Reverse the polarity and you can do a bit of electroplating. Professor Murray, I think I speak for the entirety of your subscribers in saying that I can't stress enough that you are a treasure to humanity. Teachers like you become rarer and rarer by the day. Thank you for being such a passionate and driven harbinger of knowledge.
I think I speak for most of us to say it would be epic to see you build a battery bank, charge it off wind or solar and run an appliance off it using a power inverter. It would be your diy alternative opus.
With these types of batteries, a power inverter might not be required. Or at least, an often expensive electronic power invertor might not be required. Electrolyte could be pumped between different cell configurations in order to provide different voltages/amperages as needed. Potentially, many (or slow), very low voltage chargers could charge the electrolyte, then the same electrolyte could be pumped into cell configurations that provide 100v+ or 1,000v+. When depleted, the process could be reversed and recharged.
@@RiverMerseyThe inverter is to convert DC to AC, more than to act as a voltage regulator. Regulation is a secondary function. How many DC appliances do you have at home?
Absolutely love this! That said, I have it on good authority, that a video series covering a functional off-grid setup; _wind/solar + diy power storage, etc.._ would likely top the YT charts - not to mention, the level of service that would provide to an otherwise world in need Whatever the case, I love your videos and especially loved this one!
To make your own porous ceramic, add organics to the wet clay... sawdust, cornstarch, used coffee grounds etc... Different organics and proportions yield a wide range of results... water filters, floating blocks or tiles,... One of my favorite fails was toast dunked in clay slurry and fired - made a decent lightweight insulator
Boiled barley will turn to a foam like carbon: if you boil it long enough. If I were to powder barley in a coffee grinder would that also be a good material?
@@reypolice5231 Sounds like a fun experiment. Maybe even try adding a yeast culture into the slurry right before adding the clay (to create CO2 bubbles) You should be able to mould it like bread/clay before drying and firing, but the pores may increase the fire time to minimize cracking (also depends on the ceramic powder you choose) Ceramics shops have some glazes that can be great for making batteries too... black nickel oxide and ochre (iirc) on opposite sides would make a NiFe battery if soaked in drain cleaner (the KOH/NaOH type)
That's a really funny idea! "Carbon reinforced" ultralight bricks. I will buy a couple of clay brick molds and see if I can make yeast puff up a clay/dough mix. 😂 If successful, you might have a product on your hands. Clay-Doh! 😄
I've been watching your videos for sometime now, sir... I'm currently working on the Arazzamus/Darwin Vertical Windmill; for my off grid camper homes first wind turbine. This video appeared shortly after I told my other off grid solar friend that I'm going to make my own batteries (pretty easy to do, grade school science); however I could never wrap my head around how to calculate the charging amp needed. You just explained it so simply and casually i had to rewatch this 3 or 4 times today. Thank you sir, and i look forward to your continued contributions to the community.
"It's relatively simple stuff" you say after rattling off molar chemistry math from memory :) I'm only kidding, I appreciate the explanation and more importantly the way you simplified as much as possible.
We use to make our own battries here in rural Australia, big glass jars to give 32 volts to homestead and out buildings, but didn't have the understanding you have!
So interesting! Would love to see a “Gilligan's Island” series of videos. (Alternatively, ID and discuss your past videos that might be particularly apropos.) In other words … How might you set yourself up to generate, store, and use electricity for 10 or more years where solar, wind, water, and/or brute strength are your main sources of power. You will need/want to power basic electrical equipment (that you might also need to build) such as lights, radios, computers, and 3d printers. Just a thought. Seems like it’d be fun and a chance to be a bit silly. Cheers!
Thank you Robert Murray-Smith ! ! ! This is an excellent presentation of a very useful technology. A large DIY battery - wow ! ! ! A perfect way to store energy generated by a DIY fuel-less generator. Like a Bearden MEG w/DIY metglass. Or a high power, closed loop version of Joule Thief for which Steven Jones measured OU. Goodbye energy enslavement ! ! !
Hi, when you look into containers with separators for fluids, you might find that there are "self fillable" cases for 10" water filters. (Also 5" and 20" available) They are intended for Ion Exchangers, have a foam on top and bottom, sometimes multiple foams and then active coal and other stuff can be combined in one filter cartridge. Some people also throw in their magic stones for activated fairymagic superwater.
Today I removed all the lead acid batteries from my van, 4 big hunking 110ah leisure batteries, half that space is now prismatic lipo, and 610ah... 50% more capacity in half the space. cant wait to be totally 'off grid' and i do wonder if i could do this 'at home' on a large scale... like garden fish pond sized lol
Thought i wanted to share my experience here :) Am currently making a Diy battery Using ice cube trays with lid - each tray got 14 cells I use normal copper wire and screws with zink/aluminium I use Epsom salt (Magnesium sulfate) and bleach in water so each tray holds 2 DL liquid of water, 2 tablespoons of epsom salt and 1 1/2 spoon of bleach for battery acid. Each tray makes around 22V AC / 10V DC and 0.2 Amps. Each cell in 1 tray is seriel combined I use 2 trays in parellel So ending on 22V AC / 10V DC and 0.4 Amps I parellel this again a total of 12 times so i end up at aroun 240 volts AC and 0.4 Amps giving me around 90 watts of power Fun experiment and gratefull for all tour videos ! Ive gone from a total dumbass to actually making something usefull :) people like you inspire
Each cell like this is 1.8V, so you'd need 7-8 cells to make a 12V battery. If you had space for 7 IBC's and could deal with the hydrogen offgassing, you could.
Long story short, not in a DIY manner. Storing this amount of active bromine requires special permissions in most legislations. An accident or breakup of one of these tanks would create a danger to everyone around, up to even a distance of several hundred meters.
Great video, Rob, thankyou! Given that the electrolyte stores the energy, surely it would be possible to have this device as a constant charger. When the cell is fully charged, pump out the electrolyte to be stored in a reservoir tank and new depleted electrolyte pumped in to be charged. Electrolyte in the tank could be pumped when needed into a "consumption" circuit, and, when depleted pumped into a new charger? Also, consumption circuit(s) could be configured to provide which ever voltages are required. What do other viewers think?
Maybe it would work as you say. But the material that settles at the bottom would need to reintegrate back into the solution I think. So just built several of these, and not deal with the mess of pouring it out? He did say that it can be gelled as well.
@@reypolice5231 Where I work uses forklift trucks that have interchangeable lead-acid batteries. Each battery weighs about 800kg and are changed via the use of an electric pallet truck. My thoughts are, it would be ideal to instead of changing heavy bulky battery units, just pump the electrolytes around as required. A forklift would benefit from the weight of a bromide battery, compared to a lithium battery. Of course, the pumping hoses would need to be robust and highly leak-resistant. Having looked at this elsewhere, apparently something similar is called a "flow-battery" and an Australian company called RedFlow have been doing something along these lines for about 10 years
@@RiverMersey Yes it might work as you say: but people are prone to accidents. Lead acid is not safe, but not prone to a hose that can break or leak on a forklift. Some companies do not maintain their forklifts very well sometimes. Large Stationary off site like Rob said is advised.
