Cleaning Pennies - Electrolysis

sends2aaron on Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:04 pm

I thought that this turned out pretty well, so I wanted to share with you guys.

This is the result of my experiment in cleaning a dirty, encrusted penny using electrolysis.

To do this I took a standard household adapter (120V AC In / 12VDC 500mA Out) and clipped off about 6 inches of the cord. I then pulled apart the positive and negative wires, stripped each end, then screwed each wire to a small alligator clip. The positive side is connected to a stainless steel spoon, the negative to the penny, and then both were placed in a solution of water and baking soda (baking soda used as an electrolyte). I applied current to the submerged penny for two five-minute periods, rubbing it between my fingers with baking soda after each submersion.

This is the end result, after rinsing with tap water.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Matt_How on Mon Dec 19, 2011 11:01 pm

Wow that really works now do it with a zinc penny (lousy penguin killers)

Cleaning Pennies - Electrolysis

Cleaning Pennies - Electrolysis

Re: Cleaning Pennies - Electrolysis