Make a Zinc Air Battery
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- In this video we show how to make a Zinc Air Battery.
First you'll need to make a solution of 50g of sodium hydroxide in 150mL of water. Stir it until it completely dissolves. Be careful as it will heat up a lot. Set it aside to cool.
Now get a zinc sheet (we cut one out of a carbon zinc battery in a previous video: • Get Zinc, Carbon Elect... ) and attach a wire to it and attach another wire to some steel wool. We then wrap the steel wool with a paper towel to serve as a separator. The zinc is then wrapped around the paper towel/steel wool and the whole assembly is placed into a container. The steel wool has to be exposed to air to allow the oxygen to get in. The electrolyte of sodium hydroxide is added and the battery is ready.
I hated chemistry in college, but your experiments are making all that chemistry that i learned some sense..
I know this is a chem channel, but since people are asking how this could be used, you could get a MCP1624 from Microchip which is under 50 cents each, add one inductor, 2 capacitors, and 2 resistors and you now have a boost supply. Set it for 5V (using the resistors) and you now have USB charging power. It would run from one of these batteries, but hope you are up on your surface mount soldering if you plan to build it.
There is no acid in this video
I Used filterpaper rather than the paper towel to make the reaction i got around 1.24-1.25 volts which was vey stable for atleast 3 hours. then i diluted the concentration of NaOH to 300ml and then the emf shot up to 1.35 volts. Thanks for the experiment Dr.N Butyl Lithium
I like that your sign has spots from experiments. Clean lab is a lab not in use. IMHO
@LechuCzechu i'm not really too worried, this is more for demonstration purposes rather than practical. If others want to make a more practical battery they can simply raise the clips above the electrolyte.
you helped me through sophomore chemistry :) my teacher loved your videos
I'm told zinc is also available at home improvement centers. Used along roof peaks to inhibit the growth of moss. I'll be looking into that this spring as I need it desperately.
i dont know much about science and i have no intentions of learning about what you do but i find watching your video clips to be very amazing and very good to watch.just wish i was still in school to try it all haha
keep up the good work NurdRage
I think all your videos are very educational and very well made
@hemo1001 The originals poster's question was how to use the battery, not how to charge an ipod. Please pay attention to the context.
@98JMA I thought you were focusing on the zinc, the steel wool is not a reducing agent, its the catalyst to reduce oxygen, the oxidizing agent in this battery.
Wrote a report on Metal Air batteries for my 3rd year project, last year. They have so much potential, its really to bad that more companies aren't focusing on them for things like electric cars.
@BradTheBS all scientists currently working on zinc-air batteries and zinc fuel cells do experiments very similar to this everyday. Obviously with lab-grade equipment and chemicals rather than home stuff.
@Crazybenjiwoo The originals poster's question was how to use the battery, not how to charge an ipod. Please pay attention to the context.
258 likes, and not a single dislike!! Which is exactly why science kicks asss
basic chemistry explained so well!
@69iron69 The battery built like this with household materials is not rechargeable. But scientists are working on advanced cells using a combination of alloys and materials to make them rechargeable.
@safenders connect 7 of these batteries in series and you can charge an ipod.
I'm going to miss these videos...
There is a mistake in reading the amperes : its 0.67 ma not 0.67Amps please look at themulti meter scale
Thank you for your sharing useful technical knowledge. Is it rechargeable?
Thank you. You make me want to strive more in Chemistry.
@98JMA I did not misspoke. The anode is the electrode where molecules are being oxidized and the cathode is the electrode where molecules are being reduced. at the steel wool the oxygen is being reduced to hydroxide and taking in electrons. It is therefore the cathode and the positive terminal.
As for your other question, you can, but what would be the reducing agent that gives up electrons?
Great Video, thank You!
.68A short circuit current is quite impressive!
Actually zinc is also amphoteric , it does react with NaOH
The best and cheapest solution is graphite with alufoil as the electrodes and
water and K2CO3 as the electrolyte.
This gives about 1.3 to 1.5 Volts and lasts long and graphite can be selfmade
(lookup the overunity forum)
or from pencils. And Alufoil you can get from every supermarket.
Regards, Stefan.
In the previous video the biggest holdup was the aluminum oxide/insoluble hydroxide. If you get the NaOH sufficiently dilute it might dissolve the oxide of aluminum without attacking water too much, if you can create high enough overpotential, such as with acetylenic additives that hog gassing sites, similar to what's used in acid pickling rust remover additives for HCl, that removes rust from nail without generating hydrogen. Also mercury is a great way to break the oxide layer, but again, that starts auto gassing too, plus it's expensive and toxic, but gallium might be better than mercury. If there were a polar aprotic solvent that dissolved aluminum salts like it dissolves lithium salts in li-ion batteries, perhaps the aluminum could be dipped into that, and separated with a membrane that allows transfer of aluminum ions, but not water. I don't think such membranes exist, as the +3 charge and oxygen bond stregths are too much, but there are such things for sodium, beta-alumina is recently patented. In the Castner-Kellner cell the sodium-mercury amalgam has high enough overpotential for hydrogen generation, that sodium comes out on electrolysis instead of hydrogen, but magnesium does not work because the magnesium-mercury amalgam does not bind as strongly as the sodium-mercury one. I don't know about aluminum. Part of the problem of trying to get high hydrogen gassing overpotential out of aluminum-mercury or aluminum-gallium is that most commercial aluminum is alloyed with some copper, and magnesium, and the copper sets up a local battery, and the magnesium is really reactive with water. Things might be different with absolutely pure aluminum. Also, in the past even zinc based batteries used to contain mercury, for similar reasons.