@@reypolice5231 yes, I fully agree that pumping lead acid around isn't safe! My apologises if that is how my comment came across! What I actually meant was pumping bromide solution as the electrolyte between 4 tanks - 2 tanks at the charger, and 2 tanks at the consuming circuit (in this case, the forklift). Charger's pair of tanks would receive depleted electrolyte into 1 tank, charge it up, and store it in the other tank. Consuming pair of tanks would do the opposite as the electrolyte becomes depleted of energy. When the consuming tanks were completely depleted of energy, a hose would pump newly charged electrolyte into the consumption tank and pump depleted electrolyte back to the charger. Yes, over time there will be corrosion in the electrodes (clean and/or replace them) and the electrolyte will need filtering/cleaning. Only with practical use could we determine just how frequent this would need to be addressed. Every fueling system carries risk. From my very little knowledge of bromide, don't drink it and wash hands after fluid swaps it should be good enough to be safe.
Someone should start making those batteries right away, so super design, i have never seen it before, seems like the design will use less metals and thus be far less expensive, so amazing!!!!!
I'm very happy with my LIFEPO4 cells that I made into a 30 Kilowatt battery, that was pre covid, and much cheaper than they are today, but now I have it paired with an all in one 6500 watt inverter, solar charge controller, ac charger, and 3500 watts of solar panels..Extremely easy, and basically just a handful of different parts, and I can weld, run my well pump, as well as a minisplit, microwave, induction cooktops, etc.,But, this technology is interesting...Especially if the brown smelly hits the fan, which is only a matter of time at this point...My battery is testing at 95% of original capacity after 5 years, that's pretty impressive...
I Think it would be nice to replace my water-heater with batteries and instant hot water. Would not need to go trough an inverter either. Only downside is that the battery would need to be able to deliver something like 10-15kW for around 10 minutes. Additional use would be to shift loads(and add an inverter), as electricity tends to be most expensive in the morning/evening, and cheapest at night.
@@MalawisLilleKanal I'm 100% off grid electricity wise..I have both a normal electric hot water tank, and a propane instant hot water system..Neither requires anything close to 10-15 thousand watts, not sure what your talking about there..The average water heater uses 1,125 watts, little over one kilowatt, only while heating the water..I have installed a hot water heater once that consumed 4000 watts, 4 kilowatts, but that was a commercial situation, with a huge tank..Maybe you mean without an inverter, but, why not have an inverter..The all in ones are cheap and reliable these days..A 3 thousand watt all in one inverter could run most things in a normal house, if you use only two high draw items at once..EG4 sells one for $674, very reliable, the 6000watt models are around $1,200, and they all include a real solar charge controller that can handle between 5,000 12,000 watts of solar and an AC charger..
@@realeyesrealizereallies6828 I am thinking of an instant hot-water heater instead of the regular water heater that sits in the basement and looses about 25% of the heat to the environment every day.
Hi Robert, can I request that you show us how to make a practical scaled up version of this using a 1000L IBC container. These are cheap and readily available and might have enough scale to support an off grid house with modern amenities. Best regards Dave
@@akumabito2008 Ummm me too. I like that it is slow. Where I am at 8k feet we get a lot of sunshine in the summer but it never gets too warm so we don't need air conditioning. It would be nice to store that solar for winter when we need lights and heat and stuff. If it takes 6 months to charge and 6 months to discharge that would be perfect. Have plenty of land so size(so long as it is safe) is not an issue.
I'll use 12 IBC containers(to get the voltage) if there is a way to do it safely. I would even encase them in concrete. This is just potentially so valuable depending on how long it will hold a charge.
I definitely enjoyed this video. Amazing subject. The negative electrode doesn't have to be zinc right? If you were to put a graphene electrode on the negative side as well, zinc will accumulate there and get dissolved again once the battery starts discharging. Didn't you use terracotta before? Firebricks seem like a good choice. It would be possible perhaps to make sheets of graphene foil separated by thin slabs of porous material to maximize surface area. Ideally you want a square carrier for this. The fumed silica bit seemed really interesting. A lot of the bromine will sit at the bottom but it diffusing back to the electrode takes time. Gelling the electrolyte will force most of the bromine to stay close to the electrode right. I'm contemplating making either a flow battery of a gel battery using this chemistry. Gel is probably simpler since it doesn't require a pump and the electronics to support that but flow should have benefits regarding scalability. Looking forward to seeing more from you about this subject! Cheers!
well the zinc has to move through the gelled medium no matter what, so it wont be faster, it would be slower. Gelled car batteries have to have thier plates closer together to compisate for that as well. This is defenitly a battery chemistry made for mass storage and slow charge and dischage cycles. Whats important is its achivable, DIY friendly (well freindly enough bromine does have hazards so does hydrogen), and it works. Rather then look towards speeding up the chemistry; look at multiplying the force, and automating the charge cycle for automatic charging. By mulitplying the force I mean many batteries in series and parallel till it reaches your use demands. As for automating the charge cycle, you want to clamp amperages while allowing voltage to vary until you detect the charge cycle has compleated, or just before it has compleated. There are lots of ways to do this, and each method will vary depending on your set up, and technical skills, but I am sure you can do it, you just need a measure of your battery's various voltage requirements to reach your desired amperage. Because DC motors work by vayring the voltage you have your choice of neat treats to get your stable amps. Now, I personally use 3 phase electrcity for my tools; so I would already have to take my dc output and transform it into 3 seperate phases and consider capacitors for shock loads, this has some advantages because various types of rotery motors can take various inputs to deliver various outputs with simple mechanical and electrical devices capable of clamping amps or volts. So I know what pathway is simplest for me, I already need that pure sinewave humming at 60Hz, I can just make a modified rotary phase converter with two seperate DC inputs; one from battery cells and one from energy harvesting and alongside some simple mechanical switches I can get charging and discharging all sorts of willy nilly and all at once. But I will need more complexity for load varyiance and charge varyance. Not too many people have need of powering 30 kilowatt motors at home! And at such energies it is generally lower losses to run mechanical conversions. A micro-controller would probably be the easiest method for most people, but perhaps a scaled down verson using various motora would be best, particularly if you need that sinisiodal wave on your power band like I do.
@@AnonymousAnarchist2 Thanks for the recommendations. Do you think that there might be any benefit to including a Stirling engine driven propeller (assuming that enough of a temp. diff. exists) in the electrolyte to aid in diffusion during charging?
@@synchro-dentally1965 I would not see that as an benfit. The electric charge is the motive force moving the dissolved materials to thier respective nodes (anode and cathode) Sapping the energy from that to generate turbulance probably would just complexity, and inefficency. But. You are getting into stuff I have never tried, and wouldnt want to because I would have no benifit. so. Maybe? You can set up a simple experment and see how turbulance effects charge and discharge rates, there might be something else electro-mechanically at play with this battery chemistry.
As you say, gelling might keep the bromine around the electrode...which might slow down the charging by preventing electrolyte contact. Seems to have pros & cons (all hypothetical oc)
Just a little correction: if 1 mol contains 6*10^23 molecules then 2.5 mol contains 15*10^23 molecules (not 18*10^23). So you'd need 30*10^23 electrons for complete separation.
