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Rust with a battery charger


Caleb51

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Hello, here is my second try at getting a lot of rust. I have a car battery charger, I have all the stuff I need, I just need a quick run through of what to do. You basically stick the two gator clips to a nail and put it in salted water right? How do you avoid getting the clips wet, hence rusting them as well? How long does this take to do? How much rust will I get from a 4 inch nail? And I saw a site a few days ago with pictures of the whole thing in action, and what to do, et cetera, but now I can't finf the site. Any one know what site it is? Edited by Caleb51
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To keep the clips dry just keep them out of the water. Hook the clip to the nail and submerge the nail in water just up to the clip but not having the clip in the water. It will probably take a few days or longer to rust the nail. I'm not entirely sure but I'm guessing it will take a little while. I'm guessing your going to need to place the nail on the positive wire since that is where the O2 is being produced. As for how much rust you will get you could roughly calculate it with the weight of the nail and a chemical equation. I don't know of the site but just search google for rust or iron oxide made by electrolysis or something like that.

 

Also is there really a need to start like 15 iron oxide threads?

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I belive frogfot may have a Fe2O3 synthesis involving electrolysis.

 

Basically heres whats going on:

Anode: Fe -> Fe(2+) + 2e-

Cathode: 2H2O + 2e- -> H2 + 2OH-

 

The Fe(+2) ions react with the hydroxide ions to form Fe(OH)2 and then ppt. out right away.

 

Your nails are probably galvanized, meaning Zn coated. My dead brain will not tell me what this will do.

 

The NaCl will form NaOH and Cl2 gas, the NaOH wont do anything exept lower the pH. Good electrolyte for this...

 

Wash your precipitate before you use it, as it will be basic. Then just dry it in an oven at 300 or so.

 

For the technical problems, just tape the stuff to the cell wall so it doesnt dip in. I dont think your clips are iron, though they could be.

 

Fe2O3 is about 70% iron, so just solve a proportion to find how much.

 

EDIT: you really do go through a lot of trouble for... rust.

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Soak nails in HCl for a couple hours, then use as electrodes otherwise you will get minor zinc hydroxide contamination in your final product. This reminds me...I made a big rust cell a couple years ago with big rebar electrodes, I let it run for a few days, turned it off and forgot about it. It is still there...

 

AC current may work here as well and then you can have both electrodes iron and dissolved simultaneouly. Bit of peroxide in the electrolyte may be beneficial as well.

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Don't put both of the clips on the nail. Instead, put a length of insulated copper wire in each clip. Strip off about two inches from each side of the added wires. Make these wires about two feet long. Get a glass jar filled with warm water with salt added and stirred into it. Wrap a large iron nail with the positive wire. If you wrap it with the negative, you will end up with rust acid, which won't help you. Put the wire-wrapped nail on one side of the jar with the negative wire submerged on the other side. Don't let the wires touch! Let this sit overnight. Wikipedia says 10 hours, so if you sleep less than 10 hrs, wait a while for it to finish. The rust will be floating on the surface of the water, attached to the nail, and sitting at the bottom. Drain the extra water, and scrape the rust onto a baking sheet or aluminum foil. You can A) let this sun-dry, or B) put this in the oven, set at 250 degrees for a few hours. That's about it. Message me if you have any questions.
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So you're saying take a piece of wire and attach it to the positive clip and put that around the nail, then do the same with the negative clip, but don't put it around the nail? Where should I let the gator clips sit? Will they conduct heat or sparks or anything?
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So you're saying take a piece of wire and attach it to the positive clip and put that around the nail, then do the same with the negative clip, but don't put it around the nail? Where should I let the gator clips sit? Will they conduct heat or sparks or anything?

 

Correct. Don't let the clips or wires touch. As for where the clips should sit, I'd put them on the same surface as the container, just make sure they don't touch. The added wire I mentioned in my first response gives you a pretty long length to position the clips, so wherever you want them, really. As for heat and sparks, I'm not sure. Put everything on something metal, and then put that on something plastic or rubber so there isn't a chance of catching something on fire and the heat doesn't melt the palstic.

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So should this work? (Look at image!)

The red looking stick is an insulated wire, stripped at both ends, hooked up to the negative clip, then same thing attached to the positive clip, wrapped around a nail. There is no water in it, but there will be. My setup!

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Yes, according to what I've read in various places, this is exactly how it should be set up. Good job, go ahead and try it. (Make sure when you put water in there that it's warm salt water.)

Whoops, I just read two replies ago and it put and emoticon where a "parenthesis b" should have been. Oh well, I think you got it anyway.

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Okay, so the wire cannot touch the water? I'm gonna go plug her in and see how it goes. How long should it take to get any minor results?
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Another problem. The one that bubbles more is supposed to be the positive one, correct? My charger is labeled with plus and minus, and the minus one is bubbling wayyyyy more. What do I do now? I thought you hook it up to the plus one because it bubbles more.
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Anode: Fe -> Fe(2+) + 2e-

Cathode: 2H2O + 2e- -> H2 + 2OH-

 

You will be getting mostly H2, with some Cl2 gas, even a bit of O2, I would presume.

 

Cathode will produce much more gas.

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But newbie can also read and do research and use google.... I hope or newbie needs a new hobby.
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Seriously, electrochem is some of the funnest chem there is and the level of difficulty needed for what you are talking about is childs play. For this, you get a cruddy diagram in paint(It is pretty much noob-proof) and my condecending attitude.

 

(....This is the type of stuff I was talking about in the random thread....)

post-8-1143595418_thumb.jpg

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I got bored so I just did this. Add some peroxide to your cell, it oxidizes the iron(II) hydroxide formed to iron(III) hydroxide which seems to instantly go to the oxide.
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ummmm.... If he gets H2 and O2 and Cl2 should he be worried about Na metal reacting with water and exploding?
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Sodium is not formed here. That does not happen in aqueous environments.

 

Also, for some reason my picture above died.

 

EDIT: DONT ADD peroxide, I was wrong, I left the cell running, came back and I had magnetite and the cell was at 80C, and the electrodes must have shorted somehow as the powersupply was turned off and there was magnetite sludge around the beaker in an 'it exploded out the top' fashion. Im sorry I missed it....

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......But it was too late......

I added some, came back right after I read your edit, and there was a crusy black layer all around the nail. What is this? And I'm not looking for like 100% pure fe203, I'm making thermite for the most part, so it's pretty crude.....

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The black stuff is magnetite, Fe3O4. Peroxide will decompose with the iron oxides present, so just let it sit for a few hours without the power on and most peroxide will decompose. Or just make a fresh salt electrolyte, its just salt water after all. Fe3O4 works in thermite as well.

 

BTW thermite may not be as great as it is in your mind currently. There are easier materials to make hotter burning substances out of, but that is off topic.

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Hey, incase anyone cares, I found out why I was having SO much trouble. okay so on the battery charger, there is an on off switch. It was off. Nooo just kidding! There is an "Automatic/Manual" switch. I guess it does not work on automatic. I got it to work last night on automatic, but it took like 30 minutes. I put it on manual and it bubbled instantly. Yay. Any safety precautions?
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  • 4 weeks later...
I am doing some electrolysis right now and I am getting a dark green solution. This is iron(II) hydroxide, correct? If so, on the old forum I believe someone said this could be converted to the oxide by heating. This would work for this compound right? I've never gotten the green color when doing electrolysis before, I've always gotten brown. Maybe its the nails I'm using.
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