Re: electrolysis

On 4/30/06 9:57 PM, in article
1146459420.719773.162320@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
"tommynospam@xxxxxxxxx" <tommynospam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


I've read numerous posts on the subject of spliting water in to
hydrogen and oxygen but have not read a concise post that explains the
best way to do it.

Basically, I want to split water in to hydrogen and oxygen. Simple
enough. I've heard of numerous electrolytes to use from salt to
potassium hydroxide to baking soda. I just want hydrogen and oxygen as
the result from cathode/anode leads.

We've already tried this with tap water and salt and a very nasty
yellow and green substance formed. I was told that the green was
chlorine from the salt but the bubbles that formed on the anode was, in
fact, chloride instead of oxygen because of the salt.

Please help!

The "classical" electrolyte used for this purpose is sulfuric acid. As
someone else has pointed out, carbon electrodes are relatively inert.

In any event, electrolysis is not a cost or energy effective way of getting
hydrogen and nitrogen. Commercially, fossil fuel in the form of natural gas
is often used to obtain hydrogen.

If you want to go high tech and possibly may a true breakthrough, think in
terms of PHOTOLYSIS. This has to be a multistage operation because few
photons from the sun have enough energy to split two water molecules into
2H2 and O2. Photosynthesis has a similar problem although plants have
evolved the intermediate steps to do so.

Bill
-- Ferme le Bush


.

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