Gas Separater Electrolysis Dry Cell

[Room3327]

This thread is going to be about a dry cell that separates the two gasses H and O as they are produced.  They are not allowed to mix or recombine into water.  This cell design has been released open source a number of years ago by an experimenter whose name I don't remember or what site I saw it at.  It was a few weeks before I was going to release mine open source, unless I was dreaming the whole thing.  Anyway I am releasing this now Open Source whether it was previously or not.

It is very familiar looking to most of you, like a basic dry cell.  Unlike a regular dry cell though, this one has 2 manifold's running along the top.  One channels hydrogen out and the other channels oxygen out.  You have a single water inlet to feed the cell, and a positive and negative electric connection.

The cell pictured is my second prototype, the only one I still have to photograph.  It is not perfect but it worked pretty well for it's size producing about 1/2 Ltr/min of gasses and the hydrogen output is double the oxygen output as it should be.  This cell has etched SS plates which effectively doubled the surface area of them.  It is a 12 cell unit with 14 SS plates in it 7 positive and 7 negative.  There is .080 between plates and input power was as I recall about 60 watts.  The hydrogen line could be ignited the oxygen line could not be.

This is to get the ball rolling, I will post construction details in coming posts.

Room

[Room3327]

I want everyone to know before I continue that I have not optimized or scaled this device up yet, I gave up and dropped this whole project about 5 years ago.  Seeing it posted open source by someone else was discouraging after 2 years working on it.  I was not in a good mood then either from everything else going on here and elsewhere, so I was not in a sharing mode at the time.
   I apologize for letting the ball drop, regardless of my personal feelings the world needs this stuff and I should have posted on it back then, now after Trumps win it is time.
But before I do I want to be sure I have moderator privileges in this thread and I don't see that, Point99, Peterae please set moderator privileges for me if I don't have it now. Thank you.

Room

[Chet K]

Room
I believe if you start a topic in your "bench" section you will automatically have moderator privileges.

respectfully
Chet K 

[Room3327]

Room
I believe if you start a topic in your "bench" section you will automatically have moderator privileges.

respectfully
Chet K

Hi Chet,
My bench is not public if I start it there only members will be able to see it and I think this needs to get out there to everyone.

[Grumage]

Hi Chet,
My bench is not public if I start it there only members will be able to see it and I think this needs to get out there to everyone.

Dear Room3327.

I have just checked via another device, your bench/thread is open to guests so blast off !!   

Kind regards, Graham.

Edit. Hmmm, another senior moment.... this isn't your bench, silly me!! 

[Room3327]

Dear Room3327.

I have just checked via another device, your bench/thread is open to guests so blast off !!   

Kind regards, Graham.

Edit. Hmmm, another senior moment.... this isn't your bench, silly me!! 

Dear Graham,
LOL Yes I know the moments!
Maybe I should have my bench made public, there isn't much in it anyway, that may be a better way to go.  This thread could be transferred to it.
Whatever works for Peterae or Point, but either way I think I should have control of the thread knowing how things can go.

Regards Room

[Room3327]

What am I thinking, at this site I probably won't have to moderate anything, so I will get on with it.

First I want to say, I am not, nor do I profess to be, an expert on electrolysis so please bear that in mind.  It took me a lot of reading, watching video's and experimenting to get here.  I don't know all the chemistry of electrolysis so if you talk chemistry to me I won't follow precisely but well enough.

When I first started looking for a gas separating method the only thing I could find was the 2 test tube method posted in Tin man's HHO thread by Physics prof.  This test tube method is very inefficient and produces low volumes of gas.  I thought there must be a better way, so I got to work on it, eventually figuring this out.

Using multiples of just a few different parts, assembling it properly is the hardest part.  Overall this is pretty easy to build and uses cheap and readily available parts and material.  But in operation the dry cell is not all that is required.  It needs water tanks, bubblers, dryers, flash back arrestors etc. not to mention electrical wiring and connections, so this is not a stand alone device.  This cell requires an entire system to go with it, depending on what it is used for or what it is doing.

