1245 How To Make Your Own Super Battery - Copper Oxide Zinc 

Hi robert, you are truly one of a kind person, you inspired me to become an independent researcher,currently im trying to develop Graphene application for printed electronics. You don't know it, but I consider you my mentor. Your videos changed me.

Quite impressive mind you have, my friend. Thank you for doing what you do. I admire your drive.... not only in your pursuit of innovation, but in the dedication you have shown in sharing your ideas. Sharing the route you took to find the answers to questions posed is something I had never considered. Many of us take for granted the skills we came across naturally throughout life. I commend you for lighting the fires in the minds of many that weren't as fortunate.

Just ONE word pops into mind seeing this: WOW! :D You are a true inspiration Rob! Great video!

I like it that Robert splashes in copper sulphate into a glass right next to his cup of coffee...

Robert you are the coolest smart person I have ever had to pleaser to watch on YT!

I was looking into this about 8 years ago and my gosh the amount of nay sayers totally coinvinced me it wouldn't work at all. Totally stopped me from doing it. Well done. I am so happy to see someone try it out and explain the whole thing quite simply. It is an idea that would work on every house and every little bit counts these days. Thank you.

One obvious improvement I also see would be to replace the graphite with graphene or conductive ink. The POP could be replaced with floral foam for the separator and the whole assembly placed in the BLADE design developed for the ZnBr stationary battery. Building on that, we could increase the surface area of the anode and cathode by coating 1/3 of the floral foam in a Zn-based slurry and the other 1/3 in the Cu-based slurry (with graphene/conductive ink). This leaves the center 1/3 to hold the electrolyte. The pores of the foam will act as a substrate for the electrodes to develop the mesoporous surface for electrolyte interaction.

Wonderful DIY science w/ extremely broad range of ideas! Thanks for these opportunities.

Thank you for this video! A step-by-step guide through the process is very helpful! My students won't like it right away, but they'll appreciate it in the future! Take good care! Cheers from Guam! 🇬🇺

Thank you for mentioning energy density. I was hoping to hear what kind of density this would get, but I now see this is more of a kind of "how do you iterate" video. I think hearing more about iterations on ZnBr batteries would be really attractive.

Why I enjoy your videos: Not only do they challenge my mind but you show me how these things work instead of just talking about it. So glad I subscribed.

This video was exactly the video that I'd been hoping for. I love how you explain the thinking process! Thank you.

Surface area along with many other variables. Changing one of the battery components will change the outcome. Ie current and voltage.

Teachings of old are very valuable when harnessed for the purpose of extrapolating at the professional level in conjuction with reality. Thank you. Very thought provoking.

Well done Robert!

You are bloody awesome. I'm glad to be home from holidays for this video.

The knowledge and skills of this guy is dang impressive.

Really, cool. Younger generations have no idea of the luxury they live in. The shear difficulty of research back in the day. Nearly everything is at your fingertips. No excuses. Funny, I was just researching bismuth trioxide as a possible battery solution, but it didn't have anything under uses. Yet after watching your video by chance, Bam, you talk about the very thing i was researching. Scary.

I can't believe you posted this video 3 days before my birthday and I missed it. You even referenced the surfin bird

Great video for those who appreciate the actual genuity in it. Did you put the bismuth trioxide into the electrolyte or only into the anode/kathode?

I really love the Author! Have learnt soo much, and knowledge really does kill Fear😅

Great Explanation Rob....You Make It So Simple and Straight-forward....Thank you For Another Great Video.. :D

awesome... make one video on charge and discharge... your video give my mind change. thanks

Thank you, Robert

Ok I hope your going to take this one further. Solid state super battery were going to want more. I think you know this. Thanks

Bit expensive but try this! Take some sodium hydroxide ( drain cleaner ) and add zinc leave or heat and create sodium zincate . Then, that two silver electrodes and put into the liquid. Charge this battery ( cell) and it doesn’t matter which way you charge it!! The zinc goes to one electrode and the other turns to silver oxide . Hey presto you have a silver zinc cell which charges in a second or so. Naturally to make it better make the electrodes have a high surface area. The sodium zincate as a source of zinc in a cell can be used in many ways and the silver can be replaced by other materials…..have fun…it’s called a flash cell as it charges in a flash !

Thanks for that overview!

