odd readings of my "meta" material. Neutrinos, electrostatics or what?

[JimBoot]

I made this material nearly a year ago but abandoned the project when the conclusion by some was that it was merely a peltier device or electrostatics. https://www.overunityresearch.com/index.php?topic=3815.msg79116#msg79116 . After reading Brad's thread on Neutrinovoltaics I watched some of their older vids. In my builds a year ago I was using a separator between my material & the foil. I decided to paint the foil directly with the substance.

Postage stamp size voltage tops out at around 600mv. You can stack them in series and I've topped out at 3.5v. Cannot light an LED.

I'd put some material in a choke toroid holder (25mm dia) and found I did not need an electrode to get a voltage. Both probes could be touching the same material and I'd get a reading up to 350mv. For the highest reading the dmm probes were mm apart . When I measured the resistance in the same position it was 15Mohm . THe lowest resistance was when the probes were over a cm apart and measured 24kohm but no volatge could be measured in that position.

Material is plant matter soaked in FeCl3 then fired at 750c ramped up over a couple of hours. Then crushed and mixed with sodium siilcate to form the paint.  I'll do a vid but what other measurements or tests would you recommend?

[JimBoot]

And when both probes are in the paint I get a reading too.

[gyula]

Hi Jim,

Reading your tests and findings, I think it would be useful to use say a 10 kOhm load resistor across any such cells you test and measure the loaded voltage across the resistor.
Say the stacked assembly which topped  out at 3.5 V would have been able to maintain the 3 - 3.3 V across the 10 kOhm, you would have had a 0.3 - 0.33 mA load current.
But such cells usually have a rather high internal resistance as you experienced and the open voltage drops immediately when loaded hence the load current also drops to micro or nanoAmper range. 
A DMM loads such cells by its 10 MegaOhm internal resistance, quasi a negligible load.
One more thing: using a 10 kOhm or similar resistors in parallel with the DMM voltmeter helps reduce any E field pick up from your local enviroment which may also able to lead you astray.
(Later remove the 10 kOhm when doing any other measurement with the DMM .)     

Thanks for sharing your results.

Gyula

[TinMan]

I made this material nearly a year ago but abandoned the project when the conclusion by some was that it was merely a peltier device or electrostatics. https://www.overunityresearch.com/index.php?topic=3815.msg79116#msg79116 . After reading Brad's thread on Neutrinovoltaics I watched some of their older vids. In my builds a year ago I was using a separator between my material & the foil. I decided to paint the foil directly with the substance.

Postage stamp size voltage tops out at around 600mv. You can stack them in series and I've topped out at 3.5v. Cannot light an LED.

I'd put some material in a choke toroid holder (25mm dia) and found I did not need an electrode to get a voltage. Both probes could be touching the same material and I'd get a reading up to 350mv. For the highest reading the dmm probes were mm apart . When I measured the resistance in the same position it was 15Mohm . THe lowest resistance was when the probes were over a cm apart and measured 24kohm but no volatge could be measured in that position.

Material is plant matter soaked in FeCl3 then fired at 750c ramped up over a couple of hours. Then crushed and mixed with sodium siilcate to form the paint.  I'll do a vid but what other measurements or tests would you recommend?

Try what they did Jim,and try powering a small calculator,as they require very little power to run.

I would also try shorting the cell,just in case there was any capacitance effect there. Once shorted out for a brief time,see if there is a voltage across the stack again. If you get the same 3 odd volt's,im mixing up some brew 


Brad

[JimBoot]

Thanks guys, I suspect microamps but will test. I'll have to buy a calculator They are not consistent with their measurements so I'll be making a new brew from scratch. See if I can capture some Tesla cosmic rays. `

[muDped]

You mixed Iron Chloride with some Plant Matter then fired it at 750 degrees C
until the plant matter was carbonized?

Then added Sodium Silicate to form your paint?

Iron Chloride is acidic.

Sodium Silicate (Water Glass) is basic.

After the final mix and Double Displacement the paint would probably be a
mixture of Iron Oxide/Hydroxide, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Carbonate, Carbon and Silicon Dioxide.

Iron Chloride decomposes at approximately 500 C and one of the byproducts is FeClO.

Or some variation, depending upon the proportions.

That would serve as a reasonably good electrolyte in an electrochemical voltaic cell.

