Electrolysis Continued

Please read earlier safety warnings before attempting this.

It has now been 6.5 hours total running time with the current on. However, I've had a busy week and the skillet has spent plenty of time sitting in the water with nothing happening. I think the rust sediments settled on it because it looks a bit browner than before.

The wire mesh I was using as an anode has disintegrated and is now useless. No more current through that. I have replaced it with a stainless steel kitchen rack thing from IKEA. The new rack does not reach as deep down into the skillet, so I am concerned that I am going to get most current flowing through the rim and not as much cleaning down at the bottom.

However, the rack looks much nicer and so far is flowing better current. 15 minutes in, it was still at the 10A max of my charger. I tried flipping it over to the 50A start position and it popped the fuse (which reset after a few seconds). I think I might have a better connection to the rack than to the mesh.

I am supporting the rack with two bits of plastic from broken IKEA lamps and also the cut up strawberry crate. The teacup is to make sure it doesn't fall over and contact the rim. Picture taken soon after turning the thing on. The water got full of froth fast.

I haven't bothered to change the water at all, but I did add more so that the bars in this rack would be submerged.


SAFETY NOTE: Bubbles remain on the surface of the water after turning the set up off. It is still potentially flammable as long as you can see bubbles!
If you must try to light them, and I recommend that you do not, please tape your lighter to a stick and use eye protection.

~45 minutes later and the current is still up to 10A. Actually, I happened to notice that the charger wasn't charging, but it popped back to 10A before I could do anything about it. I guess the charger's fuse popped and reset. I turned it off and checked for shorts, but there were none. The lesson is: a sturdy stainless steel rod or thick gauge wire is much better than some flimsy mesh of thinner wire.

So, the setup with the rack in the water had no trouble keeping the current up, but I don't think it was doing much for the flat cooking surface, which is most important. I decided to run it for three hours on the underside of the pan because it ought to work well there, and then I changed setup so that the rack is out of the water and I have some street sweeper bristles hanging from it so that my anodes are closer to the surface I want to clean. Current is very low, around the bottom of the gauge, but a little bit in the right place is better than a lot in the wrong place I think. The rim was the only part that seemed to be benefitting from the setup with the rack near the top of the pan, and it's clean enough.

Remember, electricity follows the path of least resistance. In a uniform medium like the water, that's the shortest path.