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Re: Electolysis of water

I suspect leakage from the line (117 V) did it. I check 9 V batts. using my tongue,
a shock, but not hellava.


I see it didn't put you off Physics!

bc


Mark Sylvester wrote:

I tried it too, at age about 14. I got a hellava shock from my 12V trainset
transformer, handling carbon rod electrodes in saline solution!

Mark

At 22:25 19/11/02 -0800, you wrote:
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.

Mark Sylvester
UWCAd
Duino Trieste Italy

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.