I'm 69 and grew up in Michigan. I remember Mr. Wizard on tv. He did many types of experiments. What a wonderful time to be young. To me you are the Mr. Wizard of energy. 🤩🤩🤩

@yasirrakhurrafat1142

8 ай бұрын

Sir Robert Murray Smith does indeed have a Wizard aura exuding from him. As his enthusiasm about his ideas flow when he's sharing them with us.

@DFPercush

8 ай бұрын

I was born in the 80s and Mr. Wizard was still on the air when I was a young'un. Loved that show.

@noahwiliams7214

5 ай бұрын

Was once installing a production line in a Mexican factory at 2 o’clock in the morning when we needed to check the polarity of a magnet. No tester! I sent my helper to go make coffee while I “thought about the problem”. Of course I had already formulated a plan based on something from Mr. Wizard. I snipped a piece of steel spring wire, straightened and magnetized it. Used whiteout correction paint to mark one end. When the coffee arrived my man was aghast to see me float the wire in it. But as it spun around I asked him which way was my home. (The North end of the wire points to a South pole of a magnet which is somewhere in Canada these days). Mr Wizard saved that company $3 million because the line was installed on time!

This begs to be used in home storage, Thank you Robert.

@Eduardo_Espinoza

8 ай бұрын

💯%!

I wonder if you could re-purpose Lead/acid car batteries (the shells) to run off this solution instead. The you could build a bank of them for running off-the-grid living. Then you could have a rechargeable power bank that could be easily and cheaply refreshed when needed. I really enjoy the things you come up with. Get's the gears turning!

@ThinkingandTinkering

8 ай бұрын

yes you could

@sparkysho-ze7nm

2 ай бұрын

Purpose of super intelligent channel

I do love your battery work, we need more safe, simple & accessible batteries.

@Eduardo_Espinoza

8 ай бұрын

& maybe even thermal runaway proof! :)

@sparkysho-ze7nm

3 ай бұрын

Not unrefined or $6000/ton

I love these battery experiments! I just wish it was that simple to store and retrieve a few kilowatts. Would be great to just have a 25L bucket lined with carbon fiber cloth filled with lugols and a huge roll of zinc foil. I guess with enough surface area it would put out more amps and you could just use a 24v to 1.2v step down to charge it.

soon as you said the unglazed terracotta i thought "oooh reinventing the Bagdad battery"

Love you chemistry videos. Especially on DIY battery projects such as this video being really effective and practical. This is Golden. Brilliant

I always love the battery videos! I wish we could have a battery design contest on this channel with this chemistry. Would anyone else be interested in that?

@Eduardo_Espinoza

8 ай бұрын

Science fair show-n-tell! That'll be cool! :D

So clay sewer pipe and charcoal bricketts a 55 gal plastic drum and a wad of old chainlink fence and you have a big cell . You could just drain the electrolyte into another drum to turn off . Placing the 2 drums on either end of a tetter-totter to eliminate the need for a pump. Placing the drums on their sides would shorten the lifting hight and a sliding counterweight on the tetter like on a beam scale takes the work out of lifting the drums with the tetter.

Sorry for the dumb question but is it possible to show recharging? Just put power in that simple and the reaction reverses? Would make a great time-lapse

@Eduardo_Espinoza

8 ай бұрын

Agreed, maybe he did that on purpose as to nudge us to do it :) Yet, mysteries in general scare me because idk what kinda of gases it could expell, there has to be a catch right?

@Dragonx7100

7 ай бұрын

Very nice Sir, can't wait to try it.

More of this sort of stuff please! Battery chemistry and technology is very interesting and it's the logical next step to generators. Your work is amazing! Cheers!

OMG! Dear Sir, You Do so much for science popularization and mass education! That is why Your videos became an important part of my life! Great Great Thank You, Sir!

Rechargeability is super important as is number of cycles. Would definitely like to see more work on this

The more you emphasize how easy something is to "get ahold of," the more likely it is that some bureaucrat will make it her life's work to deprive us of it.

hopefully one day we might see several cells connected together being charged by your wind turbine? Another great video, thank you.

