Zamboni battery (sort of)

Tesladownunder, Sat Jun 10 2006, 01:27AM

I have been keeping an eye out for suitable materials to make a Zamboni battery for some time now.
A Zamboni battery or Duluc dry pile is a battery made of thin discs of metal (often copper-zinc) separated by paper which is kept slightly conductive by humidity. By stacking up many thousands of these, a battery of thousands of volts at an extremely low current can be made. This is enough to drive devices that run on charge such as Franklin bells. The Oxford Electric bell has been running since 1840.
It was also discussed in a recent 4HV thread.


I have used electrodes that are used for taking ECG's (electrocardiograms) of which 10 are used for each recording and, being single use, are then discarded. The electrodes are silver coated plastic coated with a silver chloride impregnated gel which is sticky. The uncoated silver is exposed on one corner to allow the electrical connection to a crocodile clip.

So could these be used to make multiple cells?

The first pic shows the electrode on my hand and the underside of another one. I have also connected it to a meter to show that 0.6V is generated across this cell to my hand.

Second pic shows 0.7V when connected to some aluminium. Current at short circuit is 1mA.

Third pic shows the result with thin strips in series generating 2.9V.