Wow that was brilliant, thanks for sharing 👍

This brick rechargeable battery make me wonder about building a house with them and put solar cells on the roof. Put the bricks in series of 10-20 then parallel them. Add a couple of inverters and solar for a green house.

you amaze me on every video, thanks....

You're a great teacher, keep it up!

Your sparking my interest, Rob.

I am wondering if adding a tiny bit of cement to it would help with durability since plaster and 5% cement powder throughly mixed before wetting makes hydracal a plaster like substance that is incredibly hard, and a PSI rating of double that of most concrete mix for driveways (about 11,000 while concrete we have in the US is often only about 6000 psi compressive strength, and the bonding quality to make say a pot is far greater so a thin layer slurried around inside a mold and poured out so you get an 1/8th inch thick layer will be more durable of hydracal than even cement, ) also upping this to 10% is what is known as Ultracal which has a compressive strength of about 30,000 psi (and both are still hydralic cements so won't be deminished by water but instead water even under it will cause setting up so using in a wet cell seems they would be much better at surviving,) the ceramic pot you are using is terracotta which fires at around 1000 degrees C, and I have succeeded at getting it to fire to a water insolubility level of only about 500-600 degrees by adding 3% concentrated vinegar, 1-2% citric acid solution, and same of oxalic acid solution to the dry terracotta powder to wet it instead of plain water to make an acid based geopolymer, no idea what say using formic acid diluted in those might do, or any other organic compound, but my thought on this is PVA and corn starch and maybe a foaming agent that breaks down depositing either a carbonate type or oxide of the metals in one or the other might make a way to mix the graphite foam into something for expanded surface area with some stablizing agents and plaster breaks down losing it's water after setting if heated to 350 C so that could be something to act maybe partially as a foaming agent in the mix, then when you add water by soaking the fired finished bit, resolidify to make a graphene/anode/cathode structure inside a fired clay unit, all at those lower temps you used to work the regular graphene foam structure of another video through calcination process in your oven/kiln in two stages, Something I want to try and see if a way to not only get it to not swell when going through the cycle of charge/discharge, and is interlocking as a block for building bricks so the battery/supercapacitor storage could be a part of the structure of a building, :)

Enjoyed this alot thank you for sharing!

Excellent "teach them how to fish" video. I've been trying to learn about the liquid metal batteries that Ambri Technology is developing. They seem very promising.

I think your attitude is amazing! Keep up the great work. I would love to know your thoughts on LifPo4 batteries and if you ever considered building one? Or do you have better ideas for a more powerful battery. LifPo4 seem to be the most prevalent battery for Solar/alternative power these days.

Awesome thinking love it

Excellent as always Sir, Thank you.

Thanks for doing a battery video.

thanks professor. i want to ask about dual carbon cells. if the principle which determines voltage of the cell is that the cathode has to have a higher reduction potential than the anode, how do dual carbon cells work ?

Well done yet again mate ! Please pretty please can we see a stack of them combined as a dry hho cell or as the end plates?

oh since I mentioned kiln work and you have a lot of repurposing materials videos, I was going to ask, do you have a glass plant near by you could see if they have unwanted chipped and partially used furnace bricks you could do a video on how to make one's own high temp kiln, as the one we have here, is using a hybrid of alumina and zirconia bricks that can withstand temps for melting pure sapphire, (still need an inert environment for say tungsten wire based resistance wire for the super high temps, as everything I have tracked on it shows it can withstand some pretty high temps out of an oxidizing environment (like 3000 degrees C so workable temps I would guess are at least 2500-2800 with the higher end ones shortening the lifespan of course) and apparently the wire works at higher temps in higher pressure argon say than even in a pure vacuum, which seems kinda nice as that allows easier passing of that thermal energy into the item being heated than trying to heat it in a vacuum and blasting the heat as IR radiation or something LOL (might be a time to investigate some microwave heater materials like how they use SiC as heaters by blasting them with microwaves, or a ZVS circuit that uses the alternating magnetic field of the high frequency AC or something, not sure, but just a thought on a way to get materials to build the insulating and structural under compression (ie bricks and such) for free even as they used these bricks of zirconia and alumina mix for the filler under railway tracks leading to our glass plant, and a stream nearby washes them away into an easily accessible public area, as well as a ton of large chunks of glass that is brilliant colors all waste from the glass plant, that is considered earth neutral or friendly since it won't break down and is just basically man made rocks LOL.