Brother you are amazing! And the stuff you come up with is incredible... thank you

Excellent idea Robert. BTW, any chance you could paint your prop tips yellow? It would make it easier to see when it spins 😁

I love your content. I have learned so much from your videos and presentations. You are a gift to the common self sufficient person. God bless you for all that you do. I am proud to be a supporter.

now a practical 3D printed design just like your emergency motors would be cool. like using Zach Freedman's Gridfinity 1.0 as a base to stack the cells into. to make a 5V, 12V, 24V, 48V versions all nice and tidy, sealed up, easy to maintain and disconnect etc..

@justanothercomment416

8 ай бұрын

Great idea!

This is a bit easier than the zinc sulphate method. Zinc and iodine in alcohol, evaporated yields zinc iodide. Awesome stuff.

@ThinkingandTinkering

8 ай бұрын

cheers mate

@danielppps

8 ай бұрын

This reaction is VERY aggressive and iodine sublimates extremely easily so you will generate a lot of elemental iodine vapor WITH a flammable liquid. Be extremely careful if you actually do this.

I'm lucky here. Some of the rocky beaches have hunks of natural graphite as some of its beach pebbles. 1K per inch, give or take.

Thank you for this one , really good info .. 10in series =12v and in parallel = 1.2 A .. not bad , i just don't understand why isn't it used more often

Due to the zinc dissolving into the iodide solution until it's gone, it isn't something that will last long term.. But, it is nice to know that a battery can be made from these materials in a pinch.

Yes this is exactly the battery I needed right now! Thank you so much Dr. RMS! (great initials btw)! As your compatriot Bond from across the pond has said, "I hate small portions of anything, particularly if they (are) bad" - but this looks pretty good and scalable as is, although I'll still beef it up with the literature references you mentioned. CHEERS MATE! (I also love your KOH battery from another vid, amazing, tks!)

These videos cover every form of energy storage, including the kitchen zinc.

Used to use Lugol's solution in the lab to for the stool examination, to differentiate ova and parasites. So now you can have a battery and check to see if you have worms LOL.

would definitely be interesting to see this in a 3D printed enclosure (4 or 10 of them together wired in series for a 4.8V or 12V battery respectively) as well as how it reacts thermally to being charged... as always, today I learned from you Mr Murray-Smith... so you have my heartfelt thanks ;)

Love it - please make a series using cells to meet common voltage requirements in an off-grid use!

I see the mechanical "switch" of removing the zinc as an engineering opportunity for the EV market. Any idea on how many recharge cycles this home brewed version can expect?

@bigmouthstrikesagain4056

8 ай бұрын

That would be interesting

@ThomasAndersonbsf

8 ай бұрын

my guess is it will be down to the break down of the separator and thus the ability to form dendrites between the two plates, shorting it out, the better at resisting that, the longer it will last and the dendrites forming on one side to form more of a foam like surface area, would cause it to discharge faster and release more amperage and thus making the use of it breaking it in so to speak.

@cayrex

8 ай бұрын

Many 😉

@david2ljdavid2lj56

8 ай бұрын

You mechanically recharge it by adding more solution to it. You should also probably remove the zinc iodine. You're just basically rebuilding the battery, I believe.

@cayrex

8 ай бұрын

@@david2ljdavid2lj56 Yes, I only show how to make a basic zinc iodine battery. This and my V3 cell is electrically rechargeable.

So glad to see you doing battery stuff!😉🙂

The 'self-discharge prevention' is just the same as the poorly named 'salt-water battery.' A battery which has no electrolyte - you add the salt water only when it's time to use. The energy density and power density are both awful by every measure, but they have one advantage: Unlimited self life. You sometimes find them in emergency locator beacons, because you can still depend on them even if your emergency beacon has been sitting forgotten in the bottom of the life-jacket locker for the last thirty years.

@jshaw4757

4 ай бұрын

Volta stack style with zinc copper zinc copper and inbeetween each layer charcoal disks soaked in salt water...so 3 disks per cell and stack 50 cells or more you should be able too get usable amps but want too parralel like 30 stacks off 9 maybe and lay cells sideways in a pool off salt water but so only the charcoal disks are sat in the solution so the metals don't connect...should work quiet well and all need too do is top up electrolyte zero charging needed...what you think?

I built a 1.8V battery 8 years ago. with kitchen ingredients. i like everything you do. many similar ideas

@hirnlager

8 ай бұрын

a rechargeable battery would be more interesting?

@hirnlager

8 ай бұрын

i lost everything i had 8 years ago and am currently in the process of getting everything new.