That's some pretty good current there compared to the last one! :O
@DeepThroatBlood666 What if its dead? Btw i got the zinc from another battery because we needed the zinc, not because we wanted to destroy another battery. Buy a zinc sheet separately if getting it from another battery bothers you.
Thanks!! Yours are the best videos on TH-cam.
Ah yes... Love this classic 😊
@ig33ve If that bothers you, buy a zinc sheet separately.
the amps ! they're over 9000 !
@JohnKapsis1985 The zinc is probably the limiting factor since there is plenty of air. As you pull electrons out, the metal will dissolve into the sodium hydroxide (per the formula he showed on the video). Pull out too many electrons, metal is gone - it will probably lose the alligator clip connection (due to metal weakening) long before it all dissolves. Still, if you don't pull much current, it should last a long time. Look up the relationship between coulombs, moles of electrons, and amps
Your videos make me want to pursue a career in chemistry.
lol i have no idea what he is talking about with the sciency stuff but i like to see all of the cool things
@Ciscoql i also have a synthesis for hydrazine through a ketazine intermediate, thats organic chemistry.
@SciGuy10 I want to, i really do, but i'm a lot more busy now with my current job and the videos cost more money than they make so i can't make this channel into a job. Eventually i'll have new videos, i just don't know when.
@NurdRage weren't scientist trying to improve the lead battery (2v/cell car battery) by using nano tubes and fill them whit lead. and they said that it would recharge like a capacitor and it could hold more power
@TheGreatIvan There is quite a lot that would work off of this. What you may not know is the voltage from this battery is roughly what you would get from one solar cell. You can either use electronics (search SMPS or switched cap boost) to boost the voltage (and there are plenty of ICs that are more efficient than those options), or you can just make several in series to boost the voltage. That kind of current would easily run most electronics for some time, or a LED flashlight. Thx Nurdrage!
@NurdRage Yep, and it's cheap. Rotometals is one source. I just picked up a sheet there which I'll use to fabricate a gravity cell. I'm exploring the possibility of using gravity cells in a practical application. Now that I've seen this demo, I'll definitely make a Zn-Air battery too! And it may even prove more suitable for my application. Thanks, NR!
i was only kidding when i asked for an explanation....
i understand this chemistry.
have you tried using activated carbon instead of steel wool as the cathode? activated carbon has a much larger surface area than steel wool for air to contact.
Thank you for sharing your video. I noticed something needs to be cleared out that it seems there is a lots of confusion around. Cathode is negative electrode while cations are positive ions that migrate to cathode or negative electrode and vise versa for Anode.
@3981784 the cathode receives electrons from the external circuit. it's easy to mix things up when you're looking at them from different points of view (e.g. physics vs chemistry).
@HE3991 Think of it as salvaging. If that battery is dead and you can use the inside and outside for two different things you just did something good.
@98JMA Look at the reactivity series. Just below zinc is chromium. That would probably work (at a guess), but it's far far more expensive than zinc. Next down is iron, which is already in use as the catalyst/anode. I don't see how the cell could work with the same metal as both anode and cathode. All the ions would have the same charge.
Zinc is simply ideal. It's highly reactive, low cost, utterly practical.
nice work!
@TheGreatIvan The point is not to make a use full battery. The video is more about the science behind it and the experimentation.
@bakonfreek You might consider saving to buy one. For around the cost of a top end calculator, you can get a Fluke or BK meter that will last a lifetime and will likely see more use in the long run than said calculator.
As for blowing fuses. You really should have a bit of idea what range the measurements are going to fall in before hooking a meter up in the first place.
@iroq5550 No you can't, that's not a hydrogen fuel cell.
Love these types of videos.
I'd love to see you make a fuel cell. I think that would be cool. Even more interesting if you could do it with alcohol or other non-hydrogen gas method. I've seen these discussed but I'm really curious what you could come up with using home chemistry.
@ArtistBlade1972 Don't know of a spec, but see section 4.2.6. As you would expect, the output just goes though the resistor divider, so startup voltage shouldn't be affected by output. I could see it changing the time for startup, but not much. Anyway, the point is that its cheap and easy to turn low voltage things like this into good sources of power.
I'm completely fine with that, I qas talking about the relationship between acids and water.
very cool I am liking these experiments, I just wish the voice didnt make everyone in the room look at me like "wtf are u watching?" Is that Worf from Star TreK?
