electrolysis machine

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velocity3x
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Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:51 am

Jeeperforlife wrote: Each plate is 3" X 12", there is 12 plates and I have 12 more for another cell.
I can't determine your plate configuration from the photos. How many +, - and neutral plates do you have. Contrary to popular belief, "neutral" plates do very little if anything for gas production.
Also the watter turns very dark after less than a minute what is this caused by? All metal on this is 316 stainless.
I use distilled water (1 gal) mixed with 6oz of concentrated limon juice. The electrolyte stays clean for a long, long time. When I used tap or well water, the electrolyte turned to thick, brown mud in less than 1 minute.

This is a unit I built 2 years ago. It's about the same size and configuration as yours but, it has 6 positive plates, 6 negative plates and zero neutral plates. It produces 3 liters per minute at 12volts / 13amps and produces very little heat. The electrolyte never boils.
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Jeeperforlife
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Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:18 am

velocity3x wrote:
Jeeperforlife wrote: Each plate is 3" X 12", there is 12 plates and I have 12 more for another cell.
I can't determine your plate configuration from the photos. How many +, - and neutral plates do you have. Contrary to popular belief, "neutral" plates do very little if anything for gas production.
Also the watter turns very dark after less than a minute what is this caused by? All metal on this is 316 stainless.
I use distilled water (1 gal) mixed with 6oz of concentrated limon juice. The electrolyte stays clean for a long, long time. When I used tap or well water, the electrolyte turned to thick, brown mud in less than 1 minute.

This is a unit I built 2 years ago. It's about the same size and configuration as yours but, it has 6 positive plates, 6 negative plates and zero neutral plates. It produces 3 liters per minute at 12volts / 13amps and produces very little heat. The electrolyte never boils.
Every other plate is positive and every other is negitive. I am not sure what a nuteral plate is. the stainless allthread goes through every other plate the plate it doesnot go through has a notch in it so the washers don't contact it.

Sounds like I need to try your electrolyte solution and your tap water was doing the same as mine.

I tested it with my mutimeter and there is not a short anywere in it. My car battery charger is putting out 14 volts when not connected and 8 volts when conected.

I have enough room on the allthread for more plates so I may just add more plates to this and not build another one.
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velocity3x
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Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:05 am

I am not sure what a nuteral plate is.

A neutral plate is one that's not connected to + or -. They just ride along in the case as dead plates. Some builders think neutral plates work miracles when in fact....they do nothing. Plate spacing is very important for gas production at lower amps. Try to keep your plates at a max separation of .050"
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chinnerz
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Tue Mar 23, 2010 3:43 pm

is grapite conductive??

Edit: so it is :p i guess we learn something new every day. One issue with the graphite thought.. It gets very hot! Indicating high resistance??
(ps im on my phone so no spell check)
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Tue Mar 23, 2010 8:31 pm

graphite electrodes are a bad idea. They work fine, except some oxygen combines with the carbon to form carbon dioxide. This significantly weakens the reaction when lit.

Stainless steel is your best bet, use sodium hydroxide as an electrolyte, it cleans the plates as it goes.
You can buy it as crystal drain cleaner, make sure it does not have aluminum shavings in it.
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Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:24 pm

I've done it lazy-mode by using coiled up aluminum foil and a bank of 9-volt batteries. Worked fairly well.

I am despirately searching for a reason to build one just like that. I may decide of building one just because it looks freaking cool.
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Wed Mar 24, 2010 1:19 am

rp181 wrote:graphite electrodes are a bad idea. They work fine, except some oxygen combines with the carbon to form carbon dioxide. This significantly weakens the reaction when lit.
I can actually confirm that this happens to a significant degree. When using carbon electrodes in a little one I made, after electronically igniting a balloon with a fairly small amount of gas mixture in it underwater (to prevent the balloon rupturing by keeping it cool), the resulting balloon had just enough gas in it to keep it's shape (but the rubber wasn't stretched at all, no pressure inside). I then sqeezed the balloon and lit the gas leaking out and the resulting flame was very pale, very orange and burnt with a bit of a whooshing noise, as if it was burning very quickly. From descriptions I could find on the net, that's pretty much the description of a hydrogen flame, which means I did not have as much oxygen in the balloon as I should have had (turned to Co2 or possibily, CO).