This is pretty cool, Rob! Is off gassing a problem when charging?

@In_fluss

8 ай бұрын

Exactly what I was thinking 😂 I guess I will just give it a go and find out. 😅

@DFPercush

8 ай бұрын

You'll probably have to top off the water due to evaporation, but I don't think it produces hydrogen or anything like that. 1.2V is right on the borderline of when electrolysis starts to occur, but it usually takes a bit more than that. Raising the pH can reduce electrolysis, but unfortunately, zinc hydroxide is insoluble, and you don't want too many other metal contaminants or you'll just be wasting power. Just look for bubbles I guess.

TWIZZY! Shout it from the rooftops.!!

Absolutely love it. Who would have thought about going back to the beginning. LOL. That's where I started a few years ago with me studying the first voltaic pile. Sometimes the first solution is the best solution. Nuclear does the same thing with their rods. Too funny. Just like making your tea. To strong? Take out the tea bag silly. A good source for Zink? Our American penny. Once you take off the copper plate.

Now THIS sparked my interest!

Thank you! This is what I was looking for! Amazing! If you could also post links to the materials you used that would be helpful!

Rats! I was looking forward to washing my cat in Lugol's but you kyboshed that idea. lol! Well done Robert, everything old is new again. I've been buying Lugol's in tiny little bottles for a few years for my health and sterilising the rain water at $40 Aust a pop. You info has me thinking I should concoct my own and as a spin off, some home power batteries. Thank you for the idea.

cool video. you should link to the original video in the header since it's a little difficult to find. ( 1658 A DIY Battery That Is Crazy Simple To Make ) in case anyone else is looking.

Well done Robert - yet again! As a possible design of this battery, i wonder if the zinc negative lift out could become a way of also controlling amperage, as it will be limited to 1.2 volts but the more the stick is immersed the greater the current flow. A neat way to have a battery with an amperage rotary control knob!

I have a dream I call FREE. Fast Replaceable Electrolyte Exchange. Instead of millions of AA sized lithium batteries to try to uncase and recycle liquids are simple and follow nature's designs. I envision a large tank with lead acid battery design but different chemistry. You could pull into a charging station and quickly drain and refill the electrolyte and off you go. The station can refresh the electrolyte using whatever is best. Wind, solar, generator or plug in. People can have a tank of joy juice charging at home to refuel and run the house. No more exploration, drilling, mining, refining, transporting and storing explosive gas and lithium batteries. Bring able to make your own fuel could be a game changer for isolated developing countries. This seems to be right up your ally. Help me Obi-wan. You definitely earned my subscription.🎉

After so many build videos I keep forgetting you're a chemist. LOL

@ThinkingandTinkering

8 ай бұрын

lol

Love this video, please make a bigger one.

That actually looks like it has potential, with an optimized design, for a home backup. Maybe a few 55 gallon plastic drums, and some homemade clay separators. But I gotta ask... have you tried to DIY a nickel/iron cell? There are quite a few of the old Edison nickel/iron cells that are still usable, 100 years in, having gone through 3 or 4 changes of electrolyte, which is just sodium hydroxide solution.

Great video man! As always!

So what if someone had a car that ran off of batteries constructed similarly to your terracotta pot and went to a charge station and instead of plugging in the car, they were to swap battery fluids instead? Could the old fluid then be refreshed/recharged? It could close the gap that gasoline car drivers love to throw out when comparing refueling to recharging.

@The1Elcil

8 ай бұрын

battery swapping will be faster and easier than "filling up" at consumer level

@evanbarnes9984

8 ай бұрын

I think there's a company in India that's prototyping that system. Although I think they swap the whole battery out, and are using smaller lithium iron phosphate batteries or something

@dylan_00

8 ай бұрын

So the way I understand it, if the electrolyte fluid is now full of Zinc, you'd have almost no anode left (the Zinc that *was* on the anode is now in the solution). So just adding fresh solution would eat away at any remaining Zinc on that anode, until you're left with nothing.

@jimlipscomb3236

8 ай бұрын

@@dylan_00 I understand it to be that the zinc is redeposited on the zinc bar when charging. So unless you let the entire bar sacrifice itself to the solution it shouldn't lose much mass.

