Wacky - DIY Aluminum-Air battery.

[AttyPops]

Aluminum Foil, Saltwater, Air (trapped in activated carbon), paper towel, some wire.

DIY Salt Battery Urine Can Charge Your Smart Phone! - DIY Tryin

The UP side?
1) Doesn't explode that I know of.
2) Lots more amps than using that lemon tree out back
3) Common materials.

Down side?
Cost of activated carbon. Can be had pretty inexpensively though.

They charge a cell phone at 5 volts with several small batts hooked in series. But I suppose your e-cig could charge too.

I'm not 100% positive on this, but it looks like there's enough amps to actually vape off of if you're not sub-ohm. May have to parallel some to get the amps up...combo parallel and series setup.

Don't ask me how long the reaction lasts...IDK.

Thought it was fun in a modding kind of way.

Enjoy. And as always...be safe, think first, use caution.

 

[TomCatt]

Just did a quick test of this with carbon black, salt water, paper towel and aluminum foil - 0.8V output.

 

[TomCatt]

Would most likely work with crushed charcoal briquets (just do that outside and preferrably with some kind of dust mask on ).

 

[AttyPops]

Check the AMPS!!!!!!!!!!! You'd be surprised for the size. Beats a lemon by 100x, they said!

EDIT: I suspect amps are related to surface area....like we expect with most batteries.

 

[AttyPops]

Yeah, I don't understand the activated carbon part of it yet. They said it was about trapped oxygen.

However, isn't carbon/charcoal made with a low oxygen "burn"? And if it's oxygen...why not use just air (20% oxygen). So IDK. I'll have to look this up.....

I'm not smart enough to understand why it works....not a chemist nor physicist nor battery expert. Maybe you know, Catt.

 

[TomCatt]

Not really into "chemistry" chemistry ; more into analytical chemistry. So don't know off the top of my head how/why it works other than electron flow through the ions.


ETA:
"Trapped oxygen" is probably referring to the air pockets formed around the 'pellet' or 'chunk' carbon (and within the pellets/chunks themselves).

 

[TomCatt]

Aluminium-Air Battery - Wikipedia

They have one of the highest energy densities of all batteries, but they are not widely used because of problems with high anode cost and byproduct removal when using traditional electrolytes and this has restricted their use to mainly military applications.

About 1.2 volts potential difference is created by these reactions, and is achievable in practice when potassium hydroxide is used as the electrolyte. Saltwater electrolyte achieves approximately 0.7 volts per cell.

 

[AttyPops]

Be careful when experimenting.....

MAY produce gasses in the reaction (like hydrogen). IDK if it does though, just a thought.

 

[AttyPops]

FYI - The aluminum is the anode.

 

[funkshin]

I believe you may have answered this post with your previous one. Activated carbon has an absurd amount of surface area. According to the wikipedia a gram has > 500 m².

Cool battery.

Yeah, I don't understand the activated carbon part of it yet. They said it was about trapped oxygen.

However, isn't carbon/charcoal made with a low oxygen "burn"? And if it's oxygen...why not use just air (20% oxygen). So IDK. I'll have to look this up.....

I'm not smart enough to understand why it works....not a chemist nor physicist nor battery expert. Maybe you know, Catt.

 

[Ohms Lawbreaker]

Cool! Tin foil hat and battery to run the alien signal scrambler all in one!

 

[AttyPops]

I believe you may have answered this post with your previous one. Activated carbon has an absurd amount of surface area. According to the wikipedia a gram has > 500 m².

Cool battery.

The surface area remark was about the amps. Basically the more square inches of aluminum foild/carbon the more amps. Voltage stays the same.

You're correct though about activated carbon and it's surface area....crazy huge. And I'm sure that's part of the oxygen thing.

Upon more research...since you have to have something to use as a cathode...they use activated carbon in this example. Easy and cheap. Pressing on it increased the amps due to making better connection between carbon granules. At least that was one theory.