Can someone try this with NiMH or NiCd batteries.  I think you may find it does not charge if I'm right about the alkaline recovery effect.  Start with a NiMH that has been sitting a day or two.  If it goes up in voltage from this circuit then you may have something but with alkalines it does not say a lot.   

I want to start with an apology.  I don't have time to read the pages of this thread I would need to, in order to catch up on where everyone is at with this subject.  I just want to share what I was looking at, where my intuition led me, just so I've thrown it out there, so to speak, on the off chance that this content is somehow useful to someone.

I had a notion that the two terminals of the capacitor, in conjunction with the case, were forming a series capacitance, and that what might be happening is we're tapping off of the midpoint of this series.

Others have said that it works with some capacitors and not others.  From my own testing, I found I couldnt get it to work from polarized electrolytic capacitors, but it the effect is present on non-polar electrolytic capacitors.  This, for me at least, added weight to my suspicion.

I then began hooking up various polarized electrolytic capacitors in series with reversed polarities for non-polar behavior and began tapping off of the junction between them.  I have seen similar (maybe identical, too pressed for time right now to be sure) behavior in this configuration.  It appears that if you draw power off of this junction, you will end up biasing the voltage distribution between the two capacitors, slowly.  When you remove the load, the slowly return to their original configuration (which draws current from the battery, I had several ammeters hooked up in various locations to measure the flow).

In a capacitor, is it the case that charge can slowly leak through the dielectric to balance charge?  If so, is it possible that this is all that is happening?  It seems like by tapping off of this midpoint you can draw current at the voltage rating present at the time, but the current draw is limited due to the behavior of the capacitors.  Which I think is interesting, because if you were to say limit the current using a resistor, you'd be dropping a significant portion of the voltage across the resistor instead of the load, whereas in this case you can apply the full voltage (apparently) but the current is limited.

Busy with my job right now, I need to make videos as soon as my schedule clears up a bit.  Thank you, please dont murder me for throwing sloppy research out there!   Gotta run!

Cant stop thinking about this.

This guy has some interesting ideas about dialelectric absorption with regard to the self-charging capacitor:

http://toptinkers.com/node/41

And references quantum tunneling as a possible explanation (and 2nd law violation), pointing to this article:

http://execonn.com/maxwell/maxwells_demon.html

Fausto,

I did measure a brand new unused capacitor and the new one had - on the can
measured against the two shorted wires. My bigger capacitors are all used or
guttered from old PC power supplies and those has + on the can measured against
the - wire.

Best result for the self charging effect is to short both capacitor wires together
and then measure between wires and can. I think I did over hundred of shorts
but the capacitor still climbed back to a small voltage. So the effect IS there.
I will let my NiCad test run over night and measure the voltage tomorrow.

Alex.

Here is a good tutorial on EC:
 
http://electrochem.cwru.edu/encycl/art-c04-electr-cap.htm
 
In particular, pay close attention to the Package Section. I will quote it here for you again:
 
"...The can into which the capacitor section is placed is made of 1100-alloy aluminum, which is of around 99% purity. For 25 to 50 mm (one-inch to two-inch)-diameter capacitors, the wall thickness is 0.022 inches. A butyl rubber gasket is placed on top of the header before the spinning operation, in which the case opening is folded over and pressed into the gasket, forming an effective seal of the system. The package is at the same potential as the electrolyte and cathode during capacitor operation, so when electrolytic capacitors are connected in series, care must be taken to insulate the cases from one another. Although the aluminum electrolytic capacitor case is at the cathode potential, it may not be used for the negative electrical connection because of high electrolyte resistivity and the long effective path from the cathode to the can. If the electrolyte were of much lower resistivity, eliminating the cathode and using the can instead might be a possibility. A safety vent is provided in capacitors so that the capacitor may relieve excessive pressure buildup in a controlled manner. This occurrence is known as venting, and is considered a failure mode. The vent may be installed as a rubber plug in the header or as a die-set slit impression in the can wall. The pressure at which the capacitor vents is predictable, and is usually designed to occur at about seven atmosphere pressure or even higher. The allowable pressure tends to be higher for small capacitors. After a capacitor vents, the electrolyte may evaporate out until the capacitance diminishes. "
 
After reading this you will quickly realize that the captret and its supposedly effects are complete misunderstandings on the part of non-linear thinkers.
 
I have a few high quality and mil qualified caps available for cheap. Those who are intersted, let me know. First come, first serve.
 
Miki Out.

This is all fine and dandy but it still doesn't explain the self charging that i and many others are seeing.

I take it this "Captret" idea is not simply the concept of
connecting a capacitor to an electret via a diode to collect
the charge?

After all, that is a very old concept which has been proven long ago.
Townsend T Brown already showed that in his extensive studies back
in the 1950s, with what he called his "Petrovoltaic cell"/"Gravity detector",
which was basically a composite electret. The charge was collected
on a capacitor via a diode, and he even found that the amount of charge
collected varied over time and could be related directly to gravitational
changes, and so used to detect gravity fluctuations.
So that's the static output of his "Captret" setup that varied with gravity.

How the above setup of a chemical battery with a diode and capacitor
compares to an actual electret is not clear to me. Why use a battery if
the idea is to use an electret?

@All,

Nicad = 7,60 and still climbing.

Alex.

do you have a diagram of your set up?