[Room3327]

Any and all dry cell construction techniques can be used to build these, making them able to separate the gasses is all in the design of the plates, gaskets and the separation membrane that isolates the 2 gasses.

Of course the membrane is the most critical of it's parts.  It must not allow the gasses to pass through or mix but at the same time must allow the flow of electrons and ions through it.  It also must be able to stand up to the conditions it encounters inside the cell.  After testing a number of different materials (first prototype taken apart many times and fitted with different membranes for testing) I found 2 that worked quite admirably and are readily available.  I settled on one, and whoever open sourced this, settled on the other which is the main difference in our designs.

The membrane that I chose is Rip Stop Nylon, he chose woven fiberglass cloth, both work very well but I chose the rip stop because it is easier to work with then the fiberglass and is thinner and cheaper.  Rip stop nylon can be purchased at Jo Ann Fabrics for a couple bucks a yard, or recycled from old coats, tents etc.. (do not use the coated rip stop it must be bare)

The gasket material I used (one of many) is shower pan liner from Lowe's plumbing department about $6 a foot 36" wide as I recall and it is .040" or 1 mm thick.

The stainless plates can be any used for this purpose or ones currently used for dry cells 316L etched or unetched.  The gaskets determine the spacing between plates so the plate thickness can vary without effecting the operation of the cell.

Parts needed:

SS plates
Shower pan liner
Rip stop nylon cloth
plastic end plates
gas port fittings
SS bolts and nuts
Electrical wire and connector

[Room3327]

Here is the design for the internal parts of this device. They are pretty simple, proper assembly is the hard part of constructing this.
More to come on assembly.

[Room3327]

I present here the construction of one individual cell of the dry cell. Of course this is repeated a number of times for the finished device.

The first pic is the 2 pieces that are symmetrical, they can be placed either way no problem.

The next picture is the 2 pieces that are asymmetrical, these are the ones that can throw you because they are flipped back and forth as the stack builds.

Next pic the asymmetrical gasket is placed on the plate with the slot on the side with the small hole in the plate.

Next pic the symmetrical gasket is placed on top of the first gasket.

Next the separator (rip stop) is placed on the stack.

Then another symmetrical gasket.

Then an asymmetrical gasket, but this one is flipped over from the first one (you must get this right all the way through the stack).

And last another plate but this also must be flipped over, and there you have 1 individual cell.

[Room3327]

 I have changed this some based on what I found with prototype 2.  Two was built with very tight spacing so I could test for any mixing of the gasses and what the separator would work like touching spots on the plates.  What I am showing here has all the current improvements built into it, not that it is perfected, this is just the beginning of the trail to perfection.  I mainly slightly changed the gasket shape and I added the symmetrical gasket to provide more space between the plates. The membrane touching the plates posed no problem for the separation of gasses.  The plates now have 4 mm between them.

Cheers Room

[Room3327]

These dry cells use both sides of each plate so the gas channel in the asymmetric gasket must be placed on the same edge of the plate, on both sides. Always put the gas channel on the side of the plate with the little hole on the edge, both sides.  So every plate will have 2 openings 1 on either side of it, opening into the same manifold.  All the positive plates empty into the oxygen manifold and all negative plates empty into the hydrogen manifold.  The outer end plates only use 1 side.

The small holes are the electrical connections for each plate, I run a 12ga. solid wire through them and solder all together on each side.  Don't do this though until the cell is compressed together or believe me you will run into problems.  Wire and a connector can then be added for your electrical input.  You will have to flux the stainless to solder them (like Stay Clean flux).

The two outer end plates get only one asymmetric gasket on them,  when the ends (plastic) get put on, they will seal up opposite ends of the manifolds. The end that is not sealed gets a gas fitting right over the opening, one for hydrogen and one for oxygen, down low by the water holes a water port can be put in.
Note: the water holes in the SS plates are offset from each other so there is no direct hole thru them and the offset keeps them further away from each other then the spacing between plates.