EDIT: Also, if you do decide to use graphite electrodes, get them by dismantling 'heavy duty' dry cell batteries (NOT alkaline). They have nice strong carbon rods in the middle of the cells, I generally salvage decent sized ones out of lantern batteries.
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Wed Mar 24, 2010 6:55 am

EDIT: Also, if you do decide to use graphite electrodes, get them by dismantling 'heavy duty' dry cell batteries (NOT alkaline). They have nice strong carbon rods in the middle of the cells, I generally salvage decent sized ones out of lantern batteries.
Been there, done that.
The carbon rods will break up due to bubbles forming inside cavities. After 15 minutes the whole water is black and the rods are severely damaged.

I agree with rp181, stainless steel is the best electrode material for the DIY-er and NaOH is the best electrolyte.
Its cheap and easy to obtain. Just grab a cheap drain cleaner with those white granules.
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Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:29 am

Yep, I agree that carbon has it's problems... it's just that for anyone who wants to use it, the carbon from batteries is way more suitable than the carbon from pencils.
I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges.
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Wed Mar 24, 2010 8:18 am

Wow had a lot of replies wile I was gone. I think I will stick to the set up I have now and just add a few more plates.

I am thinking of trying to use this to fuel my small hybrid. My idea is to put enough MAPP in for a 1X mix and then add the HHO. This way I get a perfect mixture every time. My question is will HHO self ignite when pressurized like acetylene? Even if I keep pressures low I think It would be quite powerful since I will only be putting hydrogen and oxygen in. What have you guys used as a flame arrester? I was thinking of using a check valve then a water column for the HHO to bubble through. Would this work?
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Wed Mar 24, 2010 9:39 am

Jeeperforlife wrote:Wow had a lot of replies wile I was gone. I think I will stick to the set up I have now and just add a few more plates.

I am thinking of trying to use this to fuel my small hybrid. My idea is to put enough MAPP in for a 1X mix and then add the HHO. This way I get a perfect mixture every time. My question is will HHO self ignite when pressurized like acetylene? Even if I keep pressures low I think It would be quite powerful since I will only be putting hydrogen and oxygen in. What have you guys used as a flame arrester? I was thinking of using a check valve then a water column for the HHO to bubble through. Would this work?
I'm not a fan of the mapp and hydrogen/oxygen idea. The hydrogen and oxygen comes out in a stoichometric ratio from that electrolysis cell. Adding more fuel will make it run rich and waste volume you could have fuel in. (unless you're wanting to burn the mapp with the air already in the chamber- if that's the case I wouldn't bother. just purge the chamber with the mixture).

Hydrogen and oxygen are pretty stable, especially in comparison to acetylene. Pressurizing them together shouldn't result in too many problems (assuming you're making a few X hybrid which is safe for this kind of use). As long as it isn't pressurized too quickly it shouldn't really ignite at these kinds of pressures.

Have a bubbler directly next to your electrolysis cell, and a flashback arrestor nearer to where the fuel is being used. The flashback arrestor needs to be packed with a porous material to cool the flame front.

Read.
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Jeeperforlife
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Wed Mar 24, 2010 10:09 am

inonickname wrote:
Jeeperforlife wrote:Wow had a lot of replies wile I was gone. I think I will stick to the set up I have now and just add a few more plates.

