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Saturday, May 7, 2016

Going Green, Shaken But Not Stirred

It is not chlorophyll but the reduced quinone or palstoquinol molecule that plays the role of OH.  Reactions at both the cathode and the anode collector are two different redox reactions.  The electrolyte at the anode collector is oxidized, at the same time OH is being reduced producing H2O+.  At the cathode H2O+ is being reduced and MH is being oxidized producing OH.

The problem is to move OH back to the anode so that the cycle repeats perpetually.

H2O+ redistributes by heat diffusion and by its charge.

OH redistributes by heat diffusion only.

When H2O+ is replaced with LiH+, Li being lighter improved efficiency, but LiOH formed in the presence of H2O or OH precipitate under heat and localized high concentration at the cathode kills the battery.  The accumulation of contact hydride, MH at the anode will also kill the battery, but this can be solved by a suitable choice of metal.

Hydrogen fluoride is poisonous!

The battery can be shaken but not stirred!  Shaking a battery to redistribute OH inside prolongs its life.

It may not be possible to have both positive and negative charge carriers in the same cauldron.   Opposite charges will tend to bond ionically and neutralize.  A battery actually works because OH is not charged.

If a negatively charged OH equivalent can be created, it must also be separated from the positive H2O+ reductive carrier using a suitable membrane.  Which leads us to an oscillatory battery,


The battery oscillates chemically; a pair of redox reactions at the two electrodes working in opposite directions, producing charged redox carriers separated by a membrane moving in opposite directions.   The carriers produced by oxidization at one site are transport to the second site and are reduced there.  The reduction reaction creates another type of carriers and is transported in the opposite direction to the first reaction site.  It is oxidized there.

Electricity is tap off at the electrodes to drive a load.

Now, we look for a pair of redox reactions that produces charged redox carriers with PH change across the membrane.