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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?