✨ Battery Maintenance Instructions
Sept. 1.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 2173
81
of potash should be added; if the colour remains orange, and yet the battery fails, some fresh sulphuric acid must be added. At the same time half of the solution in the porous pot should be replaced with water: The colour of the bichromate-solution can be ascertained by dipping a strip of white paper into it, but the better plan is to insert an open glass tube to a depth of an inch or two, and then to stop up the end with the forefinger. The tube can then be withdrawn for examination. The zinc should remain bright and clear with mercury, and uncoated with any deposit. It should always be covered with the solution.
If the battery does little work it will last three or four months without being touched, but if it be worked constantly it must be examined about once a month.
If the solution becomes blue, notwithstanding the presence of a sufficiency of bichromate of potash, and the zinc becomes dirty and coated with deposit, the battery must be entirely cleaned. In doing this great care should be taken not to waste the mercury either in the pot or on the zinc. The best plan is to insert the pot and its zinc undisturbed in an open jar, and place them under a water-tap. The whole of the solution in the pot, together with the deposit, will then be washed away, but the mercury will remain behind. The carbon and the outer jar simply need washing in water. The battery can then be charged as before. Crystals that remain in the cells unchanged in colour can be used again, but all others must be rejected. The zinc can be used as long as any portion remains. In a good working battery the zinc should be consumed gradually from the top downwards. If it is not so consumed it will probably be found that insufficient mercury and imperfect amalgamation are the cause, and this should be set right without delay.
BICHROMATE LOCALS.
375. After a lengthened test of the capabilities of the bichromate battery as a local, it has been found that one bichromate cell carefully attended to is equal to all the requirements of a ten-cell Daniell local. Care must be taken, however, to set it up as follows, viz: 3 oz. of bichromate of potash in a solution of sulphuric acid and water, one of acid in twelve of water in the outer cell, and in the porous cell plain water and 2 oz. of quicksilver. For further information see foregoing instructions relating to management of bichromate batteries. Draw off at the end of each week out of the outer cell half a
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NZ Gazette 1905, No 80
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Description of Bichromate Battery Construction
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🏗️ Infrastructure & Public WorksBichromate battery, porous pot, zinc plate, carbon plate, sulphuric acid, bichromate of potash, mercury, chrome-alum, battery maintenance, electrical cells