@dylan_00

8 ай бұрын

@@jimlipscomb3236 Right, but when it discharges it is dissolved into the electrolyte solution. So if you keep removing the solution with the zinc, the new solution will keep stripping away zinc, you have to recharge the battery with old solution for the zinc to return to the anode

Robert can you provide further links and education in building and using these on a bit larger scale if any

I worked as a zinc plater for a plating and powder coating company. Seems like your basically plating and stripping the plating over and over as a battery, pretty cool. Im going to make it. Am I correct that the potassium iodine antiseptic available for disinfectant is the same solution?

@snowpaw360

8 ай бұрын

It's basically a much more concentrated solution, so you still should wear gloves.

@kadmow

8 ай бұрын

most/all (disclaimer) batteries rely on the same RDOX processes as plating - selecting electrodes and solutions to store and give up the ions as required. Note that the original single use battery was a carbon-Zinc battery - basically putting the zinc into solution as it discharged - not so different to this open top solution (different electrolyte).

This will keep police investigators busy.

Nice. There is clay everywhere where I am at, it's easy to find; many deposits you can just pull large glops of clay right up. Now to see how much I can store in something like a 5g/20l bucket - we're pulling two ceiling fans out of the living room that are perfectly functional (replacing with flush dimmable lights) so I can potentially build a completely self contained harvest/storage system that I can throw in the camp trailer and go.

@russellzauner

8 ай бұрын

I just realized that since you're already using a fabric for one of the electrodes it can be coated with a couple layers and rolled up - now I can just stuff it in a round bucket with the lid on it and a couple threaded studs to attach wires to the inside/outside of the lid.

@MilkyToucan

8 ай бұрын

​@@russellzauner so two threaded electrodes once the zinc is in solution?

After this video Lugol has climbed in price

@kadmow

8 ай бұрын

- oh so Rob is a pumper - lol... (small markets, big gains)

Excellent job. 👍😁❤️😇

Very cool. I still have the autoclave lying around for the hemp battery. I wonder is this better than hemp battery?

I wonder if you could have an equally direct method of suppressing dendrites. Maybe just pull out the zinc and allow surface tension to collapse them down periodically? Have a little wiper that spins around and flattens them down into the electrode? Use some kind of pulsed charge/discharge that favors low surface area deposition?

@noahwiliams7214

5 ай бұрын

There are various surfactants that can be added to the electrolyte which prevent dendritic growth. Tween is one that has been used successfully.

Excellent info.

I was just wondering if the reaction causes fumes/gases from the zinc... or does it just dissolve?

Great vid mate....is there a way to make a thinner Terra Cotta membrane that might improve current flow (power density) ???

Does this need a BMS if you put a whole load of cells in series like a LiPo set up does?

Fascinating

What if the zinc electrode is a kind of flexible base-electrode where the zinc could stick to it? I don't know if the same carbon fiber can be used for that, giving it the capability to be folded or rolled like paper in order to be removed from the electrolyte

Thank you bródir, great content 👏 👌 👍

brilliant

Необычная батарея, спасибо было очень познавательно. Вы как-то упоминали про твердотельные батареи, скажите, можно ли в домашних условиях сделать твердотельную батарею из доступных материалов?

Thank you :)

Could you house it in a 3d printed cell using a non-hydroscopic filament? then use a lifting mechanism to lift the zinc out of the housing to stop self discharge?

I Just love it Rob.! /Mikael

I am guessing that the way you said it means that if you put a larger piece of zinc in the solution the milliamps would be improved to higher numbers 200 300 400 etc

Beautiful! iodine is my favorite element!

I love your stuff

What kind of discharge are we looking at? In other words, how much energy do we need to push into it to keep it stable?

What's the drawback to using it in electric car batteries then? It sounds *amazing*. Not enough output?

Thanks Robert, very useful information,but how do you dispose of it ,safely? Genuine question as the longevity of this is obviously limited and the components will need to be replaced.

Hello from Thunder Bay friend, ..brilliant ! why not try an icb? intermediate bulk container, ..might be a globally useful size you know and if you indexed everything you might be able to capitalize on it for all of your future bodkin thingies,....

