new battery thing im working on again currently charging at 200mA its just baking soda and washing soda in a 50% mutual saturation mixture no acid at all. complete opposite of acid even!

 

Decided to try just making a significantly larger rolled-up spiral wound type battery.
Using some about 3-foot length by 4inch height 0.125mm thickness sheets of lead foil rolled up into a spiral roll with 4 layers of toilet paper tissue as the separator between them. I got a very powerful battery with fairly good capacity too.
about an amp hour or so at 0.5-1 amp of discharge rate.
and capable of outputting 30 amps if loaded heavily down. close to 80 if shorted with a thick gauge cable wire like a short 6-inch length of 10awg (its strong enough to burn 14awg wire as that's too thin to handle the current if shorted)

Very high power density. but not great energy density.
Using a mixture of about 75% washing soda to 50% baking soda for the electrolyte.
Rechargeable and works pretty good.

if you simply stack a bunch of very thin maybe 0.12mm thick rectangle sheets in parallel with that special ionic membrane material. it would probably approach the short circuit current of a standard/common lithium ion battery of somewhat similar size.
Using zinc as the negative electrode instead of lead also further increases the amount of current capability. and also increases the voltage potential. but I'm not sure what the best electrolyte would be for that combination.

 

I'm not using copper for the electrodes in my battery That should of been a separate thread and not lumped into this one.
Only using lead for both positive and negative electrodes.
No salt bridge necessary when using lead for positive and negative electrodes. Think like lead acid battery. but without the acid. instead using an alkaline or neutral electrolyte.

I found the best most powerful combination to actually be just a saturated solution of baking soda.
it gives a high capacity and holds a charge for longer. resting voltage is about 1.3-1.4v and the voltage springs back up much quicker. even after completely discharging it. the voltage still returns and springs up to about 1.1-1.2v!
Self discharge is lower than the other options i tried. and it holds voltage the best so far.
No precipitate is seen when charging or discharging.
Also has decent capacity too. The negative electrode bubbles very vigorously under high discharge currents.

I got over 1 amp of short circuit current out of just a small strip of it dipped into a pill bottle container.
only about 2.5 inches length by 0.6inch width of active material on both electrodes.
They are separated by about a 1.5 inch gap of distance between them too. and it still will put out close to 1 amp.

I did a test and it held a charge overnight it was still about 1.2v in the morning and still output 0.4A of current so not bad!

 

For some reason 40/60 soldering wire seems to hold a charge the best compared to pure lead. when using baking soda for the electrolyte. I after sitting overnight it was still at about 1.32v and i was able to pull over 4 amps of current out of it when short circuited!
And it's only about 17 winds of 1.6mm width solder wire around a small plastic cylinder!
Fully charged it'll output about 6 amps for a second or 2!!
thats a crazy wild amount of discharge current for just a length of soldering wire coiled around a few times.
Capacity is only about 24mAh at 100mA down to 0.5v discharge cutoff. but it can discharge almost all its energy in a few seconds like a super capacitor.
and it holds a charge overnight without self-discharging too much. no passivation effect like pure lead.

 

it seems its also possible to make a very crude pasted particle plate type electrode. using the 40/60 lead tin soldering wire converted into a moderately fine granule-powder. fine enough to form a rough paste with just some distilled water. then pack it tightly into some solder-wire plates or molds. using the 1.6mm thickness solder wire.
And it actually works.. I treated it to hold the particles together without any binder. by sandwiching them together with a thick separator and adding the electrolyte and charging them under compression for about 30 mins to an hour. it electrochemically bonds all the particles together through some form of micro-welds and corrosion products.
They can now hold themselves together free-standing in a container filled with electrolyte. without disintegrating or falling apart And because of the much improved surface area it holds a charge for longer. and the tin alloy makes it also hold a charge longer and charge much more easily.
its only a small test cell about the size of 2 thumbnails in length and diameter. but very promising so far! And fairly easy to make.
electrolyte is again baking soda.

 

Heres some pics of the electrodes! Penny for scale

 

Ok wow zinc + lead and aluminum sodium sulfate gives performance matching or even exceeding lead-acid.
Not only is the voltage the highest. but the output current is massive and ability to sustain a load right up until the end is very good.
Even plain thin flat sheets only 2"by 1.5" gives about 6.75 amps of short circuit current when fully charged. absolutely massive current output.

