Going to try even more bite-sized updates of what I do in the lab, as well as write out what I am actually trying do do here. Warning, may be extremely brief/in shorthand.
Had our weekly FBRC meeting today which was a good start to the (PST) day.
Current Tasks:
First rfb-dev-kit tests with Zn-I chemistry at CCL, repeat Daniel’s results, mark official rfb-dev-kit release, FBRC blog post
Large-format cell and flow frame
- Initial design with FreeCAD (mostly done)
- Order 2D components from manufacturer ASAP (current collectors, endplates)
- CFD on flow frame, try printing it while waiting for 2D components
Draft a paper (woo)
FDM printing polypropylene
Broke a barb on a flow frame while trying to remove the endplate with the tubing still attached. You shouldn’t do this and I have added a warning in the docs.
Making a replacement, and printing polypropylene is a pain, see below:
It would be nice to have to not have to print polypropylene, indeed, some folks just posted on our forum about that!
Working on docs
Devil is in the details! This is where requests from an open-source community are great motivation, see this recent post from our forum. Getting the tubing lengths, instructions dialed in. Videos useful here not only for showing others but to grab screenshots later and throw into the docs. I plan to film myself running some assemblies and tests for this purpose.
Idea for all-copper chemistry
Daniel had the idea it could be good for large-format cell, as in, it’s much easier to conceive working with 100-1,000 mL of copper chloride solution than zinc iodide. Also, being able to use ABS for flow frames and BPT for tubing would would be awesome. Posted it on the forum:
Making a thread for a potential all-copper chemistry, which came up in discussion during our regular meeting today as a potential safe chemistry for testing, particularly as we scale to larger electrolyte volumes/cell areas. H/t to @danielfp@chemisting.com !
The voltage is too low to be of major commercial interest (~ 0.6 V), but in the charged state it’s not volatile like iodine-containing complexes.
It also fulfills our emerging criteria:
Safe (in comparison to vanadium or lead-based aqueous systems)
Accessible (low-cost and available to amateur chemists)
Compatible with porous separators (no requirement for ion-exchange membrane)
This figure is from Roth et al. [1]
Purchased:
ABS filament for all-copper flow frame testing
Materials for continued polypropylene FDM printing (adhesives, tape, etc.)
References
Citation
@online{smith2025,
author = {Smith, Kirk Pollard},
title = {Lab {Notebook} {Entry} \#1},
date = {2025-05-15},
url = {https://dualpower.supply/posts/lab-notebook-1/},
langid = {en}
}