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michka:research:supercapacitors [2014-07-01 14:00] – michka | michka:research:supercapacitors [2014-07-01 14:27] – michka | ||
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During three day, we tried to upcycle dead PC batteries into working supercapacitors, | During three day, we tried to upcycle dead PC batteries into working supercapacitors, | ||
- | We ended up being deeply involved with our upcycled supercapacitors manufacturing research and did not proceed to build the rest of the self-watering system. We also ended up having no functional supercapacitor | + | We ended up being deeply involved with our upcycled supercapacitors manufacturing research and did not proceed to build the rest of the self-watering system. |
+ | During the workshop, our interest slided from **trying to reproduce a design from [[http:// | ||
+ | We ended the workshop | ||
===Best design=== | ===Best design=== | ||
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Our best design was very simple. It was a sandwich design, which means that it was just a stack of dry material layers we taped all together. It contained three layers: | Our best design was very simple. It was a sandwich design, which means that it was just a stack of dry material layers we taped all together. It contained three layers: | ||
- | | + | |
* A cleaned up insulating material layer from the same dead Toshiba battery | * A cleaned up insulating material layer from the same dead Toshiba battery | ||
* A copper layer from the same dead Toshiba battery | * A copper layer from the same dead Toshiba battery | ||
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Once the current is back to 0 A and stable, measure the voltage between the copper layer and the graphene layer. | Once the current is back to 0 A and stable, measure the voltage between the copper layer and the graphene layer. | ||
- | ====Information Sources==== | + | ==Step 7 - Test it== |
+ | |||
+ | You can tape several of these and connect them in series by soldering contacts from one to another. For graphene contacts, we used a small bit of copper that we taped and tried to maintain with pressure against graphene. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Once you reach a sufficiently interesting voltage, try to connect a LED and see what happens. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===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:// | ||
+ | * 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:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | 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, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====Preliminary | ||
* [[https:// | * [[https:// | ||
* [[https:// | * [[https:// | ||
- | * Robert Murray Smith - Supercapacitor 101 - A home Inventor' | + | |