DIY salt battery. How old batteries turn into poison How to make something with batteries

A battery or galvanic cell is a chemical source of electric current. All batteries sold in stores essentially have the same design. They use two electrodes of different compositions. The main element for the negative terminal (anode) of salt and alkaline batteries is zinc, and for their positive terminal (cathode) is manganese. The cathode of lithium batteries is made from lithium, and a variety of materials are used for the anode.

The electrolyte is located between the electrodes of the batteries. Its composition is different: for salt batteries, which have the lowest resource, ammonium chloride is used. Alkaline batteries use potassium hydroxide, while lithium batteries use an organic electrolyte.

When the electrolyte interacts with the anode, an excess of electrons is formed near it, creating a potential difference between the electrodes. When the electrical circuit is closed, the number of electrons is constantly replenished due to a chemical reaction, and the battery maintains the flow of current through the load. In this case, the anode material gradually corrodes and breaks down. When it is completely used up, the battery life is exhausted.

Despite the fact that the composition of the batteries is balanced by manufacturers to ensure long and stable operation, you can make the battery yourself. Let's look at several ways you can make a battery with your own hands.

Method one: lemon battery

This homemade battery will use a citric acid-based electrolyte found in lemon pulp. For electrodes we will take copper and iron wires, nails or pins. The copper electrode will be positive, and the iron electrode will be negative.

The lemon needs to be cut crosswise into two parts. For greater stability, the halves are placed in small containers (glasses or shot glasses). It is necessary to connect the wires to the electrodes and immerse them in the lemon at a distance of 0.5 - 1 cm.

Now you need to take a multimeter and measure the voltage on the resulting galvanic element. If this is not enough, then you will also need to make several identical lemon batteries with your own hands and connect them in series using the same wires.

Method two: a jar of electrolyte

To assemble a device with your own hands, similar in design to the world's first battery, you will need a glass jar or glass. For the electrode material we use zinc or aluminum (anode) and copper (cathode). To increase the efficiency of the element, their area should be as large as possible. It would be better to solder the wires, but the wire will have to be attached to the aluminum electrode with a rivet or bolted connection, since it is difficult to solder.

The electrodes are immersed inside the can so that they do not touch each other, and their ends are above the level of the can. It is better to secure them by installing a spacer or a cover with slots.
For the electrolyte we use an aqueous solution of ammonia (50 g per 100 ml of water). An ammonia aqueous solution (ammonia) is not the ammonia used for our experiment. Ammonia (ammonium chloride) is an odorless white powder used in soldering as a flux or as a fertilizer.

The second option for preparing the electrolyte is to make a 20% sulfuric acid solution. In this case, you need to pour the acid into the water, and in no case vice versa. Otherwise, the water will instantly boil and its splashes, along with the acid, will get on your clothes, face and eyes.

When working with concentrated acids, it is recommended to wear safety glasses and chemical-resistant gloves. Before making a battery using sulfuric acid, it is worth studying in more detail the safety rules when working with aggressive substances.

All that remains is to pour the resulting solution into the jar so that there is at least 2 mm of free space left to the edges of the vessel. Then, using the tester, select the required number of cans.

A self-assembled battery is similar in composition to a salt battery, as it contains ammonium chloride and zinc.

Method three: copper coins

The ingredients for making such a battery yourself are:

• copper coins;
• aluminium foil;
• thick cardboard;
• table vinegar;
• wires.

It is not difficult to guess that the electrodes will be copper and aluminum, and an aqueous solution of acetic acid is used as the electrolyte.

Coins first need to be cleaned of oxides. To do this, you will need to briefly dip them in vinegar. Then we make circles from cardboard and foil according to the size of the coins, using one of them as a template. We cut out the mugs with scissors, put the cardboard ones in vinegar for a while: they should be saturated with electrolyte.

Then we lay out a column of ingredients: first a coin, then a cardboard circle, a foil circle, a coin again, and so on until the material runs out. The final element should again be a copper coin. You can solder wires to the outer coins in advance. If you don’t want to solder, then the wires are attached to them, and the entire structure is tightly wrapped with tape.

During the operation of this DIY battery, the coins will become completely unusable, so you should not use numismatic material that is of cultural and material value.

Method four: battery in a beer can

The anode of the battery is the aluminum body of a beer can. The cathode is a graphite rod.

Additionally you will need:

• a piece of foam more than 1 cm thick;
• coal chips or dust (you can use what’s left from the fire);
• water and regular table salt;
• wax or paraffin (candles can be used).

