Dirty Clean Power

Unfortunately, I have some other business to attend to, out of town for the next month.  I've spent the last few days preparing for that, so I apologize for the lack of updates.  The project has continued a bit since the last update.  I assembled the 5gallon cell and it is seriously under-performing...  There will be some big changes made when I return so I'm not going to go into too much detail about it until then.  Cell 9 is stable and holding in its 275ish zone, cell 10 stabilized in the 290s.  I have noticed some corrosion on the cathode of no.9 so I'll probably be moving on from copper electrodes when I return, likely to carbon.  

No.10 is scraping 291mv & 1.04ma this morning at about 12degC.  This marks the first time this cells output has responded in an expected manner to a temp drop(by also dropping).  It will be interesting to see how/where it settles out over the next few days.  Personally, I'm ready to move forward.

I'll be mixing the substrate and firing up no.11 sometime today.  It will be my first 5 gallon fuel cell.  I'm very excited to see what it does.

I've also been thinking of other ideas for anode materials.  I'm presently using copper only because I tried it experimentally and it worked way better than I expected it would.  That and it is relatively cheap and easy to work with.

I think the next anode material I'll be working on(after no.11) will be based on some homebrew carbon.  Probably sucrose to start with, I've found it can be foamed to nearly any rough shape in a proper steel container, just using a small fire.  I've done this a few times for previous investigations and the resultant material seems perfect.  It forms a fairly sturdy conductive glass-like carbon, not the greatest surface area, but better than the copper mesh.  

The only reason I haven't done it already is because I'm still trying to figure out the best way to connect a conductor to it.  I have a few ideas, and there's always the "poke a wire in it" method, but I know something clever will find me.  For instance, the idea of encapsulating a conductor in the foam keeps getting stuck in my head.  It seems like the best method, but will likely require some titanium or at least SS wire to survive the 3+ hours at 1000degC the carbon takes to become conductive...

Cell no.10 has been in excess of 300mv for a couple of days now.  Today at 4:19pm, while reading 308mv 1.10ma, I finally removed the incubator coil.  The shuffling about caused the output to drop to 301mv & 1.07ma, it has since recovered to 304mv & 1.09ma.  The output appears quite stable thus far, it will be interesting to see if it continues to increase now that the temps are going to be cooler.

The incubator will again be necessary for boosting up cell no.11 which I will be mixing up sometime tomorrow.

 Lookin real comfy in there.

Exactly 5 inches of head space.  Perfectly sized, ~2in of substrate to form the o2/proton membrane on top of the anode, and more than enough space to setup the cathode.

No.10 was at 303mv 1.08ma at 8am.  It has since dropped to 302.  It was fairly warm last night so the cell temps are a full degree warmer this morning.  No.10 @ 17.5degC and no.9 @ 16.

Been a very good day for cell no.10.

Also, here's a first peak at the anode for cell no.11.  It's something completely different.

That's a 1 liter water bottle in the middle.  It's about 9.5-10inches tall and likewise in diameter.  It should fit snug in a 5 gallon bucket.

18 copper mesh scrubbers and some 12ga copper wire...  Plus an hour or two of twisting.  I like the result.  Looks a bit like a jellyfish.  I haven't weighed it yet, but it's a good chunk of copper.  More tomorrow!

I can't yet be certain of it's going up or down at the moment, but we're still breaking new ground at this aprox. 16degC cell temp. range.  I think I'm going to give it another day or so to grow before I shut off the warm water circulation.  The reservoir temp.(measured outside of plastic bucket) is approximately 18degC.

Either way it seems to be stable output and I'm fairly certain it's not done increasing.  I have yet to test the meter leads to see exactly how these two are comparing but I think it's safe to say no.10 is probably going to eclipse no.9.  Concerns of longevity will take some time still.

I'm going to pick up some supplies today and hopefully start on cell no.11.  This one will be a bit more..More.

Yesterday no.10 closed the night at 277mv 0.99ma 16.5degC.  This morning it was again at 277 0.99 yet at 15degC.  So, I can at least say the lower temps aren't negatively effecting performance.  In fact if the leads of both sets of meters had the same resistance(fairly sure they do not) then no.10 might actually be outperforming no.9.  I may swap meters around later and test that theory.

After lowering the incubation temp yesterday cell no.10s temp dropped from an average of about 20.5degC to about 19.  By 11:30pm last night it was generating 266mv 0.95ma.

This morning @ 8:37am no.10 is at 268mv 0.96 cell temp 18.5degC.  I've again lowered the incubation temp. another 10degF, to its lowest setting.  One more day of slight warming and then we see what happens when nature takes over.

Well the last few days have been less than extraordinary.  Cell no.10 reached 263mv 0.94ma at 3pm on the 15th.  Since then the ambient temps have stabilized and so has the output, in the mid 250s.  I'm trying to get this cell to develop a kind of circadian rythem, so I guess it's time to wean it from the incubator and let nature take over.

The fish tank heater in my water reservoir has been turned down about 10degF.  The current res. temp. is about 28degC.  I'll monitor the cell and report any significant developments, then tomorrow the heater will go down some more.  If I cannot get it to respond to temp changes reliably then I will have to call this cell a failure.  Though I will likely keep it around for a while and see what becomes of it. 

One of the goals here is to develop a repeatable procedure for building these things in a timely manner.  So I guess as far as that goes I'm way off track already, lol.  I guess I should start hacking together cell no.11.

Cell no.10 is really starting to push.  At 9:09am it was reading 257mv 0.91ma 18.5degC, that's 10mv on yesterday's recorded high of 247mv 0.88ma 21degC.  It's presently bouncing off of 258&.92.

No.9 continues to lead with a cell temp of 12.5degC, only loosely wrapped with insulation.  It has a mature microbe colony capable of exceeding 300mv in 20degC temps.  

The next phase for no.10 will commence once the output peaks and has leveld out.  Then I will begin lowering the incubation temp a few degrees a day over the course of several days, ultimately removing it from the heat.  At which point it hopefully will have developed a microbe colony that behaves similarly to no.9 in that the output will be proportional to temp., and not inversely so as it still seems to be.