Current sources from improvised means. Fun chemistry experience at home

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Current sources from improvised means. Chemical experiments

Entertaining experiments in chemistry

Entertaining experiences at home / Chemistry experiments for children

It really takes some manual dexterity to revive an old battery. But. you will need it even more if you decide to make a homemade power source. It can be useful for various electrochemical experiments, such as anodizing aluminum or nickel plating.

There are many chemical current sources, but perhaps the easiest to manufacture is the Grenet element. It needs two plates - zinc and carbon of such a size that they fit into a glass jar. Pick up a plastic cover for it, pierce it in two places with an awl and pass the wires through the holes. Hang the electrode plates on these wires so that they do not touch each other.

The electrolyte will be an aqueous solution containing 16% sulfuric acid and 12% potassium dichromate (chromic). When you prepare the solution, pour the acid into the water, as always, and be very careful.

Carefully pour the electrolyte into a jar; the solution should cover the plates by about three quarters. Close the jar tightly with a prepared lid with wires and electrodes. At that moment, when the electrodes come into contact with the electrolyte, an electric potential will arise. If the circuit is closed, an electric current will flow through it. This is easy to check by connecting a voltmeter to the wires: it will show a voltage of about 2 V. However, the current strength is not too high, even a flashlight bulb will not work from the element. But if you make not one, but two or three Grenet elements and connect them in series with a zinc plate with a carbon one, then the light bulb will burn. And for the experiment with nickel plating, one Grenet element is enough.

Although the Grenet element works reliably, it has at least two drawbacks: firstly, it is inconvenient to deal with a liquid electrolyte, and besides, it contains sulfuric acid, and secondly, zinc and carbon plates are not always at hand. Therefore, we will deal with other home-made current sources. Let them be inferior to liquid elements, but there will be no problems with materials.

Tea and cigarettes are often wrapped in foil, which has silver on one side and paper on the other. The shops "Young Technician" sell copper foil. Cut both of them into squares of about 5x5 cm and put one on top of the other interspersed so that the copper lies on the "silver". The bottom layer should be paper, the top layer should be copper. You have a battery of elements; the higher the stack, i.e. the more elements, the higher the voltage.

Cut strips from copper foil - down conductors, attach them to the stack from above and below and wrap them with insulating tape, and then immerse the battery in an electrolyte solution of common salt. To make sure that the battery has begun to work, bring to its poles, as you have done before, a strip of filter paper moistened with a solution of phenolphthalein. At the negative pole, the solution turns red. The voltage of such a battery can reach several volts, but the current, unfortunately, is rather weak.

For other current sources, it will be easiest to use ready-made materials from old batteries that have served their purpose. Break the batteries and remove the active mass of manganese oxide from them, which is coated with electrodes, graphite rods and dried paste (thickened electrolyte) - scrape it off and put water to swell. Grind manganese oxide into powder and mix with a few drops of photo glue or gelatin solution. Coat the graphite rod or the lead of a simple pencil with this mixture, leaving a free area on top for attaching the contact. When the mixture dries, wrap the rod with "silver" paper in several layers, "silver" outside, and tie it with a thread. Wrap one wire tightly around the rod, the other around the "silver" paper and glue it with sticky tape. Wrap the element with electrical tape - it is ready to go.

More perfect elements are obtained if the active mass and paste are moistened with a solution of ammonium chloride (24 g per 100 ml of distilled water; it is useful to add 1 g of calcium chloride). If this solution is heated with starched milk, an electrolyte is obtained in the form of a paste.

Take a plastic cork from a bottle, pierce a hole in the bottom and pass a wire through it. Put a circle of galvanized iron into the cork, it should be pressed against the wire-conductor. From the filter paper, cut a circle along the inner diameter of the cork, soak it with electrolyte, grease it with paste and put it into the cork. Put the soaked active mass with manganese oxide from the old battery on top and press it with a circle cut from a graphite rod - it will serve as the second down conductor. Of these "plug" cells, you can also make a battery that gives a voltage of several volts.

Current sources from improvised means

A plastic cork can be replaced with a tin-coated iron cork - from a bottle of lemonade or mineral water. Naturally, zinc is no longer needed in this case, just as it is not necessary to punch a hole in the cork - it is electrically conductive in itself, but the tin element gives a low voltage.

An even more perfect element is in the form of a cup made of aluminum foil. The cup can be made using a short (3-4 cm) piece of plastic hose. Insert a sheet of foil of obviously greater height inside, press it against the walls, and make a bottom out of the "extra" material and straighten it with a round rod, for example, the back of a ballpoint pen. An aluminum cup will completely replace the zinc one.

Current sources from improvised means

Put a cardboard circle on the bottom and lubricate the inside of the cup with thickened electrolyte from an old battery or homemade one. The layer should not exceed 1 mm. Fill a bag of light fabric with a moistened mass of MnO₂, compact, pressing lightly with the same round rod, add mass to the top and press in the graphite rod (or pencil lead). Once again, slightly compact the mass, cover the bag if possible and put a second cardboard circle with a hole in the middle on the rod - it will prevent the electrode from tilting. Light a candle and drip on this washer, and then on the bottom of the element paraffin for insulation.

Such an element gives a voltage of about 1 V, its current is greater than that of an element from plugs. Two or three "glasses" make it possible to listen to a transistor receiver through headphones.

Author: Olgin O.M.

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