Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!att!ihlpf!rvs
From: rvs@ihlpf.ATT.COM (VonSchwedler)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Caution: electolysis of water
Message-ID: <7026@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Date: 21 Dec 88 19:04:52 GMT
References: <2479@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <849@inuxm.UUCP> <7395@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <1988Dec20.204917.21249@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: rvs@ihlpf.UUCP (55229-VonSchwedler,R.)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 36

In article <1988Dec20.204917.21249@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>My own experience as a kid, deliberately trying for chlorine, is that it's
>virtually impossible to get any noticeable quantity.  Maybe I didn't hit

The one that will more likely be produced (between Clorine and
Oxygen), is the one that is more easily reduced.  That happens to be
oxygen.
I am not completely sure about this, but let me just blab.  When the
circuit is completed, the electrons from the battery try to get over
to the positive terminal from the negative terminal (through the
solution).   When they travel through the wire, they sorta stand
around in the solution on the Anode.  With all these electrons
standing around, the Hydrogen atoms (being positively charged) see
this as a very nice place to go.  They will even leave their oxygen
partners to go check it out.  Once they get there, they take an
electron off of the anode and are free (there is no reason to hang
around with the oxygen atoms because they no longer need to barrow
their electrons).  At the other end, the oxygen atoms (still in
water molecules) are near the positive terminal (the Cathode) which
is positive.  The oxygen atoms see this as a nice place to be and
even leave their partners.  When they come into contact with the
cathode, the electrons they have that are holding the hydrogen atoms
to them are striped away, which frees the hydrogen atoms, and the
oxygen atoms are now free to come out of solution.  As someone has
mentioned, twice as much hydrogen is produced at the