I am thinking of trying to use this to fuel my small hybrid. My idea is to put enough MAPP in for a 1X mix and then add the HHO. This way I get a perfect mixture every time. My question is will HHO self ignite when pressurized like acetylene? Even if I keep pressures low I think It would be quite powerful since I will only be putting hydrogen and oxygen in. What have you guys used as a flame arrester? I was thinking of using a check valve then a water column for the HHO to bubble through. Would this work?
I'm not a fan of the mapp and hydrogen/oxygen idea. The hydrogen and oxygen comes out in a stoichometric ratio from that electrolysis cell. Adding more fuel will make it run rich and waste volume you could have fuel in. (unless you're wanting to burn the mapp with the air already in the chamber- if that's the case I wouldn't bother. just purge the chamber with the mixture).

Hydrogen and oxygen are pretty stable, especially in comparison to acetylene. Pressurizing them together shouldn't result in too many problems (assuming you're making a few X hybrid which is safe for this kind of use). As long as it isn't pressurized too quickly it shouldn't really ignite at these kinds of pressures.

Have a bubbler directly next to your electrolysis cell, and a flashback arrestor nearer to where the fuel is being used. The flashback arrestor needs to be packed with a porous material to cool the flame front.

Read.
Thanks,
The Mapp was just to give a fuel for the oxygen in the chamber already.

The chamber is a 1800PSI 24OZ CO2 tank. So I think it should survive. am not sure how to completely purge all the air out of the chamber with out the HHO excaping.
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rp181
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Wed Mar 24, 2010 10:59 am

I think a hybrid is fine. The gas is produced slowly enough so significant heat is produced in the gas (make sure the chamber stays cold).
for flash back arrestors, I had multiple ones.

1. A bubbler. Take a length of 1-3" PVC, and bring the gas hose down to the bottom of this. Fill it around 3/4 with water, and let the gas bubble through the water, and collect it again. This is also good to clean the gas of any electrolyte it may be carrying.
2. This is called the "poor mans arrestor", But it is VERY effective. I did this after the above method, on the top of the bubbler. Loop the gas tube several times (~1.5" diameter loops), and tape it like that so it stays (I use zip ties). Get some water in the loop, so their is water on the bottom of each loop (fill the loop around 1/6 of the way up). This is the method that had saved me :)
3. Not so effective, but great for small flashbacks. Take a tube wider than your gas hose, and stuff it with foam. Unused cigarette filters are supposed to work extremely well too.

I would be confident with the above arrestors, as I was trying to ignite a direct flame (I got a TINY one that was very hot, flame was around .5cm long, and it did things as fast, if not faster, than my propane torch). I had number 3 right before the torch nozzle (A squished bike pump needle that is used for pumping balls).

Do not go without arrestors. I did once, and the cover to my cell exploded, spraying concentrated NaOH everywhere. I got chemical burns all around my eye (thank god not in my eye!) :wink:

To purge, just let the gas escape, or better yet, dont purge. It acts like a buffer from detonation. Make sure your chamber isn't too long, and use mutiple spark gaps. And how do you have a 1800PSI CO2 tank? is your co2 tank actually rated for burst pressure?
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Jeeperforlife
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Thu Mar 25, 2010 9:38 pm

rp181 wrote:And how do you have a 1800PSI CO2 tank? is your co2 tank actually rated for burst pressure?
Sorry it took so long to get back.
There is alot of good ideas there I will look into. I tried to take a picture of the bottle but my camera could not focus. Here is the info on the bottle.

TC3ALM/DOT-3AL 124 BAR 1800PSI M-9201
98/05 98 T 1.03KG M 1.7KG FA9473

I bought this at wal-mart several years ago for $5.00 on clearance when I worked there. It was for paintball guns.
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Thu Mar 25, 2010 10:03 pm

wow. you hardly get refills for $5 any more.

Oh, if you do decide to play with balloons, remember that they float. Toilet paper makes a nifty delay mechanism, as long as you are not in a drought, or the middle of a city. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

The CO2 tanks actually have burst disks in them designed to burst at around 1800.(the rated pressure). IIRC, they get hydro-tested to 3ksi.
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