Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Begginer electrochemisty projects?

Begginer electrochemisty projects?

LD5050 - 27-7-2017 at 09:41

I was wondering if I could get some ideas and help from some of you on some ideas pertaining to electrochemistry. I was thinking of building an electrolysis setup to further my knowledge on the subject. Right now I know pretty much nothing on the subject. I am horrible with electricity but I find it interesting.

For starters maybe making iron oxide? I saw a quick video where they fill a container with a saturated sodium chloride water solution and use a nail and a thin wire for the electrodes.

Also I saw something a while back making benzaldehyde from toluene from such a process.

Any suggestions on where I could start to gain a good understanding of this? What are common power sources ? I think I have seen people use lap top chargers and such. In the mean time I will do some digging of my own but I was hoping maybe some of you could shoot me some ideas. Thanks

[Edited on 7-27-2017 by LD5050]

JJay - 27-7-2017 at 10:18

Sodium bromate is a good one. Chrome plating. I use a lab power supply that allows regulating the voltage or current, but a lot of people use cell phone chargers and such things.

XeonTheMGPony - 27-7-2017 at 10:32

Start with water cracking once you can get good results with a clean cell then move on from there as making h2 and o2 is very forgiving to oop'ses

Then move on to a chloral-Alkali cell (Bubble the chlorine through sodium carbonate or bicarb)

Start with a 12V iron core battery charger and a motor speed controller to adjust the voltage, light dimmers will work if they will handle an inductive load. and a good volt and amp meter.

[Edited on 27-7-2017 by XeonTheMGPony]

j_sum1 - 27-7-2017 at 16:42

You could make some sulfuric acid from concentrated CuSO4 solution using a lead anode.
You get some good practice an the Faraday equations as well as general practice. The bonus is that you get some dilute H2SO4 which you can concentrate if needed. You also get a pretty good lead dioxide anode that you can use for other electrochemistry projects.

edit: typo

[Edited on 28-7-2017 by j_sum1]

violet sin - 27-7-2017 at 17:51

I love electro chem, spent hours upon hours tinkering away, learning from the source itself. I'm US based so bear that in mind ...

1) Get a harbor freight digital multimeter for free when you spend 5$ on anything else there. Get a few if you can. No use in fudging up a 60$ unit learning.

2) get an old ATX power supply if you can from a bunk PC. Use YouTube to figure how to wire it up. That will give you 12v, 5v, 3.3v . Or eBay has some ZVS power supplies for cheap. Phone chargers only gonna give you 5v at somewhere between 500mA and 2A.

3) buy/find/salvage some copper wire that is decently thick .. say 12ga - 14ga would be good, 14 is smaller of the two.

4) Get a couple dedicated containers from dollar store or thrift store. Soda bottles and jars can be easy to tip over. At least get a larger guy to put stuff in while powered, as a catch tray. You down want to spill electrified sol down the front of you

5) start gathering a few things from around the house and play. Epsom salt, baking soda, table salt, these will work as electrolytes.

6) my fave,... Have fun

-----------------------

It's a lot easier to see how things react in person all hands on and what not.

Electrode size, spacing between, surface area and shape all contribute. Start to get an idea how long it's going to take to accomplish things by watching how fast copper corrodes into solution. Learn the balance between speedy and slow for your power source, then of course dream of having more power, then realize just more.. is a bad idea. It has to be the proper version of more to do anything useful.

What fun it was learning all that the first time

and if your making copper hydroxide (copper hydroxy-carbonates) it's really REALLY hard to mess up. But the product can be cleaned and roasted to make black copper(II) oxide.

After you get the hang of it, the field opens endlessly !!! All dependant on how much you read, what upgrades you get for equipment, etc. If you feed it, it will grow

PirateDocBrown - 28-7-2017 at 02:56

violet sin is right about ATX supplies.

Not only can they give you their rated voltages, but you can use them to give voltages that are the differences between them.

12-3.3 = 8.7
5-3.3 = 1.7
12-5 = 7

So you have 6 possible voltages. They have good current outputs, too, I was getting nearly 20 amps at 12v. And if you burn one out, they are cheap! I can get used ones from a local surplus store for $5.

There are nice rectangular glass vases I spotted the other day that would make great electrochemical cells. They looked like 8x8 glass blocks, cut in half. (Maybe they were)

Certainly look for scrap copper. You can cut a water pipe on one side and flatten it out, to make a long and narrow, but thick, strip, perfect as an electrode.

Also some plastic tubs, for spill containment.

Sulaiman - 28-7-2017 at 03:32

Just a small side note:
I recently ordered a digital multimeter, AN8002 (aka ZT102), it is in the post.
If anyone is interested I can give a review when it arrives but there are many reviews online, and not only is it useful for the volts and amps etc. it comes with a thermocouple probe to measure temperature, which is also important in electrochemistry.