You need to cut off the top part of the can. Then make a circle of foam plastic the size of the bottom of the jar and insert it inside, having previously made a hole in the middle for the graphite rod. The rod itself is inserted into the jar strictly in the center, the cavity between it and the walls is filled with coal chips. Then an aqueous solution of salt is prepared (3 tablespoons per 500 ml of water) and poured into a jar. To prevent the solution from spilling out, the edges of the jar are filled with wax or paraffin.

You can use clothespins to connect the wires to the graphite rods.

Method five: potatoes, salt and toothpaste

This battery is disposable. It is suitable for starting a fire by short-circuiting the wires to produce a spark.

To create a potato lighter you will need:

• large potato;
• two copper wires in insulation;
• toothpicks or similar thin slivers;
• salt;
• toothpaste.

Cut the potato in half so that the cut plane has the largest possible area. Using a knife or spoon, select a hole in one half where you pour salt and add toothpaste. Mix them together until a homogeneous mass is obtained. The amount of “electrolyte” should be level with the edges of the recess.

In the other half, which will be the top, we pierce two holes at some distance from each other so that they both fall into the recess with the electrolyte when assembling the “battery”. We insert wires into the hole, previously stripped of insulation by about a centimeter. Place the halves together so that the ends of the wires are dipped into the electrolyte. Use toothpicks to secure the halves together.

We wait about five minutes, after which, by connecting the wires to each other, you can strike a spark and start a fire.

All the methods described above are not a full replacement for a battery purchased in a store. The voltage on homemade elements can fluctuate and its value cannot be adjusted accurately. You won't be able to use them for a long time either. But somewhere in the wilderness, in the absence of electricity, anyone can assemble a battery for a mobile phone or an LED light bulb with their own hands. Naturally, if you have the appropriate materials at hand.

Home appliances and toys use batteries of various types as batteries, which become unusable after a while. To avoid throwing them in the trash and harming the environment, you can make something interesting or useful out of batteries, and then hand them over to a special collection point. New and used items are suitable for science crafts.

What can be made from batteries

The simplest games with many batteries are to make letters, numbers and pictures out of them. The entertainment is suitable for children over three years old. An adult must participate in the game, who will ensure the integrity of the battery case and will not allow the child to lick or disassemble the batteries.

Batteries can be used as a construction set, making various shapes out of them

You can repeat a physics course with schoolchildren using old and new batteries. Crafts can be used not only for experiments. Knowledge and skills will be useful if you find yourself in extreme conditions.

Lighter

Materials for the product:

• a new or used battery, but still in working order;
• a piece of foil 8 cm long and 6–10 mm wide. You can use food or chewing gum foil;
• flammable material (newspaper scraps, cotton wool, hemp).

Manufacturing instructions:

When conducting the experiment, you must follow safety precautions. Keep water and a trash can handy.

Do not use leaking or deformed batteries. Liquid leaking from batteries is toxic. In addition, damaged batteries may ignite or explode before the experiment is completed.

Motor or “helicopter”

For good contact with the battery, the ring is lowered a little lower

Materials for creating a kind of perpetual motion machine:

• new battery;
• thin wire;
• two paper clips;
• small magnet;
• sandpaper;
• reinforced tape.

Instructions:

1. The wire is wound around the battery, 5–7 turns are made.
2. Remove the resulting ring. The ends of the wire are bent around the ring and smoothed with sandpaper.
3. The paper clips are straightened and secured with tape, one on each side of the battery.
4. Bend the paper clips at an angle of 90˚ and attach the ring to them.
5. A magnet is placed on the battery and the ring rotates.

If the motor does not start immediately, the distance between the wire ring and the magnet may be too large.

In a similar way, you can make a “helicopter” or an engine in the form of a moving spiral.

The wire can be bent into a spiral, heart, rectangles, etc.

To do this, bend the wire into the desired shape, which is fixed to a round magnet. The battery is installed on top, that is, the structure is made vertical. The wire must simultaneously be in contact with the battery and the magnet. For a wire frame, it is important to correctly determine the center of gravity, then as a result of the experiment it will rotate.

This magnet can be used to attract small metal objects

Materials for making an electromagnet:

• battery;
• copper wire - about one and a half meters;
• large nail or bolt.

Manufacturing instructions:

1. The wire is wound around the bolt, leaving free ends on opposite sides (they are needed for contact with the battery).
2. Attach the wire to the battery terminals. The magnet is ready!

What can be done from used batteries

A discharged power source can be charged for a short time if purchasing a new one is not possible at the moment. To do this, carefully deform the body, preventing it from being damaged. If the shell is cracked, then the battery can no longer be placed in the electronics, since caustic liquid will leak out of it and ruin the device.

From a battery that has served its intended purpose, you can make a lamp, designing it according to your own wishes.