Usable voltage range is about 1.5-2.4v depending on the load.
Both electrodes still in excellent condition. Zinc is a matt-greyish color and lead electrode is a dark to light brownish reddish color depending on state of charge.
Very flat discharge curve. it holds up right until it's empty then falls off.

Also no noticable or visible dendrite problems from the zinc. (electrolyte doesn't have any zinc solubles in it. so it shouldn't have any appreciable electroplating action)

 

If I use the same 2" by 1.5" piece of lead foil and use two zinc electrodes instead of just one zinc electrode. I get about 12-14 amps of current when testing the short circuit current of it. WOW! that's a huge amount of current in a small size!!!

 

ok WOW potassium bicarbonate is incredible as an electrolyte! I got 6.5 amps of short circuit current out of two thin 1.55mm thickness lead plates only about the surface area or dimensions of my pointer finger in size!! WOW thats huge considering the small size and surface area!! I used 4 layers of angel soft brand toilet paper folded up as the separator to prevent shorts and it works fantastic. I think my solder-wire 1.6mm gauge leads are limiting the potential output current significantly probably by a few amps. thats an insane discovery!

 

ok WOW potassium carbonate is incredible as an electrolyte! I got 6.5 amps of short circuit current out of two thin 1.55mm thickness lead plates only about the surface area or dimensions of my pointer finger in size!! WOW thats huge considering the small size and surface area!! I used 4 layers of angel soft brand toilet paper folded up as the separator to prevent shorts and it works fantastic. I think my solder-wire 1.6mm gauge leads are limiting the potential output current significantly probably by a few amps. thats an insane discovery!

It is not insane discovery, it is unscrupulous plagiarism.
See https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/...asic-rechargeable-battery.195613/post-1845156
and this PDF.
ADDED:
"Potash" () in Russian is potassium carbonate.

 

It is not insane discovery, it is unscrupulous plagiarism.
See https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/...asic-rechargeable-battery.195613/post-1845156
and this PDF.

Not even close to the same concept. or even remotely the same design principle.
it is considerably different in construction.
Also the negative lead electrode can potentially be substituted with one made of zinc of similar construction and allow higher voltage performance and capacity similar to that of a lead acid battery.
With potassium bicarbonate as the electrolyte it is significantly less caustic and corrosive than the hydroxide variants or sulfuric acid. so is safer to work with and handle. also allowing more flexibility in assembly and design.
No reason to rain on others parades with nothing to personally gain in return. I am well aware there are other documentations on experimental alkaline lead based batteries and I have personally came up with my own design and method of assembly and electrolyte concentration.

 

Managed to get 20 amps of discharge current out of a cell that fits in a tic tac container.
19 alternating parallel layers of very thin layers of lead foil sheets. each pair separated by a porous separator made of 3 layers of angel soft brand toilet tissue paper.
With sodium sulfate and aluminum sulfate electrolyte. 19 grams of sodium sulfate. 19 grams of aluminum sulfate. in 100g of distilled water. and performs amazing. It can provide 1 amp while maintaining a voltage of about 1 to 1.5 volts for a minute or so.

and about 100mA of current for about 20 minutes before dropping below 1 volt.
it holds about 1.9 to 2 volts when fully charged.
and even when fully discharged. slowly recovers back up to 1.5 to 1.6 volts after a while.

Small capacity but still enough capacity to do actual work and very high performance in a small size.
At almost 100 milliohms of internal resistance. that is not bad for something the size of a tic tac container in overall dimensions.
The thin separators allow for very high performance and fast charge discharge rates. with low internal resistance.
electrodes in excellent condition with no degradation and no visible sulfate formation.
Capacity slowly improves as its charged and discharged and used more and more.

 

Ok. also interesting. it provides nearly double the capacity. and similar maximum current. but only at about 1 to 1.2 volts if I use a mixture of 50% saturated sodium bicarbonate. and 50% saturated sodium carbonate in water as the electrolyte.
21 amps was achieved maximum. and during discharge it provides a stable 0.9 to 1.2 volts until its almost fully empty. similar to a NICD or NIMH battery.
This provides a much more stable voltage than the sodium sulfate and aluminum sulfate option. and is still rechargeable.