Redflow are onto their third generation of a commercial battery using this chemistry. It has some very useful features and is very safe. Reliabillty seems to be an issue, but this will get resolved as the then get more experience with them.
If I remember right, isn't this the basic type cell used in redox batteries, were you can store the charged electrolyte in tanks, so can use bigger tanks to store more energy and then cycle that through the cells when needed? I think most well built/designed of them are around 70 efficient and because of self discharge doesn't work well for long term starage.
Would be nice if you could strictly leave this main channel for the latest updated material. Even if its only one video a week or even a month, everybody would still be happy. Take care robbie and thanks for all your wonderful work.
Hi there rob I was thinking of taking your enclosure from 2102 the glass candle holder and adding the electrolyte from 2507 iodine potassium iodide A couple of questions would this work ? Could I change the glass container for a plastic one ? Would this be suitable for home storage ? Thankyou in advance and thankyou for your work Alex
If you could do/show an actual build of a large diy iron oxide battery for off grid, I think a lot of people would be interested in it. For example how to make it using 55 gallon plastic barrels that are easily and cheaply attainable. Has at least 60 kwh of storage and how to continue to size it up, maybe to 600 kwh. Thanks
My head hurts listening to your maths 🤪 Wish I had you as a professor at school…I might have taken more notice. Follow your channel for the practical side of things, how you build and how you explain…as I said above….wish you were my teacher years ago
As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, zinc bromide batteries were primarily used in large-scale energy storage applications, such as in grid-level energy storage systems. These batteries are known for their high energy density and low cost, making them attractive for such applications. While zinc bromide batteries are commercially available for large-scale energy storage, they are not commonly found in rechargeable consumer products that are available for purchase by individual consumers. These batteries are typically designed for stationary energy storage and are not widely used in consumer electronics or other portable devices. It's possible that developments have occurred since my last update, so I recommend checking with battery manufacturers or industry sources for the most current information on the availability of rechargeable zinc bromide batteries for specific applications.
Ok, looking good for my off-grid rural block as I have plenty of spare amps on all but the occasional 2 to 3 day clumps of gloomy winter weather I get. But, I can't be standing around watching and managing the charge. Is there a way to automate the charging amps profile described that gets reasonably close to max storage without cooking the electrolyte?
A very simple build, I just need to find the right charge controller and a way to alter the liquid level to stop the discharge when not in use, and a lot of zinc bromide.
Would you please do a video on using galvanized steel to make a large battery, I have access to 20 or so 13ft long by 12 inch wide by 1/8 inch thick galvanized steel guardrails from the roads, as well as some 6inch by 8ft by 1/2inch thick galvanized steel i beams and i was thinking of trying to make a very large capacity battery (1000 kwh) for my off grid home in rural Alaska, I could use the local mud and clay as well as aluminum cans which I have in huge abundance, but I'm curious if this can be done. Thanks always for the great content!
Charging at 7.6V the energy efficiency of this battery is going to be around 15-20%, best case. If Robert cared to measure that, he would see that a battery like this is never going to be viable -- unless you're ok with wasting huge amounts of energy. Ohmic losses from that separator and electrode distance are simply insane. Maybe some videos with battery characterization - actually measuring CE and EE - would be good to show why these patents never really became commercial successes. People are left wondering why if this technology is so great we're all not using them. There are some very good technical reasons related with efficiencies. Anybody who actually characterizes these batteries will agree.
Hi again thank you for your videos. I seen a 3 ingredient metal battery that you might want to do a show on. High temperature . Three ingrediants are magnesium, molton salt and antimony i believe. Charges quickly and discharges quickly. How many different batteries are there?
I think You mentioned that it gets charged by AC directly. Does it discharge in AC or discharge in DC? 80% return is still better than an AC to DC full bridge rectifier at 30% loss. On charging.
I am not fortunate enough to have the time to read up on math in the two hours of free time I have every day, so is there a tl:dr on how much capacity needed, what size electrodes and which amount of units to make to generate enough capacity to run a normal home for a family with fridge, freezer, washing and dishwashing machines, lighting, computers and phones to charge etc. for a day, a week? How to convert these power banks' energy to useful energy etc. It would be inspiring to see a whole project mounted and explained. Batteries hooked up to [whatever] in [series or parallel] and then to [whatever else] and then call the electrician to hook it up to your installation as an uninterruptible power supply.
Question to Robert or viewers: What would be the 'best type' of battery to run a wood shop (low grade, just one tool running at a time, with 120 v table saw as max)? Could a battery such as in this video (a bank of them), work? Appreciate any comments, URLs, etc. And thank you, Robert, for posting this video.
Recently discovered that UA-cam now gives warnings for video titles, descriptions and comments that include URLs! My thoughts is that it could be possible to charge the zinc bromide electrolyte at one location, pump it into a tank, then use the electrolyte in another location. Each location could be running at different voltages/amperages but use the exact same electrolyte! When the energy is depleted at the remote location, the electrolyte could be returned to be recharged.
Great vid Rob....similar to ur floral foam gravity cell way back when. Can u comment on internal resistace? Practical limit i think should be at least a discharge capability of at least 1C, even if its not a power cell.
You would probably need 7-8 of these cells, I suppose if you made them even bigger you would have better amp draw off capacity for an inverter. Solar charge controllers would need to be constant current type. I would love to try this at some point. Getting hold of the chemicals can be awkward.
I think you would need a matrix of them in combined series / parallel configuration to increase the voltage to a useable value and the current draw to make it viable too! Like Luke's saltwater battery.
This was the video i waited for, those batteries can have a huge liquid store pumped, and can be expanded on a need basis (add more fluid), As you explained service area (and pumps) might be ways to optimise this battery. Also the ceramic parts thickness, surface are, liquid volume... gell-ification, how long can the lquid be stored charged?, i think lots of area to improve it. I saw company redflow have some commercial usage of it too, so if done properly this can be made viable ... or how to say in english can be made ideal or so. Oh and where can one get these materials /liquids ?. .. as for shape i wonder if the ground plate had carbon pins (like thise from a pen), or maybe just iron pins if it would better collec energy of the fluid.
The lifetime of these batteries is NOT limitless. Hydrogen evolution increases the pH of the battery, which creates a lot of side reactions that lead to degradation of the anode and also formation of bromate in the battery. You would need to continuously lower pH with HBr in order to prevent this from happening.
Can this battery be used to start a vehicle? First, how does one determine the voltage, does it depend on the volume or surface area of the cut brick? Also how many amps can you get out of a battery the size you showed us?
You will never know the Wh/L of a battery until you actually measure it. Wikipedia tells you it could potentially be 15-65 but a real battery can easily be much worse. As is likely the case here due to the huge electrode distances and likely very poor energy efficiency. You always need to characterize actual devices made.
You didnt comment on how many watt-hrs you expect to store. I ran the numbers once for a diy solar storage and concluded i needed a 55 gallon drum to store 60kWhr......curious if that lines up with your system.