As a improvement to the battery couldn't you add some of your organic graphene to a batch of clay with the temper material and make conductive ceramic terracotta? Couldn't you layer a bit of normal terracotta to the outside to act as your permeable barrier? And mechanically to take the zinc out of solution, just have a manual crank. Though I can see an issue occuring where bits of zinc might break off and keep the cell running at low capacity. And long term, it might be good to discuss how to recycle or dispose the materials used when they are used up.

been looking at various things for the laser formed graphene to use as a "flux" the way you used borax, for some... reasons. ;)

This is very interesting. So the materials are: - Iodide + Potassium Iodide for electrolyte - Graphite foil for positive electrode - Zinc strip for negative electrode - Terracota pot for separator - A plastic receptacle So how long until each needs changing? And if the electrolitic solution needs changing, what is it done with it? Can it be disposed safely on a compost pile or biodegraded somehow? And where does iodide and potassium iodide come from? If industrial civilization collapsed, how could we manufacture them?

Does a larger surface area of the cathode / anode relate to more amps (for the same single cell voltage)?

@yasirrakhurrafat1142

8 ай бұрын

You've intrigued me with your observation. No, I don't have the answer.

@dj234543254

8 ай бұрын

yes and the path through the electrolyte also affects it.

I have a question I believe I heard in 5he video that this process makes x amont per kilo gram? So to figure amount per 55 gal drum conversion to volts .. figure kilogram weight of full 55 gal drum times the kilo gram equivalent volts. Would that equation b correct to determine plz an thank you !

anyway to get the iodine crystals back out for some sort of recharging?

Does it require any special charging profile or will a standard charge controller work?

Awesome !! I wonder WHY there arent this sytem everywhere for grid balance, etc...??

@ThinkingandTinkering

8 ай бұрын

there are

Rob needs armed security around him 24/7 I bet the energy companies hate people like him

Hmm... how would you make an automatic means of removing/re-inserting the zinc?

A battery so safe it heals

Lugol's iodide has several other uses including microbiological staining of bacteria using "Gram-staining" During which the iodine from the Lugol's solution and crystal violet form a stable complex that will not be released by decolourisation. Thus, Gram-positive bacteria will appear dark blue when viewed microscopically, whereas Gram-negative bacteria can be counterstained with safranin or dilute carbol fuchsin.

could not find a source that says the energy density is larger than lithium. In fact practical energy densities I seen is around 100-160 wh/l while lithium is around 220 wh/l . Maybe I'm getting it wrong.

would this make a D cell (zinc carbon battery) rechargeable?, by just adding some lugils? into the mn02 paste?

This is Really Cool Stuff, thanks for sharing! If the cells are 1.2v each, can they be built into an expired lead-acid battery in order to repurpose the battery?

if stir if will if give more of a charge or will it reconvert if you add a charge

A very interesting design. I think the design challenge for making a closed battery out of this will mostly be in the mechanical design and how to close it off, keep it from sloshing around. Does the carbon fiber sheet have good conductance over the whole surface? I've only really looked at the mechanical properties of it, so I don't know if it would be better to have a strip of conductive metal around the outside of it so that all the strands have an electrical connection. Can this solution be frozen? While not practical, it would stop passive discharge.

@noahwiliams7214

5 ай бұрын

Anything can be frozen if you make it cold enough. But I expect you’ll find that the ions are still mobile and the battery will self discharge anyway.

I wonder if it would be possible to 3D print a semi-permeable membrane(or similar structure) that would facilitate a modular battery approach with this chemistry?

@otpyrcralphpierre1742

8 ай бұрын

Maybe 3D print some clay?

@jaedy1124

8 ай бұрын

That is a fair point! As far as I know there are only a couple of off the shelf printers that will print Ceramics and clay, but that would certainly do it!

After the first discharge when you have zinc in solution, could you replace the negative electrode with carbon fiber as well that doesn't get consumed so that you always have an electrode to charge zinc back onto?

@lautaromorales2903

8 ай бұрын

yeah, you can do that if you want to save on zinc

@chris993361

8 ай бұрын

@@lautaromorales2903 thanks!

Hands up, who had to drink Lugol's solution just after Chernobyl incident 😉

Good fun!

Maybe you could cut long strips of graphite foil and nickel foil then a thin layer of air-dry terracotta clay in-between, and roll it up into a cell?

Could this be used as a flow battery? Maybe charge in the summer and use in the winter?

yeah but how much did you spend on all that vs power output?

Is copper/ zink + copper sulphate electrolyte battery worth making ?

Hi Rob. In Australia the iodine and potassium iodide are restricted chemicals in its raw forms. I can get some lugols.

The ceramic pot made me think of the Baghdad battery