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Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
Maybe it's actually something similar to a zinc-carbon battery, that shiny coating could be zinc, and zinc carbon batteries, contrary to popular belief, can be re-charged, to a point.
Registered Member #2463
Joined: Wed Nov 11 2009, 03:49AM
Location:
Posts: 1546
The whole structure of a dry cell, from the smallest to giant ones is to make contact with the electrolyte paste between the carbon and the zinc.
The thing that killed them off was the inadvertent mercury content of one of the chemicals. (MnO2 ?).
The concentration cell stuff I looked at mentioned it worked because the membrane was able to cause a different concentration on either side, and the voltage was proportional to the ratio.
Perhaps the active carbon has the property of making the porous separator act the same way in the Tic-Tac cell.
So, what if we took a fresh D cell *, pulled the center rod out, reduced its diameter, in a (messy) lathe and wrapped it in a porous coating, infused with powdered active carbon, and stuck it back in the battery after soaking it NaOH drain cleaner ?
If the battery was good to start with, and we shorted it through a resistor, we would have 1.5 volts to charge the ''supercap' part. If this worked, the initial current would fall to zero as the supercap charged to dry cell's voltage.
At this point, perhaps metal rods could be driven into the carbon powder from the top to get at the supercap voltage . I think the center carbon rod would now be negative, and the metal rods positive.
*a #6 dry cell would make it more easy and interesting.
Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
The carbon in a zinc-carbon battery plays no part in the reaction itself, it's just there as an 'inert conductor'. The reaction is between the two different metal electrodes, usually zinc and manganese.
I suppose I'm asking if it's possible that one of the metals on the other side of the membrane is acting similar to the manganese in a zinc-manganese battery. I suppose I'll have to re-watch the video and see if I notice anything I didn't notice last time.
I'm assuming the NaOH is suitable as an electrolyte for this type of cell, there are plenty of 'alkaline' batteries available.
The above is just guesswork, I'm just throwing it out there as a suggestion.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062
IIRC the mercury was originally added as a depolarizing agent to reduce the needed amount of expensive MnO2.
Nowadays they have organic compounds to do the same job, one is used to this day in Li-ion cells to prevent oxidation from free oxygen present during manufacture or from active material degradation.
Something happens to the carbon rods in used batteries, if you take a fresh one the resistance is a lot lower than a used. I think the rod is actually not pure carbon any more but a mixture of carbon, MnO2 and other chemicals that is fired in a kiln like device by the thousand.
Registered Member #61428
Joined: Sat Jan 14 2017, 12:39PM
Location:
Posts: 50
There are countless DIY dual layer supercap build videos on youtube. This is easily the worst one I have ever seen. The simplest one I've seen involved using credit card sized aluminum plates, activated carbon and phosphoric acid. The construction was symmetrical so there was no way it could have been working by any galvanic action. Just watch a few different videos and you'll get the idea pretty quick.
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Homemade super-capacitors
