Picric-A - 25-8-2008 at 14:36
Can someone give me a way of increasing the amps in a circuit for electrolosis, for ecample starting with a car battery (i think car batterys are 12
amps) how can i get it to say 50?
The_Davster - 25-8-2008 at 14:59
Between this and your other thread on platinum wire, I can say that you will need a very expensive amount of platinum if you want to carry 50A through
it. Platinum is not a miracle electrode material, at high current densities it can loose mass, I do not say dissolving, but fine platinum metal
actually falls off the electrode at high current densities.
But if that is not relevant, if you put your electrodes close enough together, your resistance will drop and you may be able to pull more amps out of
the battery.
However I do not know if car batteries are made for higher amp applications, it could heat up and vent at higher amp loads causing it to vent perhaps
spraying acid.
Picric-A - 25-8-2008 at 15:29
I actually intended the high amp powersource for use in a chlorate cell with thick carbon electrodes.
The platinum i intended on running at 2 amps. sorry for the confusion.
not_important - 25-8-2008 at 17:55
Lowering the path resistance will increase current flow for a given voltage. This means larger and shorter wires, the best low-resistance connections
you can do, lower resistance electrodes, reducing electrolysis cell resistance as much as possible (close electrode spacing, large electrode area, hot
electrolyte, increasing salt concentration, do a search on it).
Note that batteries have an internal resistance that will cause their voltage to drop as the current pulled increases.
The amp hour rating will give you the maximum current X time product for the battery, there is derating for very low or high currents, and for
temperatures not near 20 C. The Cranking Amps CA and Cold Cranking Amps rating is the amperage that can be delivered for 30 seconds without the output
voltage dropping below 7.2 volts. The Reserve Capacity RC is the number of minutes a fully charged battery will delivery 25 amps until the voltage
drops below 10.5 volts. Those number will give you a feel for what any single battery can do.
Beyond that you need to parallel batteries. To do so you need a way to prevent a battery with a slightly higher voltage from trying to drive a lower
voltage battery backwards - charging it. The best way to do this is to put a Schottky diode between each battery and the common tie point that the
electrolytic cell will connect to (only need to do this on one pole). You'll need to electrically disconnect the batteries for recharging, charging
each one individually.
Picric-A - 26-8-2008 at 00:36
cool thanks for the help guys