Dry cell plate arrangement question

[ag2ward]

How does one determine the order and quantity in which you arrange your postive, negative and neutral plates? What is the science behind this arrangement?

I am going to tack-weld a contact bar to every postive plate, and another to every negative plate, so I want to get this right the first time.

My SS plates are 3x3.125 and 1/8 inch thick. I have the flexibility of building a dry cell with up to 80 plates. Or, I could build two cells of 40 plates each. I was going to simply alter negative and positive until I started reading about people using neutral plates. Are neutral plates really needed?

I have heard of people adding neutral plates to reduce heat, but heat is caused by amps, right? Why not dial down the amperage and increase the voltage?

I await your replies with an open and humble mind.
TIA
AG2

[koya1893]

My question to you is: Have you done a search for cell configuration? What are you going to use the cell for? How many lpm you planned on making?

[BioFarmer93]

Hey Ag,
Welcome to the forum. From the size & thickness of the plates you have I'll assume you came by them for free, good score but kinda heavy. No prob though.

Electrolyzers that use neutral plates are called "Tero Ranta" style, bi-polar, or "regular" e-lyzers. They're only called "regular" or "normal" because they have been popularized by internet age builders. The other style you spoke of in which every plate is either pos or neg, is called a "unipolar" style, "Biofarmer" style or the "Gustav Configuration", it's bigger, a little more complex and more efficient.
In the Tero Ranta style, the "neutral" plates are kind of a misnomer because they are pos on one side and neg on the other. In a unipolar e-lyzer, all the plates of one polarity are electro-mechanically connected to each other in each group of cells. By the way, a "cell" is a pos plate (or plate face in a bi-polar style e-lyzer) a neg plate (or plate face) and the electrolyte in between.

Since this forum is 99.995% devoted to the Tero Ranta style electrolyzers or "reactors" I won't address anything else about them in this post, as it has all been answered before, is all here, and all you have to do is READ.
Nothing at all personal intended, but we mentors have sort of come to the consensus that we shall no longer spoon feed the noobs. If, however, you have questions specific to the unipolar or "Biofarmer" style reactor, I will be glad to help you as far as I can, or direct you to someone smarter than myself.
I've attached a couple of drawings that will (hopefully) clarify the explanation of the unipolar connection method. -Gustav

[ag2ward]

Hey Ag,
Welcome to the forum. From the size & thickness of the plates you have I'll assume you came by them for free, good score but kinda heavy. No prob though.

Electrolyzers that use neutral plates are called "Tero Ranta" style, bi-polar, or "regular" e-lyzers. They're only called "regular" or "normal" because they have been popularized by internet age builders. The other style you spoke of in which every plate is either pos or neg, is called a "unipolar" style, "Biofarmer" style or the "Gustav Configuration", it's bigger, a little more complex and more efficient.
In the Tero Ranta style, the "neutral" plates are kind of a misnomer because they are pos on one side and neg on the other. In a unipolar e-lyzer, all the plates of one polarity are electro-mechanically connected to each other in each group of cells. By the way, a "cell" is a pos plate (or plate face in a bi-polar style e-lyzer) a neg plate (or plate face) and the electrolyte in between.

Since this forum is 99.995% devoted to the Tero Ranta style electrolyzers or "reactors" I won't address anything else about them in this post, as it has all been answered before, is all here, and all you have to do is READ.
Nothing at all personal intended, but we mentors have sort of come to the consensus that we shall no longer spoon feed the noobs. If, however, you have questions specific to the unipolar or "Biofarmer" style reactor, I will be glad to help you as far as I can, or direct you to someone smarter than myself.
I've attached a couple of drawings that will (hopefully) clarify the explanation of the unipolar connection method. -Gustav

Bio,

Thank you for taking the time to reply.
The plates I came across were almost free. It's scrap leftovers from a local manufacturing facility that makes large food-grade equipment. Generally, the containers are so large, they go out on 18-wheelers or super-large flatbeds. For about $10 US dollars, I can walk out with my arms full. Then I drive about 10 minutes to a local machine shop and hand the guy $20 to cut them up to my specs on the sheers. Takes him about 5 minutes. :)

Thank you for introducing me to the names of various styles and clarifiying the specific terminology of a cell vs an electrolyzer.

My intent is to learn and share as I go. I do not look for shortcuts, but rather humbly ask questions. For example, I have ordered a PWM (MicroStar WFC-030) kit, unassembled. I will assemble it myself for the learning experience. If anyone has any experience with this particular PWM, feel free to share with me.

When I was a child, my dad built a vaporizer to augment the carburetor on his 1963 Toyota Corona. He achieved about 95 miles per gallon. Years later, we built a small wind generator to provide DC backup lighting in our farmhouse during stormes. We also built a solar panel to provide radiant floor heating to the only bathroom in the house.

I've been devouring as much information as possible over the last 9 months or so in my limited spare time. I appreciate all the info you all have shared.