Sciencemadness Discussion Board

How to build a cheap and durable electrolytic cell

TriiodideFrog - 26-11-2020 at 18:24

Hi

Does anyone know how to build a cheap and durable electrolytic cell (under USD 10 ) that can be used for electrolysis of different chemicals. Thanks in advance!

B(a)P - 26-11-2020 at 20:12

Woelen has a great description on their web site.
https://woelen.homescience.net/science/chem/exps/miniature_c...
Obviously if you went with platinum electrodes your $10 would be blown out of the water, but you can cheaply source carbon rods from zinc batteries or gouging rods.
For a power source you can use one from an old PC, they work well and if you keep your eyes open you can get them quite cheap.

There are also heaps of threads on this topic on SM.

Junk_Enginerd - 28-11-2020 at 07:09

A mug? There's not much more to it. Then there's the electrodes, and what they need to be made of is entirely dependent on what you're wanting to achieve. Stainless steel works for a lot of things, especially in alkaline conditions.

mysteriusbhoice - 3-12-2020 at 01:22

10 USD uhhh well just get a plastic bottle or a mug and a popsicle stick and drill 2 holes and for power supply if you have an old PC power supply its basically free otherwise maybe use a bunch of D cell batteries for 4.5v in series parallel configuation.

Heptylene - 3-12-2020 at 02:16

It really depends on what you want to do. When I started in the hobby, I used plastic containers, copper and carbon electrodes. For the power supply, I like to use wall warts, you can get them for free in the electronics dumpster at your local recycling center/supermarket

A neat material is flower pots, they can make nice porous separators between two electrolytes

TriiodideFrog - 8-12-2020 at 20:01

Do you get your carbon electrodes from batteries?

B(a)P - 8-12-2020 at 20:28

I have tried carbon rods from zinc 6 V lantern batteries and carbon gouging rods. The gouging rods performed better (sloughed less carbon) and are more easily made usable as an electrode, as you don't have to extract them from the battery packaging and mess of magnesium oxide, just a thin layer of copper.

itsallgoodjames - 9-12-2020 at 07:54

I wouldn't even bother with electrodes sourced from batteries. They tend to just flake apart, even with super low currents. Just get some gouging rods and dissolve away the copper. They perform quite well and last a long time.

symboom - 12-1-2021 at 01:51

Here is an interesting video
https://youtu.be/-PL32ea0MqM
Also about Calcium antimony battery