have a clue on what is happening.

PS: I'm naturally purging the whole system completely between each test.

[Doug1]

Distilled water? Sounds like you have a contamination in the water.

[sushimoto]

Sounds like your meter has its limit at 10A.