Bio-friendly recycled materials battery

[SiliconWizard]

Observer,

Dont get me wrong, I wasnt knocking them. Actually, thats a pretty pain-free way of getting a lot of bulk and surface area in a small space. I never managed to get a water battery to light a JT (Actually, a few did but the JT flashed on and off. No constant light.)

Have you tried a little piece of carbon in contact with the bolt and insulated directly from the coins? It must be wet... You dont need much and it improved pretty much every type of cell I added it to.

I'm not sure exactly what it is doing, it doesnt have to be in circuit, just in contact with it as near to the outlet point as possible - I think though, its acting like a salt bridge in a split cell; deionisation of the electrolyte would definitely increase amps if not voltage, slightly, as well.

I had a look at the competition rules, 1VA will be hard work, you'll need a *lot* of bottles if they are .6V each and under a few mA - mine suck after the chemistry dies. Er... 'Keep taking the pills?' 

Seriously tho, good luck to you. They do have longevity on their side, mine wont last that long so I'm out - not that I'm interested in money anyway!

Peace

[jeanna]

Hi siliconwizard,
Welcome to the fun.

With your name I thought you were bringing us a silicon based battery. 
I like the idea of the sodium bentonite, and Ian used that successfully when making a hutchison type crystal cell, which he was convinced was non galvanic.

In using the charcoal, how are you connecting this?
Are you sticking a probe or alligator clip into a briquette?
I am using copper pipe, but charcoal is possibly better if the connection can be made secure.

I am glad you ordered the magnesium ribbon. It is really a breakthrough material for this, IMO.


thanks,

jeanna

[SiliconWizard]

Hi Jeanna

I feel welcomed indeed...

Sadly no, I have only just begun to experiment with the stuff outside of a computer. I was a programmer by 12 years old, and later got into processor R&D, but I've done many things. I now see myself more as an artist who uses physics, and I'm a wearer of many hats - some of them pointy lol. But hey, I can try... Come Metatron, my idle familiar, we have work to do...

In the bio-friendly cell, its just wrapped in the stainless mesh, itself wrapped in cloth. Theres a bit of a trick with charcoal, its no good getting briquettes.
I use only good quality lumpwood and choose a piece that has obviously been a big chunk of wood. It has a grain when broken open, and its the pieces from the center of a log, and hopefully the center of the oven that will have the best carbon.

I made a fizzy monster of a test cell with magnesium in bicarb solution, and the cathode was just a 2" piece of lumpwood with an alligator clip. It was however carefully chosen. Winding copper round it works too, I should imagine just jamming a piece in the copper tube would help.
Charcoal briquettes are very often recycled from cotton tree waste and other sources and are simply pulped and torched to hell without oxygen, which isnt good carbon. You'll stomp on a few bits before you see what I mean. Its not crumbly, its hard, brittle and flaky, black and not dark grey. Drawing charcoal didnt appear to work but thats usually willow sticks, little thin stuff that can percolate CO2 out, reducing the carbon in the structure.

For a dry cell, I had the idea of powdering it and wetting it with salt, bicarb or something crystalline, then stuffing it into a tube that had been pre-lined with sodium laced bentonite and compressing it while it dries. I'd need a serious press which I dont have to mechanically bind charcoal so I thought the salts would perform as a binder when they recrystallise on drying. Should hold it together so long as it stays less than damp...

During the filling of the tube, the idea was to insert a bit of stainless mesh that runs the length of the core. I've found mesh and powder work well together, theres a lot of potential points of contact even with poor charcoal and stainless doesnt corrode significantly, where copper oxide is bad news.

Actually, not always. Copper oxide is another killer material but thats for another thread entirely. I've made some really cool stuff with that too.

No problem. What else can one do with free energy but give it away?