Surface Area

If I crumple and unfold a piece of foil, am I increasing it's surface area? Since it's malleable, if I step on it with golf spikes, without completely piercing it, will it gain surface area?

 

Thank you very much. Why do they not use this method with ceramic or film capacitors?

 

Well I mean the conductors, not the dielectrics. Film capacitors are metalized so that might be hard to do. But ceramics have solid electrodes I believe. Why don't they increase their surface area?

 

To increase the capacitance of my homemade caps. A lot of the things I'm doing needs very specific specs that I don't find available. Also, I enjoy making them.

 

No, I'm looking at overlapping plate surface area.

Is it no manipulable? If that's the case, why all the fuss over high surface area materials? Why do they etch the aluminium in electrolytic capacitors?

 

I'm using foil and glycerol right now. I tried activated carbon but I've just made a messy method of powder coating things black.

 

I see. Let me clarify, high surface area electrodes in capacitors have no impact on the capacitance if all other things are equal?

 

Im more interested in very small imperfections. For example, if I etch my foil with hcl, will this increase the capacitance?

 

I have carbon aerogel composite papers and I'll be using a liquid dielectric, glycerol. If I am able to prevent shorting, do you thing the increased surface area of the electrodes would outperform the same setup with aluminium foil?

 

I've been thinking and thinking and drawing diagrams, and have a few points I'd like to address.

1. Roughing the surface of an electrode reduces mutual repulsion between charges stored on it's surface; when you look at it in the perspective of a newton's cradle.


2. Increasing the surface area of an electrode 100 times through etching is possible. Even if you used the furthest distance between the two plates as your dielectric thickness, the distance won't increase proportionally to the surface area.

3. If sharp points < flat surfaces < round objects: in terms of charge storage. Is it because the electric field lines are most scattered in a round object? Porous materials will have more directions the field lines can propagate in; but, will it manifest in less strain for the same amount of charge?

I have an experiment I'm planning to do when the materials come in. I'm going to use foil tape and glycerol, wound into a capacitor. Then, I'll make another with the same amounts of tape. I'm going to etch the electrodes of the second capacitor with either white vinegar or low strength hcl. They will be wound on spoils to limit the glycerol from leaking. I might also submerge them in glycerol. After measuring their diameter; and noting the amount of glycerol used, I'll test their capacitance.

Does anyone see any shortcomings with this experiment or have any parameters I should add? I'll only be able to do this once this pay period.