[gyula]

Hi Jim,

Besides using a calculator  that consumes very little power, you could consider this LED flasher circuit here:
http://www.discovercircuits.com/DJ-Circuits/ac14fls.htm   
It needs a 74AC14 type hex inverter.   (if you click on the schematic within the link, it opens in a clear pdf file) The 74AC type circuits work up to 6.5 - 7 V maximum supply voltage, do not exceed it.

This circuit here also consumes very low power: http://www.discovercircuits.com/DJ-Circuits/10secosc.htm  A DMM set in AC volt may nicely indicate oscillation.

Greetings
Gyula

[JimBoot]

Try what they did Jim,and try powering a small calculator,as they require very little power to run.

I would also try shorting the cell,just in case there was any capacitance effect there. Once shorted out for a brief time,see if there is a voltage across the stack again. If you get the same 3 odd volt's,im mixing up some brew 


Brad

I grabbed a cell I made a year ago and it still had 800mv on it. Stuck a 10k resistor as per Gyula suggestion had a 5-10mv drop

I had some of the material sitting in h2o2 to exfoliate from a year ago. Made some cells from that without the water glass. 3 in series showed 2 - 2.5v. Found an old calculator and hooked it up. Calculator calculates. I'll upload the vid soon. Given this material is still damp I'll try it again tomorrow. Thanks Brad and gyula.

[JimBoot]

Here's the first vid https://youtu.be/9MVoA-_xF9U this is "graphene" minus water glass. They have graphite electrodes for the positive. Battery removed from calculator. Solar cell covered

[JimBoot]

Here is the old material mixed with water glass https://youtu.be/uc9fIij8SmU

[TinMan]

Here is the old material mixed with water glass https://youtu.be/uc9fIij8SmU

Hi Jim.

Looks good so far,but we do need to eliminate any chance that it is a galvanic cell.
Simply make sure it is completely dry.
Then short the cell out for a good 5 minute's,and then see if it produces power again.
A neutrinovoltaic cell will work just like a solar cell,but 24 hours a day.

You may have done so already,but do you have a video on the making of the material you are using ?.

I am a little better off financially now that i have my own business,and can pump a bit of cash into this project.
I also have more free time on my hands now,so happy to put in the hard yards on this one.

But first,get the cells completely dry,and lets see what happens.


Brad

[JimBoot]

Hi Jim.

Looks good so far,but we do need to eliminate any chance that it is a galvanic cell.
Simply make sure it is completely dry.
Then short the cell out for a good 5 minute's,and then see if it produces power again.
A neutrinovoltaic cell will work just like a solar cell,but 24 hours a day.

You may have done so already,but do you have a video on the making of the material you are using ?.

I am a little better off financially now that i have my own business,and can pump a bit of cash into this project.
I also have more free time on my hands now,so happy to put in the hard yards on this one.

But first,get the cells completely dry,and lets see what happens.


Brad

Yep totally agree on testing again when dry with the non water glass cells. I have some material that has been soaking for a year in ferric chloride. I'll be firing it soon and will do a vid. I'm using my wife's jewelry kiln for precious metal clay, so a bit fancy. 

[TinMan]

Yep totally agree on testing again when dry with the non water glass cells. I have some material that has been soaking for a year in ferric chloride. I'll be firing it soon and will do a vid. I'm using my wife's jewelry kiln for precious metal clay, so a bit fancy.

Sounds good Jim.

I do have some sheets of graphite here that i ordered for another project that never happened.
I also believe that there has to be a silicon layer as well 

From what i have found out so far via research,the graphite layer is the emitter,the silicon layer is the junction,and the copper or ali layer is the collector.
Trying to find out how the silicon layer is made--what process,atm 


Brad

[JimBoot]

Sounds good Jim.

I do have some sheets of graphite here that i ordered for another project that never happened.
I also believe that there has to be a silicon layer as well 

From what i have found out so far via research,the graphite layer is the emitter,the silicon layer is the junction,and the copper or ali layer is the collector.
Trying to find out how the silicon layer is made--what process,atm 


Brad

Very interesting the cells that were damp yesterday are now dry. These ones did not have sodium silicate and are just using tissue paper as the junction. Still get a good voltage reading, will do the calc test again a bit later.

[JimBoot]

Ok dry cells without the sodium silicate work on the calculator. I need some button cases to eliminate bad contacts. Lots more experimenting  to do .

[JimBoot]

I'm getting better voltage readings using graphite as the positive terminal rather than copper. The graphite is from a builders pencil and it's impedance is 3 times higher than copper breadboard jumper wire. Made several different cell types tonight. I need 2.5 volts from these cells for the calculator to function as opposed to a single AA. This means at least 3 cells in series atm. Size of them does not seem to matter as far as I can tell.