@EMDSD40LocoDash2 I might add, the huge surface area of the steel wool is probably much more than adequate for the task. To deliver more current, I suspect more zinc (or a form with with greater surface area) and/or a freer flow of oxygen would be the best approach.
w00t, you can connect two of these in series and have enough power for a watch!
Superb demonstration (as is usual)
;-)
@EmperorAst thanks for telling me, i think i fixed it.
Any chance of showing a recharable please. Nice work.
How much power is available from a cell like this? It would have been educational to show a few of these wired in series to a light bulb or motor.
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Why steel wool? Would sheet metal work?
What happens if you put it in pure Oxigen will it produce more current and than ignite or will it stay cool and produce higher current?
@jeriellsworth I've gone through dozens and dozens of signs. Maybe someday i'll assemble a blooper video where i show the various gruesome (and often flaming) deaths of my various signs.
can i use graphite kathodes instead of stealwool? that konserves space and i can make them into a nice grid. also do you think that if i put a cap over the output i can store energy for later so the mA gets a bit higher. i'm having an ambitions plan to make a zink-air camping lantarn.
The battery you made in this video is it capable of powering an HTC phone for example HTC sensation
brilliant as always!
What you mean is this is a cell that produces electricity (a galvanic cell), and not a cell meant for electrolysis (which you called an electrolytic cell).. cataclysmicnothing is somewhat correct. The anode is indeed negative, and the cathode is positive. but in a galvanic cell, the redox reaction that occurs causes oxidation in the anode side, electrons to leave from it, and reduction in the cathode side causing electrons to enter it. AnOx-CatRed if i remember well.
@dan313111 yes its a magnet with a wich reacts to the induction coil in his heater..... it spins continuously so you dont have too! :)
@taeke18
W is unequal Wh! 5.18Wh means the battery can deliver 5.18W for one hour until it's completely depleted, that would be a current of approx 1.4A (at 3.7V voltage).
But still you would need quite a lot of these selfmade batteries, cell phones usually need at least 3.5V-3.7V to power on.
@Livingreciever its a magnet... he explains in one of his videos... but i cant remember which one
Instead of adding water, perhaps a hydrophilic chemical (like magnesium nitrate) could be used to grab the water right out of the air. Then the cell could be activated by just exposing it to the air.
Very fascinating is all I can say.
Super! Thank you very much!
This is a galvanic cell, not an electrolytic cell.
Well done!
@safenders
Or use a power converter circuit to trade some of that amperage for voltage. A proper boost converter would do it, I think.
@EMDSD40LocoDash2 adding more of the metals would tend to increase amperage, but not voltage, so long as the components were acting as a single cell.
Is this rechargeable? I wonder if i could hook up a solar to this?
no it is not rechargeable
Great to that sort of thing thank you for posting keep up the great work take care stay safe : )
This is very interesting...
Question: what would happen if you galvanized a magnet? Would that increse its magnetic pull or would you have your very own battery?
@NurdRage I don't know if you reaction is sarcastic. But I was just pointing out a mistake.
The subtitles say ''With''. But you say ''Or''
Also. Great vid.
Using a DC-DC transformer, it should be possible to boost the voltage while lowering the amperage. This means...... well.... you can get this to a fairly well voltage without getting rid of too many miliamps.
It never fails to get me that they call this a Dry Cell Battery when there is more water in the device than any single item.
It's a dry cell battery BEFORE the liquid is added. It can be stored indefinitely in dry humid free storage.
really cool video, why are they called air batteries?
@tashona123
Fair enough . . .anyway, an electrolyte is simply a solution that will conduct electricity, so the electrolytes in the drink are probably for the wellbeing of your heart or something.
Are we to expect more air batteries? They seem rather interesting :)
This could change the world
Great video man. can u do the "Paper battery" experiment video?
saponification is a reaction between an alkaline like Lye a.k.a sodium hydroxide, and any long chain hydrocarbon molecule like animal fat for example or vegetable oil. (ya been skim over reading about soap or biodiesel i see)
so saponification has less than nothing to do with the concentration of lye (NaOH) regardless its source. homemade lye water fully evaporated to a crystallized form would work exactly the same as lye crystal made with membrane cell chlorine electrolysis.
NaOH is NaOH...
@NurdRage Heck yeah!
well awesome. =) Thanks to you, I just got away with burning down a Chocolatiers Chocolate shop and TOTALLY made it look like an accident
i think you can use hydrogen or h2 or so on in a form to make a hydrogen battery aka cold fusion
There isn't any acid in this video to begin with. Sodium hydroxide is basic.
What about covering a saltwater magnesium air battery? What would be a way for it to be cheap, and prevent hydrogen production, making it an effective fuel cell?
@oOoxelAoOo I don't know, people expect me to easily make practical and useful cells from household materials. I can meet some but I can't meet all those requirements.
Since this video mentions the reaction.
I have never quite gotten a clear answer on the reaction equation between the aluminum and the NaOH.
@FusionNinjin can you build a hydrogen fuel cell from household materials?
My question is what might this be useful for? For example can I fully charge an ipod with this? How long will this put electricity before the reaction is completely used up?