Project Update 3: The HamamaLlamas don't like salt



Llamas and salt don't mix well

We made a more advanced battery. This battery, if it works properly, should generate electricity while desalinating water. However, we having trouble, as the current battery generates a very small amount of electricity, and actually increased the amount of salt in the water due to a faulty design of the  membranes in the battery. We were disappointed. If you couldn't tell already, salt is giving the  HamamaLlamas some problems.

This battery is based off of: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258040530. 

Left chamber: muck with anaerobic bacteria (anode) ; middle chamber: salt water; right chamber: spirulina (cathode)
To make the battery, we used the same material for the agar membrane as we did in Project Update 2, and the same material for the anode, and we also added the carbon cloth plus metal wire for the cathode as well.
The hardest part was definitely making the membranes- after that we just poured in Spirulina and muck. To make the membranes we cut posterboard and wrapped it with foil and tape, and taped this to form a mold for the agar membrane. We sealed this with vaseline. This took many tries because the
This battery only currently generates about 0.153 volts, but this will hopefully increase in the next few days! Also in the next few days it should have desalinated the water in the middle of the chamber!

Update from Day 2 of the battery shown above:
We don't like salt! This battery is supposed to desalinate water, but what happened on Day 2? The amount of salt in the water increased (and it increased in the algae chamber too by approximately the same amount). Yikes. The only explanation was that the salt from the agar membrane (the membranes are made of a mixture of agar, salt, and water) diffused into the liquid in the chambers. The voltage also was around .132 V today, which, still, is a lot less than we would like. We hope to power an LED with the battery.
Looks like we need to re make the membranes without salt!

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