Re: Electolysis of water

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

Ludwik!

You tried this?  I did when I was a kid.  I wanted to "make" sodium, and got instead
sodium hydroxide and chlorine.  Soon after I asked a chemist (I lived in a university
town) and learned I needed to electrolytically decompose fused salt.  Fortunately I
didn't try it.

bc

p.s. seems to me if one uses an electrolyte that has a high conductivity there will
be little Joule heating.

Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> I have a question. Consider an electrolytic cell with ideal
> electrodes (Pt, to simplify chemistry) in a weak solution of
> a salt in water. The current is flowing through it and two
> gases (H2 and O2) are bubbling.
>
> Part of the supplied electric energy is thermalized (becomes
> heat) while the rest is used to do work (to break H2O
> molecules). Thus electric energy goes in while heat and
> bubbles are coming out at some constant temperature. I
> suspect that the second law can be used to determine the
> ideal possible efficiency (defined as work over electric
> energy). But I have no idea how to do this. What is the
> best possible efficiency at, say, 60 degrees C?
> Ludwik Kowalski
>
> This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.