Training future proper scientists ...I love it.

Hello Robert can you download a copy of the article? or is bound by intellectual property restrictions to personal use only?

Cool to see another battery vid. I'm sure a battery research basics/education playlist is in the channels future. Any thoughts on using a bioplastic instead of the plaster? Would it be possible or would the plastic break down in the electrolyte?

God Bless you Robert thanks for this instructive video .I wonder which is more efficient Lead Acid or this Copper Oxide-zinc battery ?

Haha ! That's the inspiration I'm looking for! :) Boy, that was good!

Thanks always.

Hermann Sheer was known as Solar Pope. If there would be Battery Pope once, Rob is first contender for sure. Great work. Top inspiratin.

I don't even fully comprehend the magic of a battery, and much less a rechargeable one - but it is really cool to see you do it "at home", so to speak. Having a laboratory as yours and access to buy a load of exotic materials might obviously help in being able to run out and try to replicate it and have one´s own laugh about that, but great entertainment. :)

Hello Rob, I was wondering if the zinc will eventually form dendrites. If yes, then could TBAB be used to suppress the growth?

I have watched some videos about iron batteries, and wondering if they can be enhanced by harnessing the +6 iron oxidation state, and with some chlorate or permanganate in the electrolyte.

Fantastic video. "Birds the word" :-)

I like to listen to stuff I can't understand. Nice video!

"Back to the future" as we have what Voltaire, Byrd and even Neil Bohr could not have imagined. How many side paths are there to better products. Just putting two wires in moving water creates electricity. Looking forward to your next video.

could you use carbon felt instead of the hdpe?

hey, if you still have this battery, i wanted to ask what happened if you sealed the battery and shined a bright light on the copper oxide layer? would the copper and zinc make a pn junction that could store electricity as solid zinc?

Another great video . On your old video on how to make a graphene battery . Can you use the graphene to make the whole car a battery with solar panels on top . There is no end to ideas.

Love to see you make an A4 paper book sized rechargeable battery bank with chemistry you like.

You are standing on the shoulders of giants. I heard this saying before but i assume this is what it means, to take knowledge of our ancestors in order to use their lifetimes of work to put us in a beneficial position, knowledgeable position. It is like a handicap, if you can get access of lifetimes of hard work and knowledge in one lifetime, then you are standing on something, so i would call them giants because they are the thinkers, the inventors, the courageous, etc... And you will be the new giant for some great grand child in the future looking back on your work and standing on your shoulders to get advantage of your entire lifetime of work to help advance humanity. Then they will be the new giant, etc...etc... I have to say that is intelligent, and it takes some amount of humbleness to accept that they already knew things you don't yet know. But that is the advantage, and now with you in a later time with different access to different processes and materials, etc...that is another advantage too because you now combine their knowledge with your knowledge and invent something we need. Believe it or not some people, or many people are so hardheaded they think they have to do it themselves and won't accept the FACT that our ancestors ALREADY did many of the things they try, in essence wasting their time. And then they will either come out with something already invented 1000s of years ago, but still can't accept it or admit it, or find out it don't work and was already tried 1000s of times. The point, they would have already known if they stood on the shoulders of the giants, but they are so hardheaded they didn't, and wasted their time and life. I just used the word "ancestors" but they can still be alive too.

Have you looked into the Hutchinson crystal battery?

Excellent, thanks.

Just a note copper oxide 1 is not available as a pottery glaze but copper oxide 2 is. With Google scholar the search actually isn't just the words lelande cell,it is Copper oxide zinc alkaline cell. It hasn't got much I'm the way of how to make a cell like this that works either.

Another great video

Also can you start to use a 3D printer to help make your battery cell containers.

That's brilliant, you only need 5 in a stack to charge your phone. How would you recharge it?

Awesome! 👏

Did you ever measure the energy density?

3:15 "Now, if you don't want to wait, add a bit of Sulfuric Acid in there, if you're feeling brave..." Robert, I do not know about you, but, I did not get grey hair from being brave. My hair turned grey from watching OTHERS be brave. I shall gladly wait.

Very interesting , thanks .

