Post by Leon Grad on Feb 1, 2024 17:15:45 GMT
So I'm just obsessed with the salt water battery idea. Salt water's super cheap, it all over 71% of the Earth's surface, and so it's super interesting for people that live near the sea and Pangean Countries like Relica. This is why I decided to revisit the idea.
This time I got a whole lot smarter.
I filled another little glass mason jar with salted water (near saturation point). First of all in our previous experiment our electrodes were both at the same distance from the bottom of the battery. I realized this might be a mistake because if we charge the water with the solar panel, there might be some electrolysis going on, and the two resulting chemicals would likely have different mass, so one would sink and the other would rise up.
So in my new setup, I placed one electrode just under the surface of the salt water, and the other electrode I dumped it in all the way to the bottom of the little jar. I insulated the wire going down, naturally. This way, the idea was, the bottom electrode would only harvest the charge of the denser molecules, and the upper electrode would only harvest the opposite charge of the lighter molecules.
So I was about to "charge" the thing with the solar panel but then it hit me: I don't actually need the solar panel to charge that battery. In fact it might be that we don't even need any electricity at all, to charge the salt water battery.
You see, Salt is made of a chlorine atom and a sodium atom. Electrolysis would force the atoms apart, but there's another way to get there: introduce a more attractive metal.
In theory, if I were to just drop a piece of metal at the bottom of the solution, the chlorine atoms would be attracted to it. They'd release the sodium atoms, which don't have that great of a bond, and instead seek to bind with the much more attractive stainless steel or nickel or whatever.
So before everything I took an initial reading of the salt water, through the two electrodes (Figure 1 of the illustration). As you'd expect, there were zero current, zero volt.
So I pulled the electrodes out and then I dropped a 25 cents coin in the mix (Figure 2), waited for like 30 seconds, and then I pulled the coin back out (Figure 3). Finally, I reintroduced the electrodes and took a new reading (Figure 4). The salt water was now giving out 0.16 Volt!
What I think happened is that the metal of the coin was more attractive than sodium, so the chlorine in the salt water let go of the sodium and moved deeper down towards the coin. This literally charged the "battery". When I pulled the coin back out, the chlorine was still at the bottom and the sodium was at the top. After all, chlorine atoms are much heavier than sodium atoms so that works in our favor. Not all chlorine atoms had time to bind with the coin so even if we remove the coin there are now two zones of different molecules and different charges.
When I measured the charge it gravitated around 0.16 Volt.
This seems like a small charge but it's actually significant since the jar was kinda small and since we let the coin marinate only like thirty seconds or so.
It's also a huge breakthrough since there are no electricity involved to charge the battery, no generator needed, no solar panels, nothing. It just needs to enter in contact with a plate of metal. Since we don't input energy there's no electrolysis so none of the solution starts evaporating, all the elements stay in there.
We need to try and replicate this finding. I used metal electrodes, which is something we'd need to address since it might interfere with the results of the experiment (the electrodes themselves might act as a galvanic battery). The experiment was pretty rough and needs lots of improvements.
if it really works, though, this would be huge. Imagine a battery that you could charge by just placing on an ordinary plate of steel, no fancy generators needed. Plus it could be produced by anyone, using recycled materials. It wouldn't be toxic, it wouldn't explode, it's just a container full of salt water.
Did you try building yours? Share your results!
This time I got a whole lot smarter.
I filled another little glass mason jar with salted water (near saturation point). First of all in our previous experiment our electrodes were both at the same distance from the bottom of the battery. I realized this might be a mistake because if we charge the water with the solar panel, there might be some electrolysis going on, and the two resulting chemicals would likely have different mass, so one would sink and the other would rise up.
So in my new setup, I placed one electrode just under the surface of the salt water, and the other electrode I dumped it in all the way to the bottom of the little jar. I insulated the wire going down, naturally. This way, the idea was, the bottom electrode would only harvest the charge of the denser molecules, and the upper electrode would only harvest the opposite charge of the lighter molecules.
So I was about to "charge" the thing with the solar panel but then it hit me: I don't actually need the solar panel to charge that battery. In fact it might be that we don't even need any electricity at all, to charge the salt water battery.
You see, Salt is made of a chlorine atom and a sodium atom. Electrolysis would force the atoms apart, but there's another way to get there: introduce a more attractive metal.
In theory, if I were to just drop a piece of metal at the bottom of the solution, the chlorine atoms would be attracted to it. They'd release the sodium atoms, which don't have that great of a bond, and instead seek to bind with the much more attractive stainless steel or nickel or whatever.
So before everything I took an initial reading of the salt water, through the two electrodes (Figure 1 of the illustration). As you'd expect, there were zero current, zero volt.
So I pulled the electrodes out and then I dropped a 25 cents coin in the mix (Figure 2), waited for like 30 seconds, and then I pulled the coin back out (Figure 3). Finally, I reintroduced the electrodes and took a new reading (Figure 4). The salt water was now giving out 0.16 Volt!
What I think happened is that the metal of the coin was more attractive than sodium, so the chlorine in the salt water let go of the sodium and moved deeper down towards the coin. This literally charged the "battery". When I pulled the coin back out, the chlorine was still at the bottom and the sodium was at the top. After all, chlorine atoms are much heavier than sodium atoms so that works in our favor. Not all chlorine atoms had time to bind with the coin so even if we remove the coin there are now two zones of different molecules and different charges.
When I measured the charge it gravitated around 0.16 Volt.
This seems like a small charge but it's actually significant since the jar was kinda small and since we let the coin marinate only like thirty seconds or so.
It's also a huge breakthrough since there are no electricity involved to charge the battery, no generator needed, no solar panels, nothing. It just needs to enter in contact with a plate of metal. Since we don't input energy there's no electrolysis so none of the solution starts evaporating, all the elements stay in there.
We need to try and replicate this finding. I used metal electrodes, which is something we'd need to address since it might interfere with the results of the experiment (the electrodes themselves might act as a galvanic battery). The experiment was pretty rough and needs lots of improvements.
if it really works, though, this would be huge. Imagine a battery that you could charge by just placing on an ordinary plate of steel, no fancy generators needed. Plus it could be produced by anyone, using recycled materials. It wouldn't be toxic, it wouldn't explode, it's just a container full of salt water.
Did you try building yours? Share your results!