Author Topic: Synthetic anode surface area increasing?  (Read 557 times)

Offline Turbidaceous

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Synthetic anode surface area increasing?
« on: January 23, 2021, 12:42:02 PM »
For people who cannot afford (or find) a big heavy thick slab of fine silver, could someone make a flat, tightly packed spiral from fine 1mm thick silver wire to create a larger surface area anode?
You know, like if you were to draw spirals on a paper but very close together, that kind of thing and then submerge the whole thing during the electrolysis process?

Offline SaltyCornflakes

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Re: Synthetic anode surface area increasing?
« Reply #1 on: January 24, 2021, 11:31:25 AM »
A tight spiral sounds like an absolute nightmare to clean.  ;)

I would try something like this.


Offline cfnisbet

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Re: Synthetic anode surface area increasing?
« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2021, 02:58:15 PM »
A spiral would present no cleaning problems because fire-cleaning would work regardless.

However, the suggested pattern is better than a spiral because the silver would erode more evenly from a flat electrode than a spiral. The spiral would erode more from the side of the spiral nearest to the cathode.

Offline Turbidaceous

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Re: Synthetic anode surface area increasing?
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2021, 03:34:25 PM »
Interesting. Could be a nice way for someone to get higher current, if all they can get is the wire stuff but a decent amount of it.

Offline cfnisbet

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Re: Synthetic anode surface area increasing?
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2021, 12:17:25 PM »
Yes, perfectly good theory.

Alternatively, buy the wire and melt it on a gas flame to make a "puddle" of silver, which could then be used as a bigger anode.

But an electrode array is perfectly valid, just make sure that the array erodes from the end furthest from the anode wire, rather than the part closest to the attachment point.