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arcing thru distilled water

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Austin the Ozone

Sat Jul 16 2011, 06:14PM

Registered Member #3989 Joined: Thu Jul 07 2011, 05:10PM
Location: In a van down by the river.
Posts: 52

How is it different to arc thru distilled water vs. dry air? It takes more current right? Alot more or what? Im trying to make coloidal gold and it requires the arc to be submerged but people sometimes use nst tho so it can't be that much current. I have a large bug zapper coil I have been playing with and while it can maintain a 1 cm arc it won't work underwater no matter how pure. Thanks

Proud Mary

Sat Jul 16 2011, 06:45PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Austin the Ozone wrote ...

How is it different to arc thru distilled water vs. dry air? It takes more current right? Alot more or what? Im trying to make coloidal gold and it requires the arc to be submerged but people sometimes use nst tho so it can't be that much current. I have a large bug zapper coil I have been playing with and while it can maintain a 1 cm arc it won't work underwater no matter how pure. Thanks

For plasma arcs between carbon electrodes in deionised water you should expect to use 30 - 90 A at 30 - 50 VDC. This is for producing yer actual carbon nanotubes.

I've done plasma electrolysis using up to 415 V @ 8 A, (and lo her beaker boileth over) but more is not always better in the plasma electrolysis biz. A steady, stable arc is the thing to be aimed for. The arc must first be struck by touching the electrodes together, and then pulled apart and kept at a constant spacing of about 1 mm. A constant current PSU will help to keep the arc burning in the face of erratic electrode separation.

It's sensible to get in a stock of titanium and tungsten rods and sheet as well as large borosilicate beakers as you will get through them.

There is no role for the electric fly killer in the formation of the underwater electric arc.

Don't forget your safety goggles!

Pinky's Brain

Sat Jul 16 2011, 08:31PM

Registered Member #2901 Joined: Thu Jun 03 2010, 01:25PM
Location:
Posts: 837

If you're burning up your electrodes at that rate how pure is the gold colloid suspension going to be?

For the OP, what is the procedure exactly? Are you supposed to flash evaporate a gold wire under water?

Proud Mary

Sat Jul 16 2011, 08:44PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Pinky's Brain wrote ...

If you're burning up your electrodes at that rate how pure is the gold colloid suspension going to be?

For the OP, what is the procedure exactly? Are you supposed to flash evaporate a gold wire under water?

If you mean to ask me, Pinky, I can see I should have made myself clearer and said that it would be sensible to learn the techniques using Ti and W electrodes (and from my own small experience there is a lot to learn in terms of maintaining a steady arc, and such) before embarking on the use of costly materials like Au, which is at an all time high price at present, and which is in any case outside my personal experience.

Austin the Ozone

Sat Jul 16 2011, 09:10PM

Registered Member #3989 Joined: Thu Jul 07 2011, 05:10PM
Location: In a van down by the river.
Posts: 52

thanks for the replies! The methods people use to attempt it are as varied as the people themselves I would guess, from what I gather the basis is about one mm between two gold wire electrodes and a nst or mot to produce an arc under water, and it must be pure water so the water itself doesn't conduct and heat up. Could it could not be argued that the price of gold has stayed the same and the value of the dollar is at an all time low? Gold has stayed about the same in price relative to a barrel of oil as far as I understand. But I digress, I was trying to figure out if theres was a better frequency to use rather than 60hz and if more volts and less amps would get the same thing done with less heat or waste of gold. Or make smaller particles.. I've never attempted it yet, just curious about how I would do it. I have two same size big mots and 5 or six flyback transformers and several ignition coils including one huge 6 volt one from the '50s that Ive been collecting to experiment with, I have had very much fun learning how ac electricty works and I really don't care that much if I ever end up making the coloidal gold I realized today, it gave me a mission that pushed me to learn all this great stuff along the way and for that I'm very grateful.

Ash Small

Sat Jul 16 2011, 09:42PM

Registered Member #3414 Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245

I'm not familiar with exactly what you are trying to do, but it does seem extremeny similar the spark erosion, except spark eroders use pulsed DC, with the majority of wear taking place on the anode if I remember correctly.

Spark erosion also takes place in a liquid dielectric, usually paraffin (kerosene), the cathode tool is fed towards the anode workpiece and sparks erode the workpiece, it is used to make holes in, or shape, very hard matarials that are otherwise difficult to machine. the dielectric is kept flowing and filtered to remove the 'waste'.

I was planning to try this at some time using (maybe) a DC flyback charging a capacitor bank, which would discharge once the voltage reached the point where the dielectric breaks down.

Maybe this would achieve what you are attempting?

Proud Mary

Sat Jul 16 2011, 09:58PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

This looks a good place to start, is detailed, and seems well informed:

Der-Chi Tien, Liang-Chia Chen, Nguyen Van Thai, and Sana Ashraf Study of Ag and Au Nanoparticles Synthesized by Arc Discharge in Deionized Water Journal of Nanomaterials Volume 2010, Article ID 634757, 9 pages,

I found that using the term 'colloidal gold' in search term strings brought up a lot of rubbish, much of which can be avoided by substituting it with 'gold nanoparticles' as part of the search term string instead.

Austin the Ozone

Sat Jul 16 2011, 10:50PM

Registered Member #3989 Joined: Thu Jul 07 2011, 05:10PM
Location: In a van down by the river.
Posts: 52

Thank you very much I appreciate the help!

Pinky's Brain

Sat Jul 16 2011, 11:01PM

Registered Member #2901 Joined: Thu Jun 03 2010, 01:25PM
Location:
Posts: 837

I wonder if the explosive evaporation of a piece of gold wire with a capacitor bank will form colloids.

PS. ingesting non biodegradable nanoparticles is a bad idea, they can accumulate (and I doubt that's the worst it can do).

Forty

Sat Jul 16 2011, 11:36PM

Registered Member #3888 Joined: Sun May 15 2011, 09:50PM
Location: Erie, PA
Posts: 649

this sounds like a much more fun way of making silver nanoparticles for university research (metal enhanced fluorescence of aqueous dyes)
would lead make a less expensive material to practice with?

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