Take a small light bulb for crafts so that the remaining battery power is enough to produce a glow

To make sure that the battery is discharged, it is thrown onto the table with the minus side down from a height of three centimeters. A new battery falls with a dull sound, a dead battery falls loudly and bounces off.

To make it you will need:

• used but not damaged battery;
• bulb;
• thin copper wire;
• scotch;
• paper and clay for creativity.

Manufacturing instructions:

1. The wire is divided into two parts.
2. Tape one part of the wire to the terminal with a negative charge.
3. The second part is wound around the metal area of ​​the lamp.
4. The free end of the wire (the one on the lamp) is attached to the second terminal of the battery.
5. In order for the lamp to light up, the circuit must be closed.

The light from the lamp is quite bright.

You can turn the product into an interesting craft by covering the battery with cardboard or plasticine. The resulting flashlight can become a lighting fixture in a dollhouse or become a bug with antennae terminals. Play with the product under adult supervision.

Similarly, you can highlight the glass.

Rules for recycling old batteries

Collection points for old batteries are being organized in cities, where exactly you can find out from the Internet

You should not throw away used power supplies with the rest of the trash; this pollutes the environment. Batteries consist of the following elements:

• steel shell:
• manganese oxide;
• electrolyte;
• zinc;
• graphite;
• paper and plastic.

The release of harmful substances begins after the metal casing rusts. Chemicals penetrate into the upper layers of the soil and, together with precipitation, enter groundwater. Together with them, dangerous compounds end up in the seas and rivers.

For these reasons, a battery recycling system has been developed. Product elements are used in various fields: metallurgy, production of pencils and fertilizers. After recycling, only 5% of the total weight of the battery must be recycled.

The only plant in Russia that recycles power supplies is located in Chelyabinsk. All collected batteries are delivered to this plant for recycling. The city has a developed metallurgical industry, so the resulting metal is used in local factories.

Video: what can be made from a battery

It should be remembered that conducting experiments with batteries should not cause harm to others. Therefore, you should not trust this work to a child. The adult should also evaluate his level of training so that he is able to assemble the chains correctly.

Just 1 battery thrown into a household waste dump contaminates about 20 square meters with heavy metal compounds (mercury, zinc, lead, cadmium, lithium, manganese, etc.). meters of the earth's surface! This area is comparable to the growth zone of two trees, the habitat of one hedgehog, two moles, and several thousand earthworms. What dangers do the chemical compounds present in portable power supplies pose?

What is the danger of batteries thrown away with regular trash?

You will definitely find this design on battery packaging and on each battery. This means that these products cannot be thrown into a regular garbage disposal - they require special disposal. But does everyone pay attention to this? Maybe the icon is too small? Or is there a lack of awareness among people about the dangers of improperly discarded batteries and household batteries? Well, we are ready to correct the last omission right now.

Garbage in landfills ignites, smolders, and is exposed to moisture, resulting in toxic substances entering the atmosphere in the form of dioxins. Even their minimal content in the air has a toxic effect on the body of living beings, which is 67 thousand times stronger than the effect of cyanide poison:

- Lead tends to accumulate in the kidneys, and also cause nervous disorders and damage the brain. One of the “chemical” culprits of delayed mental development in children.

- Cadmium– a strong carcinogen that provokes the development of cancer. Accumulates in the liver.

- Mercury belongs to hazard class 1 (“extremely dangerous substances”) affects the entire body (kidneys, liver, nervous and respiratory systems, brain, organs of vision and hearing, musculoskeletal system), with children being the most vulnerable.

All these toxic substances will definitely return to us in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the fruits and vegetables grown on agricultural lands. And it is no longer so important that the landfill is located in Dmitrovka, the waste incineration plant is in Rudnevo, and you live somewhere in the center of Moscow.

For harmful chemical compounds, “seven miles” is not a detour at all. From batteries they leak into the soil and groundwater, and end up in seas and reservoirs. And these are not microbes that can be eliminated by simply boiling water in a kettle or passing it through a household aquafilter.

What is the situation with battery recycling today?

First, some national statistics. In Russia, there are an average of 7 batteries per person per year (taking into account that the battery life is 6 months). More than 15 million batteries are taken to Moscow landfills every year. Meanwhile, the scale of the environmental problem and the relevance of collecting and recycling batteries have already been appreciated in many countries around the world:

- Japan. Residents and organizations of the Land of the Rising Sun diligently collect and store batteries until “better” times, when optimal technologies for their effective disposal will be put into practice.

- USA and Canada. Here, in many public places there are special containers for collecting batteries.

- EU countries. Battery manufacturers immediately include a certain percentage for recycling in the price of their products. And customers who return used power supplies to the store for subsequent recycling receive a discount on the purchase of new ones.

