[NewCandle] The role of wicking in electrolyte transportthroughmetal foil rolls

[Keith Nagel]

Thanks Jones! There's a lot of local biodiesel things here
in Portland, but not sure if anyone is directly supporting
researchers or manufacturers the way that linked company
does. It's great that they have the K salt along with the
Na, I often have a need for both. And all I need is a pound
or so; I could probably get 50lb sacks here easier than
the small quantities.

I have another big roll and I will try to more accurately
time the rate of wicking up the roll. I assume most of
the flow is axial, but presumably a little is circumferential.
I can drill holes every inch or so and measure the rate
of flow pretty easily ( maybe make some pancake syrup while
I'm at it? ). I think with this arrangement you could do
the GM detector experiment with much greater precision.
Put the tube right up against the roll, and watch as
the wave slowly creeps across the active region. Really
it's so easy you should try it; it may take me a little
time to get a meter ( I'm looking into tying all my
stuff together with a laptop and want to look at various
options before I commit to a specific meter ).

Once corrosion begins the free hydrogen will swell and
deform the foils and make the spacing pretty variable.
For all of our purposes it would probably be better
for that not to happen. I am thinking that a plastic
solid rod cut axially into halves, with a wedge at
each end to push the halves apart might make it possible
to support the foil roll under loading.

K.


-----Original Message-----
From: newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com
[mailto:newcandle-bounces at ipdiscover.com]On Behalf Of Nick Reiter
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2010 7:21 AM
To: New energy for the new world.
Subject: Re: [NewCandle] The role of wicking in electrolyte
transportthroughmetal foil rolls


Hi Keith,

Looks like Jones fixed you up with a source for NaOH and KOH... I'd send ya
a can of Red Devil, but that would probably be pressing my luck with mail
rules, and place me onto more radar scopes than I would care for.

OK, the turn cavities...

I mused on this a few months ago, but have not characterized it anywhere
near to my satisfaction.  We know that the rolling process leaves irregular
linear straitions on the foil metal, that are an imprint of the texture of
the stainless steel mill rolls.  As can be seen in some of my old SEM shots,
this leaves something like elongated grooves of irregular dimension and
irregular spacing, that are perpendicular to the long axis of the roll, and
parallel to the turns of the roll.

This would imply that the most rapid capillary action is likely to be around
the turns, and less rapid from bottom to top, in an arrangement such as what
you had.  In the case you established, where the bottom inch or so was
covered with electrolyte, then one might picture a spiral rising slowly.

Now as to the dimensions of the turn to turn cavities... thats where fun
begins and chaos looms, and Nick has nary but a rough guess.  Ideally, the
cavities would be defined by the range of what topography on one turn is
matched up to the topography on the next turn opposing... irregular valley
to irregular peak (least cavity) irregular valley to irregular valley
(greatest cavity).  If the surface roughness is defined by Ra, then you'd
have a range of anywhere between ~0 and 2Ra.

Now the value for average roughness of kitchen foil - you would suspect that
could be an easy to find value; some sort of industry standard.  But if it
is, its damned esoteric, because I've only found hints of it, with cited
values between 100nm and 2 microns.

N


> It struck me the other day that perhaps the reason you got
> null results
> with your teflon coated foil is that the electrolyte can't
> wick into a foil/teflon sandwich?
>
> I've yet to see a runaway reaction, but I would certainly
> expect
> it if conditions permit. It's still quite cold here during
> the
> evenings. I don't have vacuum flasks big enough for a full
> roll.
>
> Speaking of things I don't have; Red Devil Lye has been
> discontinued!
> Apparently a victim of the war on drugs. And it's a good
> thing because
> now there are no longer any meth labs! Yup, they're all
> gone now,
> and former addicts are eating ice cream instead!
>
> As wonderful and effective as that solution was, it still
> leaves
> us with the problem of getting some lye, short of mail
> order
> and big shipping $$$. We shall see.
>
> In the ideal reactor, all the leaves of foil should be
> corroded
> equally, or nearly so. Judging by my experiments so far,
> it
> seems possible. What I am wondering about now is how to
> characterize the spacing between the turns of foil. This
> was the principle attraction of the system to you; any
> ideas here? How thick is the fluid layer between turns?
>
> K.
>






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