There's a Homemade battery pdf online that spells in detail how to make copper/aluminum cells. While they suggest pop cans with copper tubing, i'm going with what i have: I cleaned up 3 of the 5 inch long lengths 3/4 rigid copper tubing. I split open three aluminum cans with scissors. Fashion some aluminum tubes from the aluminum sheets with vinyl tape. The Al. tubes fit into the copper tubes, and do not touch the copper. Afixed wire leads to all the tubes. Wrapped the top and bottom of each of the copper tubes with vinyl tape, so when they are gathered together they don't touch each other.
Gathered the three cells together and bound them with vinyl tape. Hooked the cells in series, with wire nuts. Placed all this into a half liter water bottle with the top cut off. Poured in a solution of half a teaspoon of Sodium Hypochloride to half a liter of water. (that's really pretty strong according to the book) 3 cells together in series only yielded slightly over one volt. This is disappointing, as the book lead me to believe each cell would make over 1 volt. The wire nuts i'm using have a hole in the end so i can test each cell without having to unwire. It all seems to add up. There is no sluggish cell, or bad connection.
Meanwhile my eight "nail cells" in series had been sitting on a towel in the open air for a day, and still yield 6 volts. They cannot produce enough current to light the smallest LED.
I know if i mix stronger solutions i'll get more reaction and more voltage but much shorter cell life.
Lead/acid wins again. |
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