[matrixscarface]

Can electrolysis of water be acheived with ac current??

[infamous]

matrixscarface said:

Can electrolysis of water be acheived with ac current??

As a matter of precaution, I wouldn't suggest trying to use household current directly for this purpose. I've experimented with electrolysis many times and have always used DC current as my source of power. This can be done either by using batteries or DC generators of one type or another. I've found that prodigious amounts of Hydrogen and Oxygen can be liberated from water by using a DC generator driven by a common 110 volt single phase motor. One note; Adding small amounts of an electrolyte such as salt or soda to the water will increase production in this process...............Infy

[Jay-qu]

No

[arkain101]

I wondered this myself.

But I can see that trying to seperate oxygen and hydrogen bonds with AC would be sort of like trying to shovel dirt out of a hole by chucking it agains the walls in different directions.

Since electroysis is the process of removing electrons from materials and adding it to others. You can see where alternating electrons side to side is going to create issues.

However, maybe it is possible.. I just gathered it would not work. I'd like to know if any experiments with super high ocilations has been tried with electrolysis. 1million cycles per second type of AC instead of 60 cycles/sec

[Jay-qu]

arkain101 said:

I wondered this myself.

But I can see that trying to seperate oxygen and hydrogen bonds with AC would be sort of like trying to shovel dirt out of a hole by chucking it agains the walls in different directions.

Since electroysis is the process of removing electrons from materials and adding it to others. You can see where alternating electrons side to side is going to create issues.

However, maybe it is possible.. I just gathered it would not work. I'd like to know if any experiments with super high ocilations has been tried with electrolysis. 1million cycles per second type of AC instead of 60 cycles/sec

Following the same chain of logic you used earlier in your post I would say that a high frequency would lead to even less chance of doing anything - an ultra low frequency may do something...

[arkain101]

yah thats what I was thinking to but didnt bother to mention it for its obviousness.

Sometimes you find things you dont expect when you add alot of energy. lol, id do it for fun I think something would happen as you intensified the frequency.

[Jay-qu]

higher frequency doesnt mean more energy..

[arkain101]

I dont think I said that, but thanks for the input

I was joking around, that sometimes weird things happen when you go big...
har har

[Avarice]

Hi guys. Last night, I experimented with AC current in salt water.

I used a straight plug in, no adapter.. just stripped the wires and put them in the solution.. so I was putting the full current from the socket into the salt water solution. It was very interesting. I am no chemistry expert at all, but this is what happened:

One of the wires sparked violently in the solution, and in mere SECONDS the solution changed from clear to dark, murky green. I didnt experiment for long, because the plug that I was inserting into the AC socket was actually MELTING, and at one point I had trouble pulling it out of the socket because it had melted in there.. extremely dangerous situation, I don't suggest you try it unless you have some kind of adapter that reduces the ammount of power going into the solution.

I'm perplexxed, why did the solution become green? I don't know alot about chemistry, but if salt is NaCl, and Chlorine is a greenish color, I suspect that is what was in the solution after putting AC through it but I don't know.

Please, any input is greatly appreciated.

[Turtle]

Avarice said:

I'm perplexxed, why did the solution become green?
I don't know alot...
Please, any input is greatly appreciated.

___The green is likely copper.
___Ya got that right.
___You might have burned the building down & killed yourself or others! Think man! Get ahold of a model train transformer; it usually has 17 VAC & a variable DC voltage with reversable polarity.

[Jay-qu]

Avarice said:

I'm perplexxed, why did the solution become green? I don't know alot about chemistry, but if salt is NaCl, and Chlorine is a greenish color, I suspect that is what was in the solution after putting AC through it but I don't know.

That is a fairly logical deduction - but I still doubt it. For Chlorine to be green it has to be in gaseous form, wich means from its Cl- it has to give up the extra electon. Chlorine is a very (one of the highest) electonegative element so when you are doing standard electrolisis the one losing electrons will be the oxidant with the smallest e^0 value that is present in the solution. And as it so happens that H2O is present and is more readily oxidised than Cl- it will be the one losing the electrons. BUT if you have an very high concentration of NaCl then some electrolysis of Cl- can occur and you should have had bubbles not a green solution...
I was thinking that if you put wires in the solution then they are copper wires so when copper oxidises it becomes green.

[infamous]

Jay-qu said:

I was thinking that if you put wires in the solution then they are copper wires so when copper oxidises it becomes green.

Absolutely; resulting in a copper cloride, sodium hydroxide solution.................Infy

[arkain101]

HAHAHHAHA,

leave it to someone to stick a bunch of bare wires in salty water and give it a go. Oh man, kind of funny even though it was a really bad idea. Did you at least wear some eye protection? jk

[shawn.baker]

Jay-qu said:

No

What about 3 phase AC? Since that is supposed to produce a more constant voltage potential, wouldn't that be closer to a steady dc?

[ronthepon]

If you want electrolysis of the real kind, you need to move electrons constantly from one radical to another.

As long as you achieve that, you achieve electrolysis.