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--- michka:research:supercapacitors [2014-07-01 14:05] – michka
+++ michka:research:supercapacitors [2014-07-01 14:27] – michka
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 Once you reach a sufficiently interesting voltage, try to connect a LED and see what happens.
-====Information Sources====
+===Other dried designs===
+Except for our sandwich designs, we also had some sushi designs - which are nothing else than wrapped sandwiches. We also made some waffle designs, which are square sushis - not cylindrical.
+We tried alsmost every possible combination out of the available materials from our dead batteries. Here are a few examples:
+   * Copper-insulating (Toshiba)-copper
+   * Copper-graphene (Toshiba)-insulating (Toshiba)-graphene (Toshiba)-copper
+   * Copper-insulating (Toshiba)-lithium (MAC)
+   * Copper-graphene-insulating (MAC)-copper
+   * Copper-graphene-insulating (Toshiba)-copper
+   * Graphene (Toshiba)-insulating-lithium (Toshiba)
+   * ... and so on ...
+Most of the designs did not charge nor held voltage. Some held voltage poorly. In short, we described you in details the best design (by far) up on this page.
+We however encourage you to try anything, as it seems that every battery type is different, and even avery battery, as the damage they overcome makes each of them quite singular in behavior.
+===Wet Designs===
+We also tried some wet designs, which means designs with a liquid electrolyte.
+We tried three electrolytes:
+   * Sulfuric acid - following [[https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/306318|Robert Murray-Smith]] advice.
+   * Salted water - sodium chloride saturated solution.
+   * Demineralized water
+We used two different designs to apply the electrolyte:
+   * Dipping a whole sushi in the electrolyte
+   * Intercalating a sandwich layer made of printer paper dipped into the electrolyte between copper & graphene, thus replacing the insulating layer from the the dead battery - we were inspired by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWHpc53759c|neatpete45]]
+Our wet designs were no success.
+A sushi dipped in sulfuric acid was severly attacked. Current kept on flowing, it was bubbling slightly, the solution started to become dark. It did hold voltage and quite a good charge, but after opening it up, we saw huge corrosion spots on the copper layer.
+Sushi dipped in salted water and demineralized water showed a strange charging behavior: current was slightly increasing, before being stable around 100 mA. They ended up not charging, or having a low and evanescent charge.
+Our sandwich with salted-water-wet paper had a similar charging behavior, and copper also ended up corroded.
+Our sandwich with demineraliued-water-wet paper had a similar charging behavior, and a low and evanescent charge.
+=== Conclusion & Future Research===
+Our best dry sandwich design seems interesting. However, we are not sure wether this behavior is a consequence of some remanent electrolyte from the dead battery still present in the graphene layer. Moreover, it proved to be unstable to design change: sushis & waffles could not hold the charge as well, and the voltage stored was highly sensitive to finger pressure.
+On our next session, we have to focus on electrolytes, as they are responsible for the supercapacity of our supercapacitors. We will have a look into dried electrolytes proposed by Robert Murray-Smith, and we will try to make an upcycled one from the pile of (not necessarily) domestic waste at our disposal.
+====Preliminary Information Sources====
    * [[https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertMurraySmith|Robert Murray Smith's Youtube Channel]]
    * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWHpc53759c|neatpete45 video of home-made supercapacitor]]
-   * Robert Murray Smith - Supercapacitor 101 - A home Inventor's Handbook (ebook)
+   * [[https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/306318|Robert Murray Smith - Supercapacitor 101 - A home Inventor's Handbook (ebook)]]