Arthur Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 Computer power supplies are OK for small, proof of concept, cells BUT when trying for sustained operation at working currents between 2 and 50 amps only carefully chosen power supplies work well for long. The Meanwell brand on ebay has a few sizes of psu to look at. Having a DC welder could be interesting BUT you would need to do a lot of work to get control of the volts and current to suit this process. What is the continuous rating of the welder you are considering? Welders are probably the best example of design down to duty cycle. They are probably expected to run for 2 - 5% of the time you are welding, which is then defeated by the need to run a cell for 168 hours a week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mx5kevin Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 What are important in the power supply to have a safety fuse in it that melts if the circuit is overloaded. The are DC step down modules with volt/ampere display if one wants to be precise, and they are good for 12V car battery chargers. If someone using a fix 6V power supply will be OK without it. But without a measuring instrument, it is not possible to say the pair of electrodes is placed in the solution, how much it loads the system. Have to take into the maximum amperage a power supply can deliver, but you have to stay well below that because it will overload. The thickness of the wire, the surface and proximity of the electrodes, it depends how many amperes actually pass through during operation. Battery chargers have an electric fuse. In a 6V 4A car battery charger have a 4A fuse. It should not be loaded more than 2 amps, when the cell is running. In this setup if a 6V 6A car battery charger are used, but the same electrodes and wires remain, no more amperes will flow through the system. As the process progresses, less and less amperes pass through. When the NaCl solution are start the value that actually passes through the cell should be 2A in this calculation. In the NaClO3->NaCl04 setup this will be under 1A. The larger the electrodes, the larger the surface area, and they are close to each other the more amperes actually pass through the cell. But here you have to pay attention so that it remains below the power of the power supply. Car battery chargers have a built-in ammeter and a safety electrical fuse, the measuring instrument shows how long it can be loaded. Do not exceed 2 Amps in the case of a 4 Amp charger. If anything goes wrong, the fuse will blow. It is my own experience that you should not use any power supply under 4 amperes. A 70mm long 3mm thick 200 micron thick platinum electrode on a silver base 1.5 amps go through it whit a 10mm graphite cathode. And this is the minimum that is suitable for production. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mx5kevin Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 (edited) I found a much more effective method than the KCl+NaClO4 for KClO4 production. KClO3+NaClO4 for KClO4 production using hot filtering are much more faster, cheaper. But it requires more experience. The method is electrode-friendly because perchlorate residue in a chlorate cell strongly erodes the anode, and chloride in the perchlorate cell are a big anode killer too. What to watch out for are the potassium, in the chlorate to perchlorate conversion it precipitates immediately at the anode in the form of potassium perchlorate. This is not a problem with platinum, but it causes deposits on lead dioxide. But since NaClO3 are highly soluble 105.7 g/100 mL (25 °C), a clean hot water bath will easily dissolve from the lead dioxide anode if the NaClO3 concentrated/filtered from the chlorate and later it was diluted back. The NaClO3 can be reused indefinitely to make NaClO4. And making KClO3 are much more faster than NaClO3. In a pH controlled cell, less hydrochloric acid is needed and less chlorine gas is released. And for pH controlling a plant infusion sett (Plant Life Support Drip) are excellent. Edited March 10 by mx5kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taiwanluthiers Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 (edited) Sorry I didn't read the above replies. Most stick welder has a 50% duty cycle if you run them at maximum amp, most of that being around 250 amps. Unless you are making a very large cell you are not going to be running them at such a high amp, we're thinking 20-30 amps here. Most stick welder can do this at 100% duty cycle (most of them are rated to 100 amps at 100% duty cycle). Edited March 20 by taiwanluthiers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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