[TinMan]

Ok dry cells without the sodium silicate work on the calculator. I need some button cases to eliminate bad contacts. Lots more experimenting  to do .

Ok,so you now have dry cells driving the calculator.

Did you short them for 5 minutes ,and try again Jim ?


Brad

[TinMan]

I'm getting better voltage readings using graphite as the positive terminal rather than copper. The graphite is from a builders pencil and it's impedance is 3 times higher than copper breadboard jumper wire. Made several different cell types tonight. I need 2.5 volts from these cells for the calculator to function as opposed to a single AA. This means at least 3 cells in series atm. Size of them does not seem to matter as far as I can tell.

As the size increases,the available current should also increase,but voltage should remain much the same.


Brad

[JimBoot]

As the size increases,the available current should also increase,but voltage should remain much the same.


Brad

Ok I have not tested current vs size. Thanks. Interesting in their latest video they have sandwiched their material between two strips of foil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OCCOWQvG30

[JimBoot]

In the category of more things I don't understand. Still trying to eliminate a galvanic or other chemical reaction as the source of current.

When the cells are damp the voltage does not change but current does significantly. So I eliminated the foil, soaked a paper towel and sprinkled the material on top. Placed a piece of graphite on top of that as my positive terminal. When I place the neg probe on the paper not in contact with the material I get 10X the current of a dry cell. So no metal except for the neg probe in the water 10mm away from the material. When I place the neg probe on the Al current goes up 100X compared to a dry cell. Only as high as 1-200ua in this setup. I cannot see any degradation on the Al and there should be I would have thought if this was a galvanic reaction.  I have more material which has been soaking for about a year in Fecl3 which I will fire soon. The water is "natural spring water" out of a bottle.

[JimBoot]

Ok,so you now have dry cells driving the calculator.

Did you short them for 5 minutes ,and try again Jim ?


Brad

Sorry missed this, I have done that in the past so did not try again. I'm testing different cell configs, as the ones I've made so far are bloody fiddly and hard to work with.

[TinMan]

In the category of more things I don't understand. Still trying to eliminate a galvanic or other chemical reaction as the source of current.

When the cells are damp the voltage does not change but current does significantly. So I eliminated the foil, soaked a paper towel and sprinkled the material on top. Placed a piece of graphite on top of that as my positive terminal. When I place the neg probe on the paper not in contact with the material I get 10X the current of a dry cell. So no metal except for the neg probe in the water 10mm away from the material. When I place the neg probe on the Al current goes up 100X compared to a dry cell. Only as high as 1-200ua in this setup. I cannot see any degradation on the Al and there should be I would have thought if this was a galvanic reaction.  I have more material which has been soaking for about a year in Fecl3 which I will fire soon. The water is "natural spring water" out of a bottle.

Hi Jim

You need to eliminate all moisture in the cell.
No wet paper towel,no moist mixture--all very dry.


Brad

[JimBoot]

Hi Jim

You need to eliminate all moisture in the cell.
No wet paper towel,no moist mixture--all very dry.


Brad

The dry ones still have voltage but only a few micro amps. After shorting out for 5 minutes returns the same readings . But I'm thinking more peltier effect than galvanic now. The readings are too inconsistent and now they won't start the calculator. I'll still fire the material I have.

[JimBoot]

ugh got the calculator going on completely dry cells. When you start calculating though it seems to drain the cells but then it "recharges" (for the want of a better word) itself. I'll work on it tonight while I'm printing parts for another project. The stack of cells pictured have an unloaded voltage of around 3v. When the calc is switched on it drops to about half and then drops lower with every button press. These cells are homemade paper made with the intercalated (not exfoliated material) graphite, then I have used a paper separator soaked in sodium silicate to sit between the graphite paper and Al foil. I used the Na₂SiO₃ as in the separator as RMS just demonstrated using it as an electrolyte to rejuvenate SLA batteries.  EDIT: Just did another test and it seems the more digits displayed on the LCD will drain the cell but it calculates 3- 4 digit results easily.

[JimBoot]

So I put my meters current probe on these new cells. It showed 2 - 5 micro amps. Then I put it on ones I made over a year ago which had a lot more of the carbon material and they measured between 100 - 200 micro amps. Calculator does not drain them. Ran for 25 minutes, no discernible change in voltage during the run. A few tests here. What's the lowest power rated dc motor? Like to see if I can run these flat using inductive load.
https://youtu.be/FZoGDT6GIts