Sorry if already mentioned, the most important part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_electrode_potential_(data_page)

Review of AN8002 Digital Multimeter

Sulaiman - 18-8-2017 at 23:30

Excellent value;
. very clear display w/backlight, stable readings, all ranges tested so far well within specifications
e.g. Weston Cell, 1.01859 V reads as 1.017 ... one digit / 0.1 % error vs spec. of 0.5%.
the capacitance range is useful and accurate.
All ranges auto-zero. comes with thermocouple probe and a cute bag so you don't scratch your cute meter.
Fuses on volts and amps terminals, tested on 240 Vac no problem.
If you are looking for a cheap but good dmm, I recommend the AN8002
(no, I'm not getting any reward for promoting it

Aneng AN8002 = Zotek ZT102 = KASUNTEST ZT102 = other aliases
eBay, Amazon, Banggood etc. all sell it.

This meter should meet most requirements of members here.
.........................................................................................

There are other models in the range, e.g. the AN8008 10,000 count, 1 uV resolution BUT 10mA and 100mA ranges absent !

wg48 - 19-8-2017 at 03:30

Quote: Originally posted by PirateDocBrown

violet sin is right about ATX supplies.

Not only can they give you their rated voltages, but you can use them to give voltages that are the differences between them.

12-3.3 = 8.7
5-3.3 = 1.7
12-5 = 7

That is not possible because if current flows into the positive supplies the voltage will attempt to rise. Depending on the particular configuration of the power supply that can damage it or cause the over voltage/regulator circuit to operate in an attempt to stop the rise in voltage.

That can also happen if you attempt to draw current from the negative voltages.

That’s also true of bench power supplies unless they a specifically designed to operate that way and most are not.

Edit: removed the reference to the common 0v as its not relevent in this context.

[Edited on 19-8-2017 by wg48]

Melgar - 20-8-2017 at 20:25

Quote: Originally posted by Sulaiman

Excellent value;
. very clear display w/backlight, stable readings, all ranges tested so far well within specifications
e.g. Weston Cell, 1.01859 V reads as 1.017 ... one digit / 0.1 % error vs spec. of 0.5%.
the capacitance range is useful and accurate.
All ranges auto-zero. comes with thermocouple probe and a cute bag so you don't scratch your cute meter.
Fuses on volts and amps terminals, tested on 240 Vac no problem.
If you are looking for a cheap but good dmm, I recommend the AN8002
(no, I'm not getting any reward for promoting it

Does it shut itself off if you forget to turn it off for an hour or so? That's the main problem I have with my current one, is that it doesn't. That, and it takes a 9V battery, and those cost like $5 if I want to buy one from anywhere nearby.

Oh, by the way, for electrochemistry, current and current density is more important than voltage. Phone chargers actually work better than a lot of the solutions that people here are describing, because they max out at their rated current or voltage, whichever is reached first. This is necessary because a lot of phones can be charged faster than chargers can supply power, and because really, batteries are a case of electrochemistry too. So assuming you have a phone charger rated at 5V and 1000mA, you can just measure the voltage across it, and if it's below 5V, you know the current exactly. You can also use multiple chargers in parallel, since the circuit in cell phone power supplies is different from a voltage regulator, and doesn't experience the same problems when using them in parallel.

Also, for like $3, you can get one of these things, which is far less prone to damaged wires than any I've made myself from old cables:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/201657672492

Sulaiman - 20-8-2017 at 21:52

Quote: Originally posted by Melgar

Does it shut itself off if you forget to turn it off for an hour or so?

Yes it has auto-power-off, after 14 minutes of inactivity the meter gives a few warning beeps, then at 15 minutes it powers down with a last beep.

Melgar - 20-8-2017 at 22:14

Quote: Originally posted by Sulaiman

Yes it has auto-power-off, after 14 minutes of inactivity the meter gives a few warning beeps, then at 15 minutes it powers down with a last beep.

Nice. And it uses AAA batteries too, which are easy to come by. I ended up getting the AN8008 version for like $20, since it comes with leads that you can replace the tips on. So you can have your ground, as say, an alligator clip or a screw terminal, and have the other lead be a regular probe. It can also measure frequency and count pulses, which should substantially reduce the frequency with which I wish I had an oscilloscope.

edit: To stay on-topic, I've been considering setting up a stannous chloride electroreduction cell in HCl that would reduce SnCl4 to SnCl2, and recycle it constantly, so you don't get a ton of tin salts in your workup. It'd have to be a divided cell though, presumably with SnSO4 on the other side, to prevent electrode damage. The membrane could be made from thick polyester cloth, which isn't damaged by HCl significantly.

[Edited on 8/21/17 by Melgar]

Sulaiman - 22-8-2017 at 00:58

For £6.75 I can get two 6V lantern batteries (zinc chloride) delivered to me,

that gives four cells to use as a power supply (1.5V, 3V, 4.5V, 6V)

and four cells to dissect to obtain;
. Four carbon rods (to use as electrolysis electrodes)
. very pure zinc
. manganese dioxide (mixed with carbon and zinc chloride)
. a piece of zinc chloride impregnated paper

combined with metals and electrolytes found around the home,
there are few limits.

[Edited on 22-8-2017 by Sulaiman]