I want to reply but I’m such a beginner at so much of this. I’ve watched you on and off over the last several years or more. Today I’m interested in telling you to consider showing how simplest materials found in local river stone, charcoal, some acid perhaps from a fruit, and a simple conductor so that one may spark a fire. Wizardry stuff. Some of this I partially understand, but without repeated trials I won’t get very far. I laugh when I see people, particularly survivalists, spinning bow drills. The concept of course is to heat up a small space sufficiently to generate a coal. Well, I can do this with a thin high pressure ‘piston’ with a bit of carbon or dry grass at the base. In your case, a tool to switch a ‘spark lighter’ whenever needed made from local simple materials would be interesting. I would suggest to harden and waterproof your conductor using boiled sap. Will you give this a simple shot?

so having been on the topic of thermogeneration with copper oxides as the catalyst between 2 copper wires to generate electricity from heat now I am watching you make batteries with copper oxide and zinc the obvious question in my mind Robert is would it be possible to create a thermogenerator on a scale that could be a practical application to the rocket stove? or one better could the copper oxides be incorporated into the rocket stoves construction as an additional part if it were made out of a cpl layer of copper with a plaster of Paris red or black oxide and installed within...... ? now we are cooking ... I hope you have a chance to ponder this as a development or not... but thank you for the stimulation of my mind.....Mike Saskatchewan canada

My question is size plaster of Paris is fairly heavy How many of these before I could make it permanently run my house

I wonder if you can make a magnesium sulfur battery or aluminum sulfur battery in a similar way.

I'm curious as to how the plaster of paris compairs to the pva gel electrolyte you showed a few years ago?

Can I substitute bismuth trioxide with cobalt oxide?

Robert, wasn't research done using a Concrete or Mortar mix in Brick form that when laid as a Wall would form a Large enough Battery to power a Home? Thanks for the upload Robert. I enjoy all your Video's mate. Your a Hell of a Teacher Sir.

Can you do the same cells using Magnesium instead of Zinc ?

Hello there I've been watching your videos for a while now and you are put simply awesome! Your like Bill nye the science guy and I hope you don't take offense to that. You really re kindled my love for science so thank you. Anywho I was just wondering what ever happened to the chlorine zink battery? And why is this not commonly used it seemed like a really good alternative

Hummm.... Interesting..... I wonder if some n-hydrate solid (where the hydrate ratio was inordinately high) would make a good solid state battery electrolyte. Something like magnesium sulfate.

Zinc will dissolve in hydroxide solutions. I think it might be okay in your case since it's in the solid state and mass transport shouldn't allow too much hydroxide to react with the metal. Great video!

I may have missed it but, how do you recharge it?

So... a lemon tree with a couple hundred lemons could be arranged to run its own grow light, and or fan ?

[APPLAUSE]...... Seeing and using Google Scholar was certainly worth the price of admission - 998 seconds of my time - LOL. The thing that caught my attention was the plaster of Paris separator. Other micro-porous materials started springing into my head - Breathable waterproof fabric (Gortex); Ceramic tile grout; CAB (Cement Asbestos Board); Sitka Spruce; paper. I'll have to do research on Bird's cell. The Gortex is the one that interests me the most the WHr/kg would be much better than plaster. Thank you....

If you added activated charcoal would the power density increase?

thanks for that, although if more people knew how easy it is to figure out how we do engineering research they might not be willing to pay us to do it for them so much . . .

Is there any idea on how many charge/discharge cycles are possible and how is it compares to say modern lithium 18650's ?

Have a look at something interesting that happened in the past hello from Australia

What if y use flat wood carbonised, drill copper rod in one and galvanise rod in othet and pore epoxy, then use cement for catalizador

I am willing to bet Robert could have gotten Gilligan off that island. LOL 😆

how do you calculate the current collection of a battery cell plate surface

Could you charge a superconductor with voltage from the earth or what about static or atmospheric charge?

Resubscribed, this is amazing content. I'll just have to take the silly moments, but we can not always expect genius on every video. Cheers 🍻

Thank you :D !

Love it!

I like you, thank you friend!

b-b-b-b-bird bird bird.. oh heck now you've got that stuck in my head again. Cheers boss. 🙄😂

do you no how to make red copper sulphide please

You should try that with aluminum oxide and aluminum powder

Most water pipes are copper or brass, wonder how much voltage you could get from a aluminium conductor held under the tap and other end connected to earth.