What can be made from old batteries?

Currently, all types of batteries produced by European companies are recyclable. And it doesn’t matter whether they are rechargeable or not, completely discharged or have a partial charge. After collection, the batteries are sorted by type (alkaline, nickel-cadmium, etc.) and sent to the appropriate processing plant (there are already about 40 such enterprises in Europe).

So that you understand what kind of “second life” you can give and find useful uses for “hazardous waste”, we will present data from French statistics. Here, thanks to advanced processing technologies, 1 ton of alkaline and salt batteries produces:

350 kgferromanganese (used in the production of stainless steel);

280 kgzinc oxide (used in the manufacture of drainpipes, roofing coverings);

280 kgzinc chloride (used for the production of new batteries);

190 kgslag (a mineral product that serves as material for creating embankments).

How can we contribute to preserving the environment?

Together with us, you can contribute to the protection of our planet today. We believe that It’s okay not to throw poison into the ground. The same opinion is shared by the Atlanta company, which professionally sells, services and repairs watches of famous Swiss and Japanese brands. There is also a pick-up point for orders from our My-Ecoshop store.

Despite the fact that there are several collection points for old batteries in Moscow and the Moscow region (mostly they are open on the territory of large chain stores and shopping centers), not always and not everyone has the time and opportunity to specifically get to them. The service center of our partners is conveniently located in the very center of the capital at st. Rozhdestvenka, 6/9/20, building 1 within walking distance from the Kuznetsky Most metro station and now, receiving your orders at the pick-up point on Rozhdestvenka, - hand over your used batteries!

Those of you can do the same who receives their orders in Lyubertsy - give us your old batteries!

You can be absolutely sure that no one will throw away the batteries you brought, drown them, bury them or try to burn them. We will definitely pass them on to companies that sort, properly store and recycle batteries!

A battery is a source of a certain amount of energy, which, like a battery, gives power and fuels our things. Typically, a battery has positively and negatively charged poles. And each of them carries correspondingly charged ions when the battery is placed in the socket.

Each battery has a specific voltage and capacity. Battery voltage varies from 1.5V to 3V. And its capacity depends on the volume of active elements. The battery capacity is also affected by the level of charge, the mode of its use and, of course, the ambient temperature.

Battery contents

Although at first glance the battery is small, a complex chemical process occurs inside it, as a result of which electrical energy is released. The main components of a battery are the anode, cathode and electrolyte. All this is called an electrochemical system.

Types of batteries

Batteries come in alkaline, lithium, mercury and saline. Each of them has its own pros and cons to use.
The alkaline battery is often used for electronic devices. Such a battery itself is the most durable and has a lower probability of leakage compared to a salt battery.

A lithium battery has a fairly high and stable level of electrochemical activity, which allows it to be used much longer than an alkaline one.

A mercury battery has a long shelf life, is resistant to temperature changes, has high capacity and energy density. But if the seal is broken, it becomes toxic, since it is based on mercury.
The salt battery is less resistant to temperature changes and has a shorter shelf life along with other batteries.

What to do with used batteries?

Today, there are organizations where you can bring used batteries. Subsequently, all collected batteries are sent to a plant for recycling and safe disposal.

Very often, people simply throw unusable batteries into the trash along with other waste or simply flush them down the drain, sometimes without thinking about the fact that over time the battery shell begins to decompose - and all the harmful substances inside are released and directly enter the waste stream. atmosphere.

It is also possible to bring some back to life using a special charger, which independently determines the type of battery and the time required to charge it. Typically, battery charging time is about four hours.

To make a homemade one, you will need a sheet of aluminum foil, a plastic garbage bag, graphite powder, a bandage, and a strip of paper.

Progress on the battery

Place a strip of foil on the bag. To seal and strengthen the point of contact with the wire, add a small strip of foil. Next, we’ll place the paper strip on the previously created “sandwich” of foil and bag. Put a bandage on top of all this and sprinkle graphite powder. Finally, we complete the basic work by placing another aluminum plate on top of the graphite powder. Again add a small strip of foil to ensure contact strength.

Wrap all the strips relatively tightly into the sausage. Wrap the resulting homemade battery with tape or an elastic band so that the entire structure does not fall apart. All that remains is to immerse the battery in an acid or alkaline solution. Then the actual set of metal parts, graphite and a bag will turn into a battery. But you can also use saline solution. This is the easiest way to get quick and cheap results. But the voltage and current in this battery will be less than in the acid or alkaline version. Three such batteries can easily support the operation of a small-sized radio. Watch the video for all the details of creating a battery with your own hands.