Copper Sulfate and Aluminium. Just another way

[Jehu]

Well, I just made a small test cell from an old glass jar and two 6mm Aluminium tubes. The Al tubes are the two electrodes just clamped on to the edge of the jar with cheap nylon spring clamps. I have filled the jar with a fairly saturated solution of Copper Sulfate in tap water. I didn't sand the oxide layer off the Al tubes just left them.

I then tested the resistance of the cell. With a distance of 20mm between them, the first reading came in at around 68ohms. There was a voltage accross the trodes of about 0.002V. 2 hours later I start to hear in the background a pinging sound, like the sound of a carbonated softdrink in a glass cup. It was the cell. Looking at the Trodes there were some buildups of copper that was plating out of the solution. The gas was comming off these areas. This must be places where the oxide layer might have been damaged or thinner. They kinda look like moles or other types of growths. Also the top of the cell was getting slightly cloudy. It wasn't hydroxy clowdy, just small particulate matter, probably Al oxide.

I then tested the cell. Bout 0.004V this time. But it was the resistance that was interesting. It had dropped considerably but was varying from 15ohms to -6ohms. Wah?????

Anyway, I just though I'd share it with you. It's not producing much but it's doing something. I'll see what happens in the morning.

[Jehu]

I have been watching this cell on and off most of the day so far. ATM it's still producing gas, I haven't been bothered to light it to see what it is, and it's not producing much anyway. But it is producing something.

Also there was a noticable difference of the saturation of the copper sulfate. The top half of the jar was alot lighter in colour than the bottom which was a nice deep blue. Also the largest area of copper buildup was at the top of the jar.

I pulled the trodes out to have a look at them and they have a nice coat of copper plated on them, it looks really nice. The growth like spots on the trodes have now eaten right through it. I scraped all the loose chunks off and there are some nice big holes in them now. Also what looks like copper has been precipitating onto the bottom of the jar.

After scraping the copper off the trodes and letting it fall to the bottom, gas production seemed to increase. My assumption on this is that there is now more metal exposed to the copper sulfate solution so the reaction is now taking place a bit faster.

And I have finally got around to making a project folder so I'll post some photos and youtube vids in there when it's up.

[Jehu]

[AlaskaStar]

[Jehu]

Actually no I haven't tried that yet. Originaly it was just 2 Al trodes sitting in the copper sulfate solution. And the voltage I got out of it was practicly non-existant.

I'll try that though with the 2 Al trodes and in another cell with 1 Cu and 1 Al trode.