Hey Robert, if you had to estimate, what would you reckon the watt hour capacity of a cell with this volume might be? Also, could you scale this up to 55 gallon barrel sized cells, and at that scale what watt hour capacity might that yeild? (asking for a friend) 😉
I like the jellification idea. Why is jellification not a word? Is there a way to temporarily seal a battery like this so you can disassemble it later for serving? Would just putting the build inside a 6" pvc pipe that is threaded at both ends suffice, or would that cause the unintentional consequence of it blowing up on you? It would also be cool if you could collect and bottle the hydrogen for use elsewhere.
If it's stored in the electrolyte would this battery make a good flow battery? I have a 500 gallon water tank. I think I could pair it with a very large cell containing zinc to create a house battery.
Personally, I'd rather go with a Zinc Iodide. Specifically, Video 1794. Far, FAR less toxic. This not only means "More safe for me," but also "Less raised eyebrows" from the Building Department/Commission/Agency for having a potential "EPA Superfund site" in my bedroom, in a residential area.
The design is the same,.... the only thing what you need to do with iodine version is that you need the + electrode on the bottom that the iodine will collect on the top surface of the electrode.
yes! ta video est complète et intéressante comme toujours, et en plein dans le vif du sujet😉 mais pourquoi le brome? une znbr2 est donnée pour une durée inférieure à 500 cycles, sans compter qu'elle est assez instable... beaucoup d' amateurs qui s'y sont essayé l'ont abandonné (pas rentable du tout, brome extrêmement cher ou impossible à trouver). quite à avoir une faible tenue des cycles; ne peut-on pas utiliser du chlore (ou un autre halogène accessible et pas cher) à la place? pour faire du off-grid et rester dans des prix equivalents ou inférieur au plomb?
Curious as to the viability of this type battery in arctic conditions? I live in interior Alaska and winter is commonly -40°F to -60°F for weeks at a time.
Love your videos! Now, math is not my strong point, but if a mole is a five steps greater exponent than a coulomb, then at 1:1 youve got 100,000 coulombs per mol? If correct, then 6*2.5=15moles, and 2 electrons per molecule should mean 30*100,000= 3 million coulombs? Divide that by 3600 and the battery should theoretically yield ~825 amp hours? That seems insane. If there is an error in my calculation, somebody please correct me.
This was quite a nice build. Thank you again. Would a carbon and magnesium sulfate ( Epsom salt) battery work? I ask because carbon is easy to get ( a factory by me) and Epsom salt is also cheap and easy to get.
This is where Robert could do a video on battery types and mode of operation , he did do a video maybe four years back . I think it's three or four different modes of operation to try for . At normal temperature and pressure ,,STP,, , carbon is pretty unreactive. Carbon simply doesn't react with strong acids or alkalis . The sulphate radical in epsom salt represents sulphuric acid. You'd want a set-up in which the sulphate radical travels back and forth during charge/discharge , however there doesn't exist a compound called carbon sulphate at STP ; I'm thinking also that magnesium ions in water would lead to magnesium hydroxide which may complicate things . Zinc and copper sulphate is what we know works but has those dendritic growth complications. Perhaps another solvent and moving from STP realm to higher pressure such as liquid carbon dioxide at I think 5 atmosphere pressure, hmmm, not sure . I don't know if carbon is soluble in liquid CO2 , it's not soluble in anything much at STP . Get carbon up to 400°C , and then it reacts with things, but again it's departing from STP . I've had my little wander-wonder , cheers .
@@philip5940 Magnesium sulfate Epsom salt in a mineral in the human body that completes the electric field in the human body. The human body runs at 100 watts an hour DC. So if this did work it would probably be a DC load battery not an AC battery. I think Rob mentioned that this video battery is an AC storage battery? Charged by AC not DC. In itself that is very interesting.
Sub-Zero Fahrenheit? Maybe not, I'm not sure, this would be like very concentrated salt water, so you can get significantly below zero Celsius. If you live in a northern cold climate why can't you just put it in a basement, or build a small cellar like one might for a well pump?
@@petevenuti7355 thanks. My imagination started running wild... 😀 As I need to build a separating fence I thought I could theoretically integrate batteries into it.
Reverse the polarity and you can do a bit of electroplating.
Professor Murray,
I think I speak for the entirety of your subscribers in saying that I can't stress enough that you are a treasure to humanity. Teachers like you become rarer and rarer by the day. Thank you for being such a passionate and driven harbinger of knowledge.
Amen To that, he is a treasure.
I think I speak for most of us to say it would be epic to see you build a battery bank, charge it off wind or solar and run an appliance off it using a power inverter. It would be your diy alternative opus.
With these types of batteries, a power inverter might not be required. Or at least, an often expensive electronic power invertor might not be required. Electrolyte could be pumped between different cell configurations in order to provide different voltages/amperages as needed.
Potentially, many (or slow), very low voltage chargers could charge the electrolyte, then the same electrolyte could be pumped into cell configurations that provide 100v+ or 1,000v+. When depleted, the process could be reversed and recharged.
@@RiverMerseyThe inverter is to convert DC to AC, more than to act as a voltage regulator. Regulation is a secondary function. How many DC appliances do you have at home?
@@alexmanojlovic768 almost all my home appliances are DC - including my washing machine with its universal motor!🤣
Most all appliances run on DC they all invert ac to DC from plug before powering internal components💯💯
@@wesleycastner4860 Yeap, I wasn't joking!
Absolutely love this!
That said, I have it on good authority, that a video series covering a functional off-grid setup; _wind/solar + diy power storage, etc.._ would likely top the YT charts - not to mention, the level of service that would provide to an otherwise world in need
Whatever the case, I love your videos and especially loved this one!
To make your own porous ceramic, add organics to the wet clay... sawdust, cornstarch, used coffee grounds etc...
Different organics and proportions yield a wide range of results... water filters, floating blocks or tiles,...
One of my favorite fails was toast dunked in clay slurry and fired - made a decent lightweight insulator
Boiled barley will turn to a foam like carbon: if you boil it long enough. If I were to powder barley in a coffee grinder would that also be a good material?
@@reypolice5231 Sounds like a fun experiment. Maybe even try adding a yeast culture into the slurry right before adding the clay (to create CO2 bubbles)
You should be able to mould it like bread/clay before drying and firing, but the pores may increase the fire time to minimize cracking (also depends on the ceramic powder you choose)
Ceramics shops have some glazes that can be great for making batteries too... black nickel oxide and ochre (iirc) on opposite sides would make a NiFe battery if soaked in drain cleaner (the KOH/NaOH type)
That's a really funny idea! "Carbon reinforced" ultralight bricks.
I will buy a couple of clay brick molds and see if I can make yeast puff up a clay/dough mix. 😂
If successful, you might have a product on your hands. Clay-Doh! 😄
I was thinking... would perlite or zeolite be possible? Keramzyt? They are porous minerals ....
@@ewanowakowska4807 They need to make that "Cup shape" in order to hold the zinc.
I've been watching your videos for sometime now, sir... I'm currently working on the Arazzamus/Darwin Vertical Windmill; for my off grid camper homes first wind turbine.
