Does anyone have any advice on attempting to build NiFe batteries? Well besides "don't".
I'm going to build something. I'd rather do it myself where I can rebuild it later, than having a large recurring bill. I like the idea of the NiFe over lead acid for safety in building them.
I'm just going to dump a lot of info at once as I think of what I've found so far. I just don't want to be pointed at "there's this guy who sells this thing that..." This seemed like the better place for info in searching.
I read through Bill Blake's comments in other threads. Thanks Bill! His posts are the ones I found via Google. I've also seen a lot of other stuff, and a lot of questionable claims.
The ChangHong documentation on theirs says they use "nickel [II] hydroxide and graphite" for the positive plate; "ferroferric oxide" for the negative plate; both in plates made of "perforated steel strips"; "KOH aqueous solution with a little LiOH" for the electrolyte. The electrolyte is later defined as KOH 240~270g/L, and 20g LiOH, but they don't specify if the LiOH is per liter or not.
Reading through what have about the Edison battery is enough to give anyone a headache. There's enough conflicting information out there, where the plates may be a squirrel and a goldfish.
So far the running theme is:
Positive: Nickel (electroplate), NiO, Ni2O3, BaNiO3.
Negative: Iron (plate or powder), FeO, Fe2O3, Fe3O4, Fe(OH)2
And various electrolytes.
Some say solid plates. Some say flakes or powder in something (like ChangHong's "perforated steel strips"). Of course, nobody defines "steel", so I don't have a clue about carbon content, or even if they're talking about another alloy like stainless steel.
Here's my initial thoughts on it, that I would try first if I started experimenting today.
Packed powdered Ni2O3 and FeO in plastic tubes with open tops, and carbon rods down the middle of the tubes for conductivity. Electrolyte covering all the powder and above the tops of the tubes. First test would be with just water as an electrolyte, then various mixes of whatever.
If that was successful, expand that out to plastic plates, like 3x4x0.25" filled the same way. Only one electrode per plate should be necessary, I think.
That's not to build anything that would be production, it would just be experimenting with single 2 plate cells.
Opinions?
If it's not practical, then I'll just punt to making lead acid batteries. I can just cast plates, make housings, and assemble them myself. I just think the NiFe battery sounds more practical.