I always go with a Gillette myself and don't really have any experience with these beyond trying one a couple of times, and not liking it.
Prior to dunking one into a cell, try dunking one fresh out of the pack into some acid and see if there's any sign whatsoever of effervescence.
I'd be curious to know if the plating has formed as a clean, intact layer or if it's fractured at a microscopic scale. Then try giving one a quick
flex* and repeat the pickle process to see if the bending has caused any fractures to open up.
If not, they could be useful yep.
Plating usually entails attaching the object to plated to one terminal of a circuit. In such cases, there is inevitably a spot somewhere on the object
where it's been resting on the contact; a spot which has not been plated as per the rest.
With the blades, the contact was probably made by sliding them onto a rod through the hole which is used to position them on the razor's handle. If I
dunked one, I would expect to possibly see the fizzing coming from around there.
*I've been told by members of the generation above that the method for sharpening these blades was to put them in a glass tumbler, press them against
the side and then swish them side to side against the wall; in a similar fashion to a barber sharpening a cut throat / single edge blade against a
leather strap.
[Edited on 30-12-2011 by peach]hissingnoise - 30-12-2011 at 11:51
The Pt plating is probably confined to the area near the cutting edge!
Expecting them to serve as useful anodes seems fanciful . . .
Xenoid - 30-12-2011 at 14:24
Whilst not being exactly razor BLADES there are apparently Pt coated replacement foils available for certain Remington?? electric razors. They are
used here;
to build a simple homemade hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell. Very useful in that they are very thin, and have lots of etched holes to allow gasses through.
They could possibly be used for perchlorate and other electrochemical cells.
I recall searching for them on the web a few years ago without too much success. Possibly not readily available anymore!
EDIT: Ah, - no they are Braun part no. 265/266 or equivalent!
[Edited on 30-12-2011 by Xenoid]White Yeti - 30-12-2011 at 17:32
Pt has a low electrical conductivity for a metal, giving it a relatively high resistivity. This is unfortunate because thin platinum coatings cannot
handle much current and heat up quite a bit. The more the coating heats up, the more likely it is to flake off due to the thermal expansion
coefficient difference between the platinum and substrate material.
I've read that some contact lens solution bottles have platinum coated beads that kill bacteria, but they are being phased out.peach - 30-12-2011 at 20:26
I've read that some contact lens solution bottles have platinum coated beads that kill bacteria, but they are being phased out.
There's platinum in there? I'm rich! I have a load of those things!
They're supposed to be thrown out every month or so.
The newer contact lenses, that came out about five or ten years ago (the disposable kind) are silicone hydrogel. As the front of the eye has no blood
supply, it has to absorb oxygen directly from the atmosphere. Older lenses blocked the oxygen transfer, the cells around the cornea would die and
leave behind microscopic voids, which could then serve as safe havens for bacteria to grow. The hydrogels are supposed to be so permeable that they
can be left it for a month or more. Although this idiot frequently leaves his in for monthS.
The older cleaning solutions ruin the gel I believe. When the hydrogels appeared, they started using buffered hydrogen peroxide cleaning solution
instead.
When the cleaning bottle is filled with the peroxide, it begins to rapidly decompose with effervescence. By the morning, it's stopped entirely. It
does work nicely.
I wasn't aware that these cleaners were being phased out, as they're not all that old and work well. But I also haven't been to the opticians in well
over a year.
As these are disposable, and I've never seen any attempt at the opticians to recover them for recycling, there is likely not a lot of platinum there.
From the few times I've bothered looking at the case in any detail, I think the catalytic element is a solid piece of plastic as opposed to a porous
mass. But there's obviously enough to decompose the peroxide, so perhaps they could be of use catalyzing something else.
One thing I do know for sure is that people who wear them and use the peroxide cleaners will have handfuls of them they can give you.
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