A home-made battery

Electric voltage, including that from a battery, is expressed in volts and, indeed, this measure is derived from the name of Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist who lived from 1745 to 1827. Volta continued to research galvanic electricity made by his compatriot and colleague Luigi Galvani (who was a medical doctor as well) in 1780 and built the fi rst battery in 1800: the Voltaic pile. The pile originally consisted of 30, and later of 70, silver and zinc plates separated with cloth soaked in a salt solution. Volta himself called the construction an electromotor. We build a variant based on the battery principle: we replace soaked cloth with a glass of water in which salt and sodium carbonate are dissolved and substitute aluminium and copper for the silver and zinc plates. The advantage of the glass of water is that we can put in small copper or silver objects (jewellery) which are miraculously cleaned, but more about that later. Since one glass results in a voltage of only 1.15 volts, we immediately start with two glasses, so that with 2.3 volts we can demonstrate the operation of the home-made battery straight away with an illuminated LED. Here is the recipe for the liquid in each glass: - 1 teaspoon of table salt (available from the supermarket); - 1 teaspoon of sodium carbonate (available from the same supermarket or from the chemist); - as much water as fi ts in a glass of about 200 ml (available from the tap). Stir the solution thoroughly so that the salt and sodium carbonate are completely dissolved. In this solution we now hang a strip of aluminium foil with a width of about 4 cm and about 15 cm long. The easiest way is to fold the end around the top of the glass and hold it in place with a rubber band.

Now we strip a piece of fl exible copper wire (mains fl ex) of the same length and hang it in the solution in the same way. Make sure that the copper and aluminium do not touch each other, otherwise our battery becomes short-circuited. If necessary, use a paper clip to press the foil to the inside of the glass. The battery is now fi nished. Between the strip of aluminium and the piece of copper wire there is now an open-circuit voltage of about 1.15 volts, the copper is the positive terminal and the aluminium is the negative terminal. As already mentioned, we make a second battery in the same way and connect it in series with the fi rst: the copper wire of one glass is connected with the aluminium foil of the other glass (making this connection using copper wire does not matter). Soldering the wire to the aluminium will not work; clamp the stripped end of the connecting wire under the rubber band against the aluminium foil. We now have two free battery terminals: an aluminium terminal (the negative of the two-cell battery) and the copper terminal (the positive). Between these two terminals there is an opencircuit voltage of 2.3 volts, which we use to power a red (high-effi ciency) LED. Connect, with a short length of wire, the short terminal of the LED (= cathode) to the aluminium negative terminal (clamp under the rubber band) and the long terminal (= anode) to the copper positive terminal. (When connecting the LED there is an easy to remember rule: the short or cut terminal is the cathode.) If you inadvertently connect the LED the wrong way around there is no danger of damage the voltage is too low for that. After the LED has been on for a while and therefore the battery has been used for some time, you will notice that the copper is nice and clean. This homemade battery is therefore eminently suitable for the cleaning of

copper or silver. We omit the LED as well as the copper positive terminal. Now we will not load the battery (one glass is enough) externally, but internally! The inside of the glass is now completely covered with aluminium foil and the copper or silver objects to be cleaned (which now function as internal negative terminals) are placed in the solution in such a way that they just touch the foil on the side (an internal short-circuit therefore). After a while they are as new! This is because an extremely thin layer is etched away from the outer surface. So dont forget to remove your clean silver jewellery, because after a while you may get the impression that a theft has occurred, without any traces of burglary...