This video appeared shortly after I told my other off grid solar friend that I'm going to make my own batteries (pretty easy to do, grade school science); however I could never wrap my head around how to calculate the charging amp needed. You just explained it so simply and casually i had to rewatch this 3 or 4 times today.
Thank you sir, and i look forward to your continued contributions to the community.
"It's relatively simple stuff" you say after rattling off molar chemistry math from memory :)
I'm only kidding, I appreciate the explanation and more importantly the way you simplified as much as possible.
That size of a home brewed battery is a bit of a beast. I love it!
We use to make our own battries here in rural Australia, big glass jars to give 32 volts to homestead and out buildings, but didn't have the understanding you have!
So interesting! Would love to see a “Gilligan's Island” series of videos. (Alternatively, ID and discuss your past videos that might be particularly apropos.)
In other words …
How might you set yourself up to generate, store, and use electricity for 10 or more years where solar, wind, water, and/or brute strength are your main sources of power.
You will need/want to power basic electrical equipment (that you might also need to build) such as lights, radios, computers, and 3d printers.
Just a thought. Seems like it’d be fun and a chance to be a bit silly. Cheers!
Thank you Robert Murray-Smith ! ! !
This is an excellent presentation of a very useful technology. A large DIY battery - wow ! ! !
A perfect way to store energy generated by a DIY fuel-less generator. Like a Bearden MEG w/DIY metglass. Or a high power, closed loop version of Joule Thief for which Steven Jones measured OU.
Goodbye energy enslavement ! ! !
Hi,
when you look into containers with separators for fluids, you might find that there are "self fillable" cases for 10" water filters. (Also 5" and 20" available)
They are intended for Ion Exchangers, have a foam on top and bottom, sometimes multiple foams and then active coal and other stuff can be combined in one filter cartridge.
Some people also throw in their magic stones for activated fairymagic superwater.
This Gentleman Has more brains in a Mole Than i have all together. Huge Admiration.
Please keep us updated on the zinc degradation, I hope you can put this battery to good use ! 👍
AHA! Most excellent. Thanks, Rob.
Thanks!
WOW another fantastic video Robert. Thank you again for sharing your vast knowledge with me.😊🎉
Thanks Robert. You never stick to just one theme on this channel, mate. Btw that is a good thing lol.
Today I removed all the lead acid batteries from my van, 4 big hunking 110ah leisure batteries, half that space is now prismatic lipo, and 610ah... 50% more capacity in half the space. cant wait to be totally 'off grid' and i do wonder if i could do this 'at home' on a large scale... like garden fish pond sized lol
Very interesting....!!!..
thank you, Robert
Thought i wanted to share my experience here :)
Am currently making a Diy battery
Using ice cube trays with lid - each tray got 14 cells
I use normal copper wire and screws with zink/aluminium
I use Epsom salt (Magnesium sulfate) and bleach in water so each tray holds 2 DL liquid of water, 2 tablespoons of epsom salt and 1 1/2 spoon of bleach for battery acid.
Each tray makes around 22V AC / 10V DC and 0.2 Amps.
Each cell in 1 tray is seriel combined
I use 2 trays in parellel
So ending on 22V AC / 10V DC and 0.4 Amps
I parellel this again a total of 12 times so i end up at aroun 240 volts AC and 0.4 Amps giving me around 90 watts of power
Fun experiment and gratefull for all tour videos ! Ive gone from a total dumbass to actually making something usefull :) people like you inspire
Could it be safely scaled up to something the size of a 1000L IBC tank? That way it would be very useful for off-grid living.
Each cell like this is 1.8V, so you'd need 7-8 cells to make a 12V battery. If you had space for 7 IBC's and could deal with the hydrogen offgassing, you could.
could you just save the charged electrolyte in separate ibc tanks?
Long story short, not in a DIY manner. Storing this amount of active bromine requires special permissions in most legislations. An accident or breakup of one of these tanks would create a danger to everyone around, up to even a distance of several hundred meters.
@danielppps can you please explain the risks associated with zinc bromine
Brilliant work Sir
Great video, Rob, thankyou!
Given that the electrolyte stores the energy, surely it would be possible to have this device as a constant charger. When the cell is fully charged, pump out the electrolyte to be stored in a reservoir tank and new depleted electrolyte pumped in to be charged. Electrolyte in the tank could be pumped when needed into a "consumption" circuit, and, when depleted pumped into a new charger?
Also, consumption circuit(s) could be configured to provide which ever voltages are required.
What do other viewers think?
Maybe it would work as you say.
But the material that settles at the bottom would need to reintegrate back into the solution I think.
So just built several of these, and not deal with the mess of pouring it out?
He did say that it can be gelled as well.
@@reypolice5231 Where I work uses forklift trucks that have interchangeable lead-acid batteries. Each battery weighs about 800kg and are changed via the use of an electric pallet truck. My thoughts are, it would be ideal to instead of changing heavy bulky battery units, just pump the electrolytes around as required. A forklift would benefit from the weight of a bromide battery, compared to a lithium battery. Of course, the pumping hoses would need to be robust and highly leak-resistant.
Having looked at this elsewhere, apparently something similar is called a "flow-battery" and an Australian company called RedFlow have been doing something along these lines for about 10 years
@@RiverMersey
Yes it might work as you say: but people are prone to accidents. Lead acid is not safe, but not prone to a hose that can break or leak on a forklift.
Some companies do not maintain their forklifts very well sometimes.
Large Stationary off site like Rob said is advised.
@@reypolice5231 yes, I fully agree that pumping lead acid around isn't safe! My apologises if that is how my comment came across!
What I actually meant was pumping bromide solution as the electrolyte between 4 tanks - 2 tanks at the charger, and 2 tanks at the consuming circuit (in this case, the forklift).
Charger's pair of tanks would receive depleted electrolyte into 1 tank, charge it up, and store it in the other tank. Consuming pair of tanks would do the opposite as the electrolyte becomes depleted of energy.
When the consuming tanks were completely depleted of energy, a hose would pump newly charged electrolyte into the consumption tank and pump depleted electrolyte back to the charger.
Yes, over time there will be corrosion in the electrodes (clean and/or replace them) and the electrolyte will need filtering/cleaning. Only with practical use could we determine just how frequent this would need to be addressed.
Every fueling system carries risk. From my very little knowledge of bromide, don't drink it and wash hands after fluid swaps it should be good enough to be safe.
Awesome work sir. Thank you.
I use much the same setup in a copper sulphate copper parting cell for separating copper base metals from gold plated electronics connector pins.
Someone should start making those batteries right away, so super design, i have never seen it before, seems like the design will use less metals and thus be far less expensive, so amazing!!!!!
I'm very happy with my LIFEPO4 cells that I made into a 30 Kilowatt battery, that was pre covid, and much cheaper than they are today, but now I have it paired with an all in one 6500 watt inverter, solar charge controller, ac charger, and 3500 watts of solar panels..Extremely easy, and basically just a handful of different parts, and I can weld, run my well pump, as well as a minisplit, microwave, induction cooktops, etc.,But, this technology is interesting...Especially if the brown smelly hits the fan, which is only a matter of time at this point...My battery is testing at 95% of original capacity after 5 years, that's pretty impressive...