Sodium bicarbonate and sodium carbonate are easier to get and make. and seems to be sufficiently conductive enough for high current capability and good capacity.
more experimentation with ratios of the two to find an optimal concentration of both might be worth investigating.

 

Thats 21 amps from something the size of a tic tac container by the way!

 

I just salvaged a 6 volt agm battery casing and replaced its internals with zinc and lead electrodes. added electrolyte of sodium sulfate and aluminum sulfate. All 3 cells. It produces 6 volts nominal voltage with a high resting voltage of approximately 6.5 to 6.6 volts and is rechargeable and seems to have good performance I reused the top cover and soldered the internal connections and coated the solder with jb weld and also used jb weld to attach the top cover back on. and it works almost identically to a lead acid battery. you cannot tell the difference really from the outside. it is nearly indistinguishable from a lead-acid battery other than the electrolyte being different and the negative electrode replaced with zinc instead of lead.
Performance is impressive. it has a flat discharge curve and performs excellent with repeated cycling. the charging voltage is the same and the characteristics are also similar other than it has a flatter discharge curve.
I used paper towels folded over several times and cut to size as the separators to prevent short circuits between the positive and negative electrodes. so far its working extremely good.

 

hi, I independently also find out about iron, and lead alkaline. one month ago i made iron-iron alkaline but its to weak compared to lead and is only 0.6V. iron-iron needs lots of surface area to have power while lead-lead performed much better. Anyway, nice work uncovering this mystery...

 

This thread is very interesting now, because there is a great need for battery energy storage, and the claimed performance of these batteries seems rather impressive. And the materials are all common and inexpensive. So why are these technologies more commonly in use???
Is there some other factor that has not been mentioned???

 

Probably the common argument that "it's not practical for mass production, low energy density, not competitive, etc."
they tend to stick to longstanding technologies as an industry standard and never pushes forward with niche or less common options. even if they would be cheaper to produce or simpler to make. for why it's not common.
but none of those factors really apply when it's just you in your garage or backyard shop doing projects on your own time.
You can make a functional rechargeable battery from just soldering wire coiled or wound into various shapes and baking soda in water. and it's probably one of the simplest easiest to make options with decent capacity.
To improve the current capability you want to maximize the surface area by making lots of layers of parallel electrodes.
Ive even made simple supercapacitors with good performance (close to 10 amps maximum current) with some nickel strips. with 25-30 farads in a small space.
you can quickly make commercial-level supercapacitor performance with the only exception being voltage by using nickel as the current collectors (as a thin sheet foil mesh or foam) rolled or paralleled in layers with high capacity and performance. activated coconut shell charcoal or carbon. and graphite powder. getting high capacity and performance. just mix them like a paint and deposit them with a pipette or syringe or paint them onto the current collectors allow them to dry and assemble them with a separator and an electrolyte. easy.

 

Consider that the products we see are what come from PRODUCTION, and those production lines are made to produce what leads to profit. We very seldom hear anything about product research, because that information would aid competitors. So it is entirely likely that a whole lot has been experimented with and has been found to not be anything that can be produced at a cost that would allow it to sell for a profit. And a whole lot of things can be the reason. Some processes are complicated, or demand levels of accuracy so high that they would cost too much. That could include coating thickness or chemical mixing accuracy.

 

if production at a cost that could be sold for a profit is not a concern. the possibilities definitely open up dramatically for whats physically possible and still practical on smaller isolated scales like personal diy hobby or project research options.

A strip of zinc and a lead dioxide electrode in the sodium aluminum sulfate electrolyte makes a very simple rechargeable cell with a voltage nearly equal to that of a standard lead-acid battery. and useful capacity (Powering DC motors LED flashlights. and more.) while still being able to maintain 12v if you have 6 cells in series.
Less aggressive electrolyte. compared to sulfuric acid.
One of the rare electrolyte combinations that doesn't rapidly attack and dissolve zinc in short-order. and fully rechargeable and reversible with zinc too.