| Author | Message | ||
     Anonymous |
I like chemistry, but there are no chemistry stores near me and I dont have the money to get stuff online. I was thinking I could get some stuff from batteries like in the hydrogen bomb toy. I have looked up a couple kinds of batteries to see whats in them: Alkaline: Manganese dioxide, zinc, potassium hydroxide Nickel Cadmium: Nickel/nickel compounds, cadmium/cadmium compounds, potassium hydroxide Lithium ion: Lithium cobalt nickel dioxide, lithiated manganese dioxide Carbon zinc: Manganese dioxide, zinc, acetylene black, zinc chloride Lead acid: Lead/lead compounds, sulfuric acid Lantern: ??? What other kinds of batteries are there and whats in them? Whats in lantern batteries? I know potassium hydroxide is caustic and sulfuric acid is corrosive, is there anything else thats dangerous in them? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (Sfield) |
Cadmium is pretty toxic, and lithium is as well. Carbon-zinc batteries are probably the least harmful. Lantern batteries are just carbon-zinc or alkaline with four long "D" like cells in the package, in series. | ||
| Anonymous |
I have looked at a few sites and have found that I can get nickel from Canadian coins dating before 2001. I really have no use for cadmium and lithium right now and I'm not really equipped to handle their toxicity safely. Here is a site I found that may be interesting, it shows samples of most of the elements and some of their compounds, and samples of common things that use the elements or their compounds: http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/index.html | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (Sfield) |
Nickel wire is fairly easy to get, and nickel-chromium wire is in most toasters and hair dryers. Theodore Gray is a frequent email correspondent of mine, and if you look in the section about carbon on his page, you will see one of our pieces of pyrolytic graphite. | ||
| Anonymous |
Yeah I noticed that piece of PG. I have never seen nickel wire and I dont know if I could tell the difference between it and similar metals like steel wire. Is there an easy test I can do to tell if its nickel/mostly nickel? Even if not I will be sure to save any wire from toasters I throw out. I could probably turn the wire into ionic compounds, dissolve the ions in water and evaporate the water slowly untill only one salt crystalizes at a time. I could then electrolize the seperate salts untill I get seperate nickel and chromium. | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (Sfield) |
You can get nickel wire and ribbon here. | ||
| Anonymous |
My favorite authors are Alvin Toffler, Simon Field, and Theodore Gray. The three chipmunks of science. | ||
| Anonymous |
LOL, three chipmunks... I don't really have a good source of income, so I end up salvaging alot of things. I just found out from Theodore's site that there is tantalium in capacitors. Since I have alot of electronic junk lying around waiting to be salvaged I tore out a large capacitor out of one. I opened the capacitor and took out the tantalium foil and disposed of the electrolyte soaked paper and cleaned the foil. I now have some corosion resistant metal! I'm testing this now in an acid bath and using it in a test electrolysis reaction to see if it will work well for electrodes. | ||
| Anonymous |
WHat you have is likely to be aluminum foil, unless the capacitor actually said it was tantalum. Tantalum capacitors are usually the size of a pea or smaller, and dipped in epoxy. | ||
| Anonymous |
Well, there were two kinds of metal foil inside and electrolyte soaked paper. One kind of metal appeared to be aluminum foil, the other seemed to match the pictures of all the tantalum samples Theodore has. I am currently testing it for corrosive resistance. Even the tough oxide layer on aluminum foil broke down under electrolysis and citric acid soaking with time. But its definatly not aluminum, its too dull. And I have read on other sites that the capacitor manufatures make a thick oxide layer on it which might explain its dullness. | ||
| mike wheeler Unregistered guest |
How does copper pennies, tin foil, paper towels warm salty water, two pieces of cord with stripped ends, electrical tape and earphones make a battery? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (Sfield) Senior Member Username: Sfield Post Number: 426 Registered: 12-2004 |
Two dissimilar metals in an electrolyte will make a battery. The two metals in your case are copper and aluminum. The electrolyte is the salt water. The paper holds the salt water (you could just put the metals in a jar of salt water.) The cord connects the batter to something that need power. The earphone lets you hear a click when you connect it to a power source. |
