bquirky - 24-10-2008 at 23:33
Gday Gents,
Im new to this forum so hello all,
I have been doing a lot of work trying to find ways to make usable secondary battery's from common materials.
I have ruled out lead because of its mass and i don't want to handle the powder, nickel is to expensive and hard to acquire to be practical.
however i have had quite a bit of luck using copper oxide and zinc or iron in a sodium hydroxide solution. and using a home made porous separator made
from paper coated in a mixture of OTC wood floor polyeurothane and baking powder dried and then desolved in an acid.
Im currently trying a IronII oxide to IronIII oxide cell but dont have any reportable results yet
But what i would really like to try is making a room temperature Aluminum cell with a non aqueous electrolyte.
The problem that i am having is finding a findable electrolyte ! all of the patents that i have found seem to use some exotic (to me) organic
solvents.
I have tryed various combinations of OTC solvents and salts. I evan managed to get my hands on a very small quantity of DMSO which acctuly disolved
some salts but remained non conductive.
I just dont seem to be getting anywhere 
Dose anybody have any ideas on how i might make even a poorly preforming electrolyte ?
Thanks
12AX7 - 25-10-2008 at 07:41
What's wrong with water? Water is too common to patent so of course you won't find it patented. Most of the aqueous chemistries are over a century
old anyway.
An oxidizer, like anything copper(II), and a reducer, like zinc or aluminum, are good choices. Copper sulfate in solution represents the ancient
gravity cell, not a bad source, though generally low in current.
DMSO is polar, so it can dissolve ionic salts, but it is nonionic, so nonconductive.
Tim
bquirky - 25-10-2008 at 21:51
I wanted to try using aluminum and possibly some other reactive metals so i assume that rules out water.
so i need to find a ionic organic solvent that i can get my hands on.
any ideas on a OTC source ?
Thanks
Bryden
not_important - 26-10-2008 at 00:00
This might do https://sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=10529&... although I suspect it would react with the metals you want to use.
There is a reason the "exotic solvents" used in commercial batteries are used, they work while more common ones don't.