Making chlorate voltage

[Scorpion812]

Hi everyone,

I am planning on making some potassium chlorate and mabye some sodium chlorate too. I recently started building my cell out of a jam jar. Now, I ordered a titanium anode which should arrive on friday. I want to use a steel nail as cathode. What voltage and amperage should i use? The graphite anode in the pictures will not be used.

 

thanks for answers in advance!

[MrB]

Ti Anode? Um... You mean MMO over Ti, or what?

 

The lid is conductive, and i suspect you will have a short circuit.

 

Voltage has been discussed at length in different threads, but generally it's down to your design of the cell. You have a set current density you want to run, with your chosen anode. Distance between the anode and cathode, along with current density, and conductivity of the electrolyte, pretty much decides your voltage.

 

Not sure how it affects the cell performance, but i've read about glassware being etched when in use for a cell, which might make it a bad idea.

[Scorpion812]

What do you mean with density?

The top isnt conductive and i have isolators around the elctrodes at the holes

[Scorpion812]

And the anode is i think pure ti

http://m.ebay.de/itm/Titan-Stab-Anode-Elektrode-100-x-8-mm-fur-Elektolyse-Galvanik-Titanelektrode-99-/252953375719?hash=item3ae53233e7%3Ag%3AitQAAOSwY3BZI-yQ&_trkparms=pageci%253A3f96fad0-4ad8-11e7-9a1e-74dbd180b67d%257Cparentrq%253A7e50972515c0a861cf7df566fffb395e%257Ciid%253A11

And the anode is i think pure ti

http://m.ebay.de/itm/Titan-Stab-Anode-Elektrode-100-x-8-mm-fur-Elektolyse-Galvanik-Titanelektrode-99-/252953375719?hash=item3ae53233e7%3Ag%3AitQAAOSwY3BZI-yQ&_trkparms=pageci%253A3f96fad0-4ad8-11e7-9a1e-74dbd180b67d%257Cparentrq%253A7e50972515c0a861cf7df566fffb395e%257Ciid%253A11

And the anode is i think pure ti

http://m.ebay.de/itm/Titan-Stab-Anode-Elektrode-100-x-8-mm-fur-Elektolyse-Galvanik-Titanelektrode-99-/252953375719?hash=item3ae53233e7%3Ag%3AitQAAOSwY3BZI-yQ&_trkparms=pageci%253A3f96fad0-4ad8-11e7-9a1e-74dbd180b67d%257Cparentrq%253A7e50972515c0a861cf7df566fffb395e%257Ciid%253A11

[Scorpion812]

Thata was a weird bug sorry i didnt type ut three times

[MadMat]

Current density is a measure of amps per unit of anode surface area (being SAE or metric). I use amps/ square inch. Sorry, but a pure titanium anode will not work well.

[Arthur]

Please read a lot of the posts on the topic.

1/ The liquid is erosive to some glass if your glass erodes then the eroded material adheres to the electrodes passivating them.

2/ the entire cell body and lid must be highly chemical resistant PVC cPVC and teflon are OK (and expensive)

[Scorpion812]

Can you really not use titanium at all? because mmo coating is pretty expensive...

[Scorpion812]

can i maybe use the titanium electrode for sodium chlorate?

[Mumbles]

There is an enormous thread on this subject here, as well as many other. http://www.amateurpyro.com/forums/topic/1629-making-potassium-per-chlorate/page-1

 

In short though, no, titanium will not work well. If this were easy and/or cheap anyone could do it. There are two competing reactions in a chlorate cell (generally called the chlor-alkali reaction); the evolution of oxygen and the evolution of chlorine. We want to favor the evolution of chlorine. Not many materials do this. Titanium will work wonderfully as a cathode however.

[Scorpion812]

Thanks for your replies! I have the idea to cut my titanium rod in half, coat one side, and use the other cathode. Will that work? I will also replace the container

[Scorpion812]

I have found this: http://www.ebay.de/itm/132186589580

is it good for chlorate as anode if i use pure titanium as chathode?

[WSM]

It should work for a short while, but the platinum will be negatively affected by the high chlorides in a chlorate cell. The platinum plated titanium anodes work wonderfully to electrolyze sodium chlorate to sodium perchlorate, but for producing chlorates the best anode I've seen is MMO on titanium.

 

If an MMO on titanium can be gotten, and it's set up properly, it should last for years and produce lots of clean potassium (or sodium) chlorate. Check the blog section for descriptions and demonstrations of making chlorates, and feel free to ask questions here.

 

WSM

[Scorpion812]

Thank you very much for your answer wsm! I sadly dont live in the usa and its hard to get an mmo anode but my dad goes to america very frequently so i might ask him if he can pick one up while hes there. If i cant get my mmo that quickly is it an option to try graphite?

[Arthur]

https://geocitieschloratesite.000webhostapp.com/

 

Read all of this til you understand it. half of what you need to know is there, the rest you will have to read the (per)chlorate thread and the Bucket cell thread -both completely and both carefully.