I Think it would be nice to replace my water-heater with batteries and instant hot water. Would not need to go trough an inverter either.
Only downside is that the battery would need to be able to deliver something like 10-15kW for around 10 minutes.
Additional use would be to shift loads(and add an inverter), as electricity tends to be most expensive in the morning/evening, and cheapest at night.
@@MalawisLilleKanal I'm 100% off grid electricity wise..I have both a normal electric hot water tank, and a propane instant hot water system..Neither requires anything close to 10-15 thousand watts, not sure what your talking about there..The average water heater uses 1,125 watts, little over one kilowatt, only while heating the water..I have installed a hot water heater once that consumed 4000 watts, 4 kilowatts, but that was a commercial situation, with a huge tank..Maybe you mean without an inverter, but, why not have an inverter..The all in ones are cheap and reliable these days..A 3 thousand watt all in one inverter could run most things in a normal house, if you use only two high draw items at once..EG4 sells one for $674, very reliable, the 6000watt models are around $1,200, and they all include a real solar charge controller that can handle between 5,000 12,000 watts of solar and an AC charger..
@@realeyesrealizereallies6828 I am thinking of an instant hot-water heater instead of the regular water heater that sits in the basement and looses about 25% of the heat to the environment every day.
Zinc Iodine battery is also another type for exploration you've probably thought about. Cheers!
Hi Robert, can I request that you show us how to make a practical scaled up version of this using a 1000L IBC container. These are cheap and readily available and might have enough scale to support an off grid house with modern amenities.
Best regards
Dave
Haha I just posted the exact same question, moments before seeing your post.
A relatively cheap DIY off grid energy storage would be a game changer.
@@akumabito2008 Ummm me too. I like that it is slow. Where I am at 8k feet we get a lot of sunshine in the summer but it never gets too warm so we don't need air conditioning. It would be nice to store that solar for winter when we need lights and heat and stuff. If it takes 6 months to charge and 6 months to discharge that would be perfect. Have plenty of land so size(so long as it is safe) is not an issue.
I'll use 12 IBC containers(to get the voltage) if there is a way to do it safely. I would even encase them in concrete. This is just potentially so valuable depending on how long it will hold a charge.
Love what you do brother! Keep it up!
I have one question for your Robert, would making the container square in shape help with increasing the output of the cell power ?? Thanks vf
I definitely enjoyed this video. Amazing subject.
The negative electrode doesn't have to be zinc right? If you were to put a graphene electrode on the negative side as well, zinc will accumulate there and get dissolved again once the battery starts discharging.
Didn't you use terracotta before? Firebricks seem like a good choice. It would be possible perhaps to make sheets of graphene foil separated by thin slabs of porous material to maximize surface area. Ideally you want a square carrier for this.
The fumed silica bit seemed really interesting. A lot of the bromine will sit at the bottom but it diffusing back to the electrode takes time. Gelling the electrolyte will force most of the bromine to stay close to the electrode right.
I'm contemplating making either a flow battery of a gel battery using this chemistry. Gel is probably simpler since it doesn't require a pump and the electronics to support that but flow should have benefits regarding scalability.
Looking forward to seeing more from you about this subject! Cheers!
American penny's.
Mostly zinc.
well the zinc has to move through the gelled medium no matter what, so it wont be faster, it would be slower.
Gelled car batteries have to have thier plates closer together to compisate for that as well.
This is defenitly a battery chemistry made for mass storage and slow charge and dischage cycles. Whats important is its achivable, DIY friendly (well freindly enough bromine does have hazards so does hydrogen), and it works.
Rather then look towards speeding up the chemistry; look at multiplying the force, and automating the charge cycle for automatic charging.
By mulitplying the force I mean many batteries in series and parallel till it reaches your use demands.
As for automating the charge cycle, you want to clamp amperages while allowing voltage to vary until you detect the charge cycle has compleated, or just before it has compleated.
There are lots of ways to do this, and each method will vary depending on your set up, and technical skills, but I am sure you can do it, you just need a measure of your battery's various voltage requirements to reach your desired amperage.
Because DC motors work by vayring the voltage you have your choice of neat treats to get your stable amps.
Now, I personally use 3 phase electrcity for my tools; so I would already have to take my dc output and transform it into 3 seperate phases and consider capacitors for shock loads, this has some advantages because various types of rotery motors can take various inputs to deliver various outputs with simple mechanical and electrical devices capable of clamping amps or volts.
So I know what pathway is simplest for me, I already need that pure sinewave humming at 60Hz, I can just make a modified rotary phase converter with two seperate DC inputs; one from battery cells and one from energy harvesting and alongside some simple mechanical switches I can get charging and discharging all sorts of willy nilly and all at once.
But I will need more complexity for load varyiance and charge varyance. Not too many people have need of powering 30 kilowatt motors at home! And at such energies it is generally lower losses to run mechanical conversions.
A micro-controller would probably be the easiest method for most people, but perhaps a scaled down verson using various motora would be best, particularly if you need that sinisiodal wave on your power band like I do.
@@AnonymousAnarchist2 Thanks for the recommendations. Do you think that there might be any benefit to including a Stirling engine driven propeller (assuming that enough of a temp. diff. exists) in the electrolyte to aid in diffusion during charging?
@@synchro-dentally1965 I would not see that as an benfit. The electric charge is the motive force moving the dissolved materials to thier respective nodes (anode and cathode) Sapping the energy from that to generate turbulance probably would just complexity, and inefficency.
But. You are getting into stuff I have never tried, and wouldnt want to because I would have no benifit. so. Maybe? You can set up a simple experment and see how turbulance effects charge and discharge rates, there might be something else electro-mechanically at play with this battery chemistry.
As you say, gelling might keep the bromine around the electrode...which might slow down the charging by preventing electrolyte contact. Seems to have pros & cons (all hypothetical oc)
Just a little correction: if 1 mol contains 6*10^23 molecules then 2.5 mol contains 15*10^23 molecules (not 18*10^23). So you'd need 30*10^23 electrons for complete separation.
And you should count them out individually, to make sure you have them straight.
Count them twice, to be sure.
@@colfaxschuyler3675Use tweezers....
Next one should be sodium na-ion with prussian blue (check natron energy's white paper)! Would be great to make our own off-grid batteries :)
Redflow are onto their third generation of a commercial battery using this chemistry. It has some very useful features and is very safe. Reliabillty seems to be an issue, but this will get resolved as the then get more experience with them.
Dude your stuff is amazing love all your videos! Think you could build a graphene battery for off grid next?
Some power in that yolk Robert 😁😁
Impressive, what you made could allow anyone to swap out your choice of electrodes and electrolytes.
I am wondering how long to charge, and what the capacity might be, in amp-hours, for a battery of this size.
very very nice! thanks!
Great video, I'm building an iodine battery. 👍
If I remember right, isn't this the basic type cell used in redox batteries, were you can store the charged electrolyte in tanks, so can use bigger tanks to store more energy and then cycle that through the cells when needed? I think most well built/designed of them are around 70 efficient and because of self discharge doesn't work well for long term starage.
a company called redflow make them
Efficient tranfer of e 0:27 lectrons is what batteries are all about. Im trying to understand.bscience is really cool.
