Tap water battery 316L Stainless/Zinc

After my other earth cells redoxed out after 5 days i decided to exploit the reasonably large voltage potential between stainless steel and zinc. These cells are activated off tap water only. With a 20/80 coca cola/water mix the VP is higher and the materials seem to hold up well. I have also found potentials between high and low grades of stainless.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• battery
• voltage
• potential
• tap
• water
• stainles
• steel
• electrolytic
• fuel
• cell

[PirateOfTheInternet]

How long do your batteries last before they degrade?  I'm interested in building something like this, particularly the voltaic pile, for a project but I probably won't do it if they only last a few days before the metal corrodes and the battery stops working.

[Br0kenMan]

@PirateOfTheInternet The voltaic stack lasted around a week ... but the ouput is not very high. The zinc corrodes quite fast.

[abpccpba]

Regarding your stainless battery. It is quite similar to the battery - Volta Battery If you want a picture of the original battery made by Volta let me know and will send. They were originally called a pile.

[Br0kenMan]

@abpccpba thanks for the comment. Yes the design was taken from the voltaic pile as it is very economical with surface area. I wanted to slow down the rate of reaction to have the cells last longer which i achieved.

[Br0kenMan]

Thanks very much. You've spread light on things and it makes perfect sense to me.

[ugotdarongguy]

when u explained the materials for a single cell construction at 1:52, did u mean "stainless steel(SS)->porous/absorbent washer->Zn" instead of "SS->washer->SS"? and what is the name of the absorbent material? thx!

[Br0kenMan]

Yes sorry SS->porous washer->Zn->repeat. The washer is cut from a car chamois. Super absorbent cloth for drying cars after washing.

[whackitov]

put the cell in sunlight and see if theres any notable difference....sunlight hitting water creates a charge, cant recall if its negative or positive

[philippineagles]

have u tried stainless steel  and aluminum?

[blg53]

Oh, and the reason that your LED dims after a few seconds is because the chemical reaction produces gases which surround the electrodes and ask as insulators interrupting the circuit. Professional batteries have chemicals to absorb those gases. Obviously turning off and resuming after a few seconds will have a similar effect ... :o)

[blg53]

The reason it drops voltage when a decent load is applied is because tap water is a very poor electrolyte and as a result your battery has a very high internal resistance, so most of the voltage drop goes inside the battery and very little on the load.

[chrismofer]

its because the led (as a load) is obsorbing most of the electricity, so not very much gets to the meter.