Re: Li battery shiny vs dull
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Those cheap batteries used to have a nice zinc case,? carbon rod and a lot of MnO2.?
The manganese dioxide is a catalyst to decompose hydrogen peroxide into water and O2, which reacts with calcium carbide to make a mixture of O2 and acetylene. Fun to play with but highly flammable.?
The carbon rods make great,? well,? electrodes, for all kinds of things.? Arc lamps,? electrolysis,? etc.
Zinc good for pyrotechnics, electrolysis,? nontoxic aquarium plant weights...
PS, Charles and all, keep a dead dry cell flashlight battery (the cheap kind). Take it apart for elements for your collection, a few of which also make perfect XRF calibration sources.
Geo
Just for fun I tested both sides of a Li battery.? One side (+) is shiny and engraved and the other side is dull (-).? After doing the shiny side (red) for a couple of hours I started the dull side and unfortunately let it run overnight so the counts are disproportionately high.? However, close inspection of the 2 graphs show that the shiny side has much more Cr than the dull side.? In fact, whatever Cr shows up in the blue graph may actually be coming from the edges of the battery where the shiny side wraps around.
So my question is whether there is an electrical reason for the Cr on the + side or is it purely cosmetic?
Charles
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Nick Andrews