Would be nice if you could strictly leave this main channel for the latest updated material. Even if its only one video a week or even a month, everybody would still be happy. Take care robbie and thanks for all your wonderful work.
RMS will be a very useful next door neighbor after the next CME event - he'll have a new alternative grid up in no time.
Hi there rob
I was thinking of taking your enclosure from 2102 the glass candle holder and adding the electrolyte from 2507 iodine potassium iodide
A couple of questions would this work ?
Could I change the glass container for a plastic one ?
Would this be suitable for home storage ?
Thankyou in advance and thankyou for your work
Alex
If you could do/show an actual build of a large diy iron oxide battery for off grid, I think a lot of people would be interested in it. For example how to make it using 55 gallon plastic barrels that are easily and cheaply attainable. Has at least 60 kwh of storage and how to continue to size it up, maybe to 600 kwh. Thanks
My head hurts listening to your maths 🤪
Wish I had you as a professor at school…I might have taken more notice.
Follow your channel for the practical side of things, how you build and how you explain…as I said above….wish you were my teacher years ago
As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, zinc bromide batteries were primarily used in large-scale energy storage applications, such as in grid-level energy storage systems. These batteries are known for their high energy density and low cost, making them attractive for such applications.
While zinc bromide batteries are commercially available for large-scale energy storage, they are not commonly found in rechargeable consumer products that are available for purchase by individual consumers. These batteries are typically designed for stationary energy storage and are not widely used in consumer electronics or other portable devices.
It's possible that developments have occurred since my last update, so I recommend checking with battery manufacturers or industry sources for the most current information on the availability of rechargeable zinc bromide batteries for specific applications.
lol i love watching this guy ....i wish i was that smart !
Ok, looking good for my off-grid rural block as I have plenty of spare amps on all but the occasional 2 to 3 day clumps of gloomy winter weather I get.
But, I can't be standing around watching and managing the charge. Is there a way to automate the charging amps profile described that gets reasonably close to max storage without cooking the electrolyte?
A very simple build, I just need to find the right charge controller and a way to alter the liquid level to stop the discharge when not in use, and a lot of zinc bromide.
I'm pretty sure if you remove the zinc there is no discharge. I could be mistaken.
Would you please do a video on using galvanized steel to make a large battery, I have access to 20 or so 13ft long by 12 inch wide by 1/8 inch thick galvanized steel guardrails from the roads, as well as some 6inch by 8ft by 1/2inch thick galvanized steel i beams and i was thinking of trying to make a very large capacity battery (1000 kwh) for my off grid home in rural Alaska, I could use the local mud and clay as well as aluminum cans which I have in huge abundance, but I'm curious if this can be done. Thanks always for the great content!
Charging at 7.6V the energy efficiency of this battery is going to be around 15-20%, best case. If Robert cared to measure that, he would see that a battery like this is never going to be viable -- unless you're ok with wasting huge amounts of energy. Ohmic losses from that separator and electrode distance are simply insane. Maybe some videos with battery characterization - actually measuring CE and EE - would be good to show why these patents never really became commercial successes.
People are left wondering why if this technology is so great we're all not using them. There are some very good technical reasons related with efficiencies. Anybody who actually characterizes these batteries will agree.
Any idea of the capacity and price for materials yet Rob? Thanks.
Hi again thank you for your videos. I seen a 3 ingredient metal battery that you might want to do a show on. High temperature . Three ingrediants are magnesium, molton salt and antimony i believe. Charges quickly and discharges quickly. How many different batteries are there?
Would love to know how many watt hours a device that size produces? Ty!!!
I think that the specific energy will be around 40 - 80Wh/kg
So what materials are suitable for the containers? Just glass, or would glazed ceramics work? What about various types of plastic?
Any ideas what the Amp hours of this battery would be?
I think You mentioned that it gets charged by AC directly. Does it discharge in AC or discharge in DC? 80% return is still better than an AC to DC full bridge rectifier at 30% loss. On charging.
DC
It's a battery, not an alternator
Is the bromine that you are using is it used for spas and pools or is it some other chemical
I am not fortunate enough to have the time to read up on math in the two hours of free time I have every day, so is there a tl:dr on how much capacity needed, what size electrodes and which amount of units to make to generate enough capacity to run a normal home for a family with fridge, freezer, washing and dishwashing machines, lighting, computers and phones to charge etc. for a day, a week?
How to convert these power banks' energy to useful energy etc.
It would be inspiring to see a whole project mounted and explained.
Batteries hooked up to [whatever] in [series or parallel] and then to [whatever else] and then call the electrician to hook it up to your installation as an uninterruptible power supply.
Can the battery survive minus temperatures or it freezes?
Question to Robert or viewers:
What would be the 'best type' of battery to run a wood shop (low grade, just one tool running at a time, with 120 v table saw as max)? Could a battery such as in this video (a bank of them), work? Appreciate any comments, URLs, etc.
And thank you, Robert, for posting this video.
Recently discovered that UA-cam now gives warnings for video titles, descriptions and comments that include URLs!
My thoughts is that it could be possible to charge the zinc bromide electrolyte at one location, pump it into a tank, then use the electrolyte in another location. Each location could be running at different voltages/amperages but use the exact same electrolyte!
When the energy is depleted at the remote location, the electrolyte could be returned to be recharged.
Right now almost certainly LiFePO4 prismatic cell batteries.
this is why i watch your vids, so few adress large battery building, usually they only show small batteries suitable for lighting a single LED.
So what was the outcome....
Does it store enough power to be useful off grid...
Or is it just a cool project
Great vid Rob....similar to ur floral foam gravity cell way back when. Can u comment on internal resistace? Practical limit i think should be at least a discharge capability of at least 1C, even if its not a power cell.
I'd like to see you make one out of a 50-gallon fish aquarium. I bet it would have an amp hour or two!
You would probably need 7-8 of these cells, I suppose if you made them even bigger you would have better amp draw off capacity for an inverter. Solar charge controllers would need to be constant current type. I would love to try this at some point. Getting hold of the chemicals can be awkward.
I think you would need a matrix of them in combined series / parallel configuration to increase the voltage to a useable value and the current draw to make it viable too!
Like Luke's saltwater battery.
This was the video i waited for, those batteries can have a huge liquid store pumped, and can be expanded on a need basis (add more fluid), As you explained service area (and pumps) might be ways to optimise this battery. Also the ceramic parts thickness, surface are, liquid volume... gell-ification, how long can the lquid be stored charged?, i think lots of area to improve it.
I saw company redflow have some commercial usage of it too, so if done properly this can be made viable ... or how to say in english can be made ideal or so.
Oh and where can one get these materials /liquids ?. .. as for shape i wonder if the ground plate had carbon pins (like thise from a pen), or maybe just iron pins if it would better collec energy of the fluid.
Fascinating!
I know I am being lazy by not reading up on this myself, but how many charge/discharge cycles do you think this beast will do?
In a previous video on these, the life cycle I believe he said could be limitless. It was at least as long as a Li-on battery, I'm pretty sure.
