My work on the Lead Electrode

Used a balance of sodium borate, sodium chloride, and citric acid, on a filtered sand basin (golf course leftover sand) with crushed eggshell. I believe that citric acid is less likely to form compounds with stray lead that might break off during the tin->tin(ii)chloride process which I am exploiting to turn this cast lump of soldering metal (60/40 tin/lead) into a lead dioxide-plated electrode. The trick is getting the borate<->citrate buffer right, because the chloride can always be zapped out. Also, as this is uncovered, the cell tends to generate its own structure through radial deposition of salts (moved by the fan), as well as the adsorption of materials to surfaces such as the eggshell, which serve as another balancing mechanism favoring reactions to occur within the four Z-cells.

[Edited on 18-8-2015 by PotatoSamurai]

Design schematics:

http://imgur.com/a/kdFap#0

If someone wants to move this thread to reagents/app acquisition that'd be fine.


http://imgur.com/a/Xm5Kz

Closeup of day 6 electrode, has not been recast yet retains a very limited area where the brine electrolyte managed to erode the tin sufficiently to create either tin or, on the anterior, a three-point array of contacts where a crater of lead dioxide may have formed in direct contact with the highly reactive Z3 cell's solution.



[Edited on 18-8-2015 by PotatoSamurai]

[Edited on 18-8-2015 by PotatoSamurai]

Do you have a standard lab format I could use as a template? I'll look around and then see what I can whip up that'll be to an acceptable standard for this forum.

In brief, I'm using a saline/organic acid bath to degrade this 60/40 tin solder ingot into a greater proportion of lead, for use as an electrolyzer anode in a more powerful device. This is currently using a 4.5v 400mA input.



[Edited on 18-8-2015 by PotatoSamurai]

Quote: Originally posted by PotatoSamurai

In brief, I'm using a saline/organic acid bath to degrade this 60/40 tin solder ingot into a greater proportion of lead, for use as an electrolyzer anode in a more powerful device. This is currently using a 4.5v 400mA input.

Here's my next plan: to add a hard drive magnet, still attached to the bracket, cemented/pressed to the bottom of an Altoids tin. Then, add the other parts of the previous basin design: aluminium foil, eggshell, and filtered sand.

Alnico 5 cast

Realized it'd be better if I flipped the plastic separator


Duct tape, one piece, sealing magnet to surface (except one little knob of the bracket which pokes out, and lines up the plastic)

[Edited on 19-8-2015 by PotatoSamurai]

Model 2: sealed space between bracket and alufoil with duct tape, then poured in the previous model's fill.








[Edited on 19-8-2015 by PotatoSamurai]

Quote: Originally posted by phlogiston

Didn't we already have threads called "absolutely random thoughts" and "random pictures"? Quote: Here's my next plan: to add a hard drive magnet, still Please, first begin by stating what the goal is of this plan, and your theory on how you hope it will work. Your first plan seems to have been intended to purify lead. There have been threads about this already, you could find a lot with the search engine. [Edited on 19-8-2015 by phlogiston]

If I'm being an annoyance, I won't take any insult if you move or REmove this thread. I figured "sciencemadness.org" might be more tolerant of drug-addled autistic tinkerers

I'm not looking for the shortest, most efficient path in developing my technique; it's more about learning to intuit the chemistry and physics involved, so that as I learn the hard math and methods I can analogize to my own personal experiments. I know that this is TOTALLY contrary to the scientific method, but as an autistic person this is the best way for me to learn. I was hoping the community would be able to guess my intent, and evaluate my choices against likely more effective options that I might have at hand. I don't intend to spend any money in this process, so that's a significant limitation I've placed on myself.

The speculative advantage of the basin magnet is using the magnetic field to "bend" the reaction zone towards it. When the plastic cartridge is in place, the magnet's body intersects the outer edge of Z 2-3 and a bit of 4, as below:


My hope is that with the magnet in place, reactive flow will be channeled from cell Z1 underneath the cartridge to the other cells.

After cleaning out the previous cartridge in model 1, which had a significant amount of borate in cell 3, I added borate to cells 2 and 3 in model 2. The cells had a roughly even borate distribution, but in an hour or so the only borate remaining was in the half of the cells that was nearest the magnet. I'm not really familiar enough with magnetodynamics to say whether this was coincidence or not, especially since the fan is also contributing potentially to accumulation patterns.

P.S. Thank you all for your patience with this humble nub!

[Edited on 19-8-2015 by PotatoSamurai]