a Voltaic Pile Battery

[onthecuttingedge2005]

is that what that is? Zinc?  i tried to sand a few of them, but it seems the pennies made after 1989 or so are not copper, but actually copper-coated, with a silverish alloy inside, that is much closer to aluminum on the electrochemical scale, only producing 0.15v between penny and aluminum, so i left the copper coating on to get the full 0.5v per cell.
Zinc would make sense... i didnt bother to study up on it, just figured it was best to not sand them, but clean them instead.

My goal is to achieve at least 12 volts from this. To test its pheasibility as a "doomsday power supply", made from very-common materials.

Hi Smoky.

If your Lincoln Memorial penny has a date of 1982 or earlier, it is made of 95% copper. If the date is 1983 or later, it is made of 97.5% zinc and plated with a thin copper coating.

zinc is a very good negative element and copper being the positive.
I even tried it with silver which is better than copper. carbon is lighter and cheaper and works pretty good too in place of copper.

here is an electronegative chart.
http://www.standnes.no/chemix/periodictable/electronegativity-chart.htm
on this chart the lower the electronegative number is more positive compared to another higher in number is more negative.

the best battery would be of Cesium and Fluorine, Cesium being the most positive element and Fluorine being the most negative element. Fluorine is a very reactive element in fact Fluorine reacts the most of any reactive element known to man. it is the most negative element.

Cesium is also a double electron donor, it emits 2 electrons instead of 1 in chemical reactions. it is the most positive element.

the type of electrolyte you use makes a major difference as well. it must react efficiently with both anode and cathode elements.

salt water, may not be a good electrolyte for all element combination's.

Jerry

[sm0ky2]

thanks Jerry,

i guess the plan from here on, is to get rid of the aluminum cans, because they degrade rapidly.
and instead, sand the coating off of the newer pennies, and alternate them with older ones.
using a conbination of copper and zinc. which is closer to Volta's original battery (salt water verson, as i am not going to mess with sulfuric acid)

[sm0ky2]

after sanding a few pennies down, i had some concens about remaining bits of copper on the zinc pennies interfering with the reaction. So i ran a few preliminary tests.

a two-pennie cell is reading in at a whopping 0.9v

two-cell stack is measuring well over 1.5v

so this works great, and should be more "durable" than using aluminum cans.
i'll post more pics and results as the battery grows...

think i need to rig up some sort of penny-vice and get the dremmell going here.

[onthecuttingedge2005]

thanks Jerry,

i guess the plan from here on, is to get rid of the aluminum cans, because they degrade rapidly.
and instead, sand the coating off of the newer pennies, and alternate them with older ones.
using a conbination of copper and zinc. which is closer to Volta's original battery (salt water verson, as i am not going to mess with sulfuric acid)

vinegar or concentrated lemon or lime juice and or both could be used safely and they are acids.

Jerry

[sm0ky2]

i thought about that when i started
but the reason i went with salt-paper was sustainability.

salt paper cells last a lot longer, by absorbing moisture from the air.
so even when it appears "dry", there is still voltage/current available from te battery.
whereas a lemon-cell will dry out quickly and stop working.