Salt-Powered Lamp: 8 Hours of Light from 1 Glass of Saltwater

Other Types of Lights LED Lanterns
1

EXCERPT: “Aiming to bring low-cost illumination to residents of the Philippines, a nation of 7,000 oceanic islands, the Salt Lamp uses a free and abundant resource to reduce fire risk from candles and replace the cost of traditional lighting.

Developed by engineer Lipa Aisa Mijena of De La Salle University, the Salt Lamp requires a single glass of water with two tablespoons of salt to provide a night’s worth of a light (complimenting approaches like Liters of Light that work in dark spaces during the day), but, best of all, it can run off the naturally salty water of the surrounding ocean.”

2

Very interesting.

In combination with this following, they're good for day and night

3

From my understanding they are merely using salt as the electrolyte, and it is actually a zinc iron battery, of which the electrodes need replacing

4

Something like this?

Though this is not new tech, if they can make it as cheap as possible, this could be a new alternative to

Lead acid batteries. I wonder though if performance changes over times as the plates are used up. And is the used up device safe to dispose?

5

So basically, what you have is:

6

Everything Old Is New Again. That’s a redneck implementation of the old Deck Prism used on sailing ships to let light into the holds of the ships. A good friend had some & when he died we were working on putting them inverted in nice boxes with LEDs inside, to make Night Lights…

As to the original idea, what better place is there for a Joule Thief

This is just the sort of thing I came here for!

Dim

7

That “deck prism” is the most interesting factoid that I have learned in a very long time, for all of my reading and love of history, I don’t recall ever hearing of it before, that is an excellent little Wikipedia link for it.

They even used it as a fire monitor. “Aboard colliers (coal ships), prisms were also used to keep check on the cargo hold: light from a fire would be collected by the prism and be made visible on the deck even in daylight.”

8

Would be interesting how much energy one of these galvanic cells can provide…from my experience it is very small.

I experimented a lot of with them when I was younger. I had a potato clock like maggyver which always began to rot… I had made a battery with bulletcases which are made from brass and a zinc nail(used commonly on roofs). A lot of them in series and parralel but my final result was a funny but low power and capacity battery.

I also have seen a potato clock diy kit from China for just a few dollars last month so if anyone has a child this might be a fun to play educational gadget: http://www.banggood.com/Potato-Clock-Material-Supply-Digital-Clock-p-921168.html

9

LED lantern runs on saltwater

10

Galvanic cells are very old school tech (more than 100-200 years ago).

The technology itself is not a breakthrough. It all comes

Down to rated capacity, plate life and price.

11

What is believed to be ‘Leyden jars’ have been discovered from antiquity, and in a couple of places oral and/or written history says they were used to make light without fire. IIRC this info is from the book “We were not the first” by Andrew Tomas.

Only the LED part is new with here, but it is a good concept for places where the people can do no better.

Phil

12

I can’t find really useful info about galvanic cells, just the basic schools stuff:(
I would really like to know how to buil a really nice potato driven whatever.
I also couldn’t find useful info about why my potato rotted when I was a child and if there is a way to prohibit that.
I also can’t find the episode of macgyver where he shows the clock to Pete, if I am right his potato had roots and where stored in a glass of water…

I tried my above mentioned cell and it still works just added a bit of lemonjuice and I get around 6V open circuit and 2V under small load, maybe 2mA or so.
I also didn’t find useful data about what electrolyte is the best.

I also found that aluminium would work way better than zink but the oxidation layer seems to be a problem…

All in all after having this technique so long I was sure that everything is researched well and written down clearly, but I caouldnt find it.
So if anyone has useful data I would be glad to see a link.