OK Chuck, I was confident in what I was seeing with my eyes. The quantity of tiny bubbles coming from the nickel attached to the negative terminal was far larger than the few on the other one. I chose two nickels just in case I did not make the proper decision and it looked as though it should work. I was impatient and tried sodium chloride for a quick first run and what a mess it made. A large quantity of precipitation of yellow goop collected within my electrolyte while the nickel attached to the positive terminal was dissolved. I then tried a penny in that position and it also was eaten. After that bad start, I decided to buy some borax at the grocery store.
I threw away the bad fluid and started over. Both nickels were also replaced and enough borax was put into the container to leave some un dissolved after a lot of mixing. I have the liquid level at approximately half dept to the nickels which are held in place by gator clips. The clips are totally out of the mixture and held steady by a small tubing with rubber bands. I can easily lift the tubing and inspect the nickels to check for any temperature rise. Thus far the liquid is the source of heat due to its relatively large resistance and loss. A current of .5 amps is drawn when typically 20 volts DC is applied with the latest mixture with the coins roughly a quarter inch apart. The table salt was far more conductive than the borax electrolyte. With my concentration I was able to achieve 2 amps of current when less than 10 volts was applied and the coins were 2 inches apart. I guess the chlorine was too active compared to oxygen to give me so much trouble. I have a good supply attached to my test circuit. It is a lab one that allows control of the short circuit current as well as the supply voltage output. My main interest in this test is to learn a bit about electrolysis and, if extremely fortunate, see some strange heating. There is no better way to learn about a subject than to get ones hands dirty. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Sites <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, Sep 21, 2012 7:24 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Good Alloy for Celani type reaction costs 5 cents : Chuck Sites It will be interesting to see what you all get. I guess if your using two nickels, its not going to matter which is plus and which is minus. Your correct David, hydrogen should evolve from the negative terminal. Looking back at some old notes, It was on the plus side of the power supply (and I have it noted as not what's expected). Also, in one run, I used solid copper electrical wiring as the cathode, which made a nice green solution after several days of running (the Nickel was the heat source though). Regardless, it does take long time to get going 8 to 10 hrs and then sometime the current should go really high and the little coin heats up. I think I will join you all in the recreation, but I've been wanting to do the AC experiment with DC pre-charging. That is, have 3 electrodes, two Nickel, one Carbon Graphite, and where the two nickels are on the negative terminal, the graphite on the positive. Let that undergo electrolysis for several days, and then disconnect the DC, and put the nickels under an AC current of 15V. That should slosh the hydrogen back and forth in the lattice and across the surface. If there is enough boron in the mix knocked loss from from the borax that falls on the surface of the nickel, it might work. Anyway, good luck. I look forward to hearing about your all's results. Best Regards, Chuck --- On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 5:07 PM, David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote: Interesting, but my nickel on the minus side of the supply is the one releasing large quantities of tiny gas bubbles. The one attached to the positive supply terminal was dissolved earlier with table salt but looks like it will survive with borax. I went around and around with this one before I thought I understood which terminal is connected to which for the device to operate properly. I think that the positive charge of the H+ group is attracted to the negative battery terminal. Wikipedia makes this statement as well. So, I believe the hydrogen is released to the nickel attached to this negative supply terminal. If you are confident that this is wrong please explain your understanding as I would be interested. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Jones Beene <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, Sep 21, 2012 4:44 pm Subject: RE: [Vo]:Good Alloy for Celani type reaction costs 5 cents : Chuck Sites From:Chuck Sites Just to make clear, the nickel was always on the +side of the power supply, and is described in Wikipedia as the cathode. Hmm … I’m usually the mildlydyslexic one, but someone is confused: the + or positively charged electrode isthe “anode” in an electrolytic cell, which is what we are talkingabout - and the “cathode” is negative (attractsprotons and positive ions). In a battery, this terminology is reversed, which is probably what theyare referring to. Technically a battery is a galvanic cell, not an electrolyticcell, since it supplies power. However, to confuse things even more, when thebattery is being charged, instead of supplying charge, it becomes electrolytic.You could win a bet on that one (or lose it).