@@LawrenceMarks27 TY
@@LawrenceMarks27 yes, and apparently these don't have any memory-effect type problems or degradation of performance over long periods of time
The lifetime of these batteries is NOT limitless. Hydrogen evolution increases the pH of the battery, which creates a lot of side reactions that lead to degradation of the anode and also formation of bromate in the battery. You would need to continuously lower pH with HBr in order to prevent this from happening.
Can this battery be used to start a vehicle?
First, how does one determine the voltage, does it depend on the volume or surface area of the cut brick?
Also how many amps can you get out of a battery the size you showed us?
How mamy watt hours per liter, Robert?
Wikipedia will help you.... 15 - 65 Wh/l
You will never know the Wh/L of a battery until you actually measure it. Wikipedia tells you it could potentially be 15-65 but a real battery can easily be much worse. As is likely the case here due to the huge electrode distances and likely very poor energy efficiency. You always need to characterize actual devices made.
OW! My brain hurts. You are charging my 1.5 volt brain with 100 amps. Still love the content though :)
Could this be done in a 55 gallon barrel ? Or are smaller units better wired together?
You didnt comment on how many watt-hrs you expect to store. I ran the numbers once for a diy solar storage and concluded i needed a 55 gallon drum to store 60kWhr......curious if that lines up with your system.
Hey Robert, if you had to estimate, what would you reckon the watt hour capacity of a cell with this volume might be? Also, could you scale this up to 55 gallon barrel sized cells, and at that scale what watt hour capacity might that yeild? (asking for a friend) 😉
I like the jellification idea.
Why is jellification not a word?
Is there a way to temporarily seal a battery like this so you can disassemble it later for serving?
Would just putting the build inside a 6" pvc pipe that is threaded at both ends suffice, or would that cause the unintentional consequence of it blowing up on you?
It would also be cool if you could collect and bottle the hydrogen for use elsewhere.
Galvanized washers welded to a rod. Zinc. 1st year City and Guilds 236-1. 236-2. Electrical.
If it's stored in the electrolyte would this battery make a good flow battery? I have a 500 gallon water tank. I think I could pair it with a very large cell containing zinc to create a house battery.
Personally, I'd rather go with a Zinc Iodide. Specifically, Video 1794.
Far, FAR less toxic.
This not only means "More safe for me," but also "Less raised eyebrows" from the Building Department/Commission/Agency for having a potential "EPA Superfund site" in my bedroom, in a residential area.
This is wonderful!!! Would it work with iodine instead of bromine like the small iodine battery you did? I wonder how many watt hours this would hold
The design is the same,.... the only thing what you need to do with iodine version is that you need the + electrode on the bottom that the iodine will collect on the top surface of the electrode.
@@cayrex thank you!!
When you distill off the water after you mix sodium bromide and zink sulfate. What is the amount of solution do you put it in the battery?
If its about the surface area of the electrodes, would graphene instead of graphite on the positive-end have significant improvement?
Adding activated carbon granules to the bottom and then you press down with the electrode that you will make good contact
I may have got the calculation wrong, but I'm getting ~138Ah. Is that right?
yes! ta video est complète et intéressante comme toujours, et en plein dans le vif du sujet😉
mais pourquoi le brome? une znbr2 est donnée pour une durée inférieure à 500 cycles, sans compter qu'elle est assez instable...
beaucoup d' amateurs qui s'y sont essayé l'ont abandonné (pas rentable du tout, brome extrêmement cher ou impossible à trouver).
quite à avoir une faible tenue des cycles; ne peut-on pas utiliser du chlore (ou un autre halogène accessible et pas cher) à la place? pour faire du off-grid et rester dans des prix equivalents ou inférieur au plomb?
For Christmas i want chlorine flow battery!
Sounds toxic and dangerous and volatile
Curious as to the viability of this type battery in arctic conditions? I live in interior Alaska and winter is commonly -40°F to -60°F for weeks at a time.
Neat, thx.
Love your videos!
Now, math is not my strong point, but if a mole is a five steps greater exponent than a coulomb, then at 1:1 youve got 100,000 coulombs per mol? If correct, then 6*2.5=15moles, and 2 electrons per molecule should mean 30*100,000= 3 million coulombs? Divide that by 3600 and the battery should theoretically yield ~825 amp hours? That seems insane.
If there is an error in my calculation, somebody please correct me.
I was thinking... would perlite or zeolite be possible? Keramzyt? They are porous minerals ....
what would the lifespan be? howmany cycles can it have? does the liquid deteriorate?
There's a previous video on making a sodium bromide battery in which these things are mentioned. (Lasts forever, basically !)
Hohoho yeehaaaw xD
I made some large scale geo-batteries
Could you use a terracotta flower pot? Block the hole with silicone?
You can find some without the hole, they do make and sell them.
I wonder if a terracotta flower pot would work?
Oh yeah!
Gears- wimshurst-tesla plates w static dimpling
This was quite a nice build. Thank you again.
Would a carbon and magnesium sulfate ( Epsom salt) battery work? I ask because carbon is easy to get ( a factory by me) and Epsom salt is also cheap and easy to get.
This is where Robert could do a video on battery types and mode of operation , he did do a video maybe four years back . I think it's three or four different modes of operation to try for . At normal temperature and pressure ,,STP,, , carbon is pretty unreactive. Carbon simply doesn't react with strong acids or alkalis . The sulphate radical in epsom salt represents sulphuric acid. You'd want a set-up in which the sulphate radical travels back and forth during charge/discharge , however there doesn't exist a compound called carbon sulphate at STP ; I'm thinking also that magnesium ions in water would lead to magnesium hydroxide which may complicate things . Zinc and copper sulphate is what we know works but has those dendritic growth complications.
Perhaps another solvent and moving from STP realm to higher pressure such as liquid carbon dioxide at I think 5 atmosphere pressure, hmmm, not sure . I don't know if carbon is soluble in liquid CO2 , it's not soluble in anything much at STP . Get carbon up to 400°C , and then it reacts with things, but again it's departing from STP . I've had my little wander-wonder , cheers .
@@philip5940
Magnesium sulfate Epsom salt in a mineral in the human body that completes the electric field in the human body.
The human body runs at 100 watts an hour DC.
So if this did work it would probably be a DC load battery not an AC battery.
I think Rob mentioned that this video battery is an AC storage battery? Charged by AC not DC. In itself that is very interesting.
Am I correct to assume that this isn't going to work in subzero storage conditions?
chatgpt it
Sub-Zero Fahrenheit? Maybe not, I'm not sure, this would be like very concentrated salt water, so you can get significantly below zero Celsius.
If you live in a northern cold climate why can't you just put it in a basement, or build a small cellar like one might for a well pump?
@@petevenuti7355 thanks. My imagination started running wild... 😀 As I need to build a separating fence I thought I could theoretically integrate batteries into it.
@@Peebukas1 🙂 I know the feeling 👍. Is part of the fence underground? Earth battery? Rob's got videos on those too!
Thank you 👍🏻
Does adding the fumed silica reduce the conductivity of the electrolyte?