Questions?

[Grumage]

Dear Room3327.

I would like to thank you for your presentation.   

The ripstop Nylon is placed directly on the SS plates?

Kind regards, Graham.

[Room3327]

Dear Room3327.

I would like to thank you for your presentation.   

The ripstop Nylon is placed directly on the SS plates?

Kind regards, Graham.

Dear Graham,
Your welcome, I hope this helps people.

Ah no, the rip stop never touches the stainless, there are 2 gaskets on either side of the rip stop.  All I am saying is if the rip stop does in some way touch the plates it doesn't hurt operation of the device, that is what I was testing for.

Regards Room

[Room3327]

I just thought I would mention that you can build this round, square or any shape, it really doesn't matter nor does size. This can be treated like any dry cell  for efficiency and production only difference is the gasses are no longer combined coming out.
Room

PS,  Of course the gas channels to the manifold would need to be increase in size for a larger dry cell, holes may need to be bigger etc. I think you all can figure it out, if you can't, maybe you shouldn't be building one.

Just keep in mind this device requires the 2 manifolds and gas channels, as well as the membrane to function.

[Marshallin]

Here is plate design i wanted to build but i am broke. If somebody have spare resources go ahead and you can try it :

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/86cf823cfa37069d36eef741/w/21b8b5d4a7d89661c3d1d6b1/e/cb40e7bd061438310fda583b

Nylon fiber is possible to cut by scissors so i dont have design for laser cuter.

[Room3327]

Here is plate design i wanted to build but i am broke. If somebody have spare resources go ahead and you can try it :

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/86cf823cfa37069d36eef741/w/21b8b5d4a7d89661c3d1d6b1/e/cb40e7bd061438310fda583b

Nylon fiber is possible to cut by scissors so i dont have design for laser cuter.

Hi Marshallin,
I am not an expert on dry cells, but what you show there looks like an ordinary dry cell, and it looks fine to me, but there will be no gas separation with this design, that I can tell.  This is a standard dry cell and really doesn't need to be built, there are many of them out there.  I hope you don't think if you stick a layer of rip stop in there some where that it will separate the gasses,  the rip stop does not separate the gasses it just prevents them from combining or mingling, holds them apart.  It is not a scenario where it only allows say hydrogen gas to pass through and not the oxygen if that's how you are looking at it.

Yes the rip stop nylon is very easy to cut with a scissors, I use a template to draw the pattern on the cloth and then cut it out with a scissors.  I do the same with the gasket material. I then use a hole punch to put the holes in the gaskets the holes in the rip stop I cut with the scissors.

Regards Room

[Marshallin]

...

Yes, you need to put fine nylon or PE between two rubber gasket(you turn one verticaly) to get separation (thats why gaskets have one side not connected so you can turn them). Since i am not planing to lasercut those there are not in cad.
After that you will have two hydrogen and two oxygen rails (left and right). Square design save money if you order lasercuting service. You can 3d print those gasket as well.

Another step is maintaining equal presure on both sides (H and o2) to get solid amount of purity. I planed to make simple spring based over-pressure valve on both sides.

[Room3327]

Yes, you need to put fine nylon or PE between two rubber gasket(you turn one verticaly) to get separation (thats why gaskets have one side not connected so you can turn them). Since i am not planing to lasercut those there are not in cad.
After that you will have two hydrogen and two oxygen rails (left and right). Square design save money if you order lasercuting service. You can 3d print those gasket as well.

Another step is maintaining equal presure on both sides (H and o2) to get solid amount of purity. I planed to make simple spring based over-pressure valve on both sides.

The gasses are free flowing out of this, in operation a small pressure builds inside each cell pushing the water level down and away from the manifolds a small amount which is good.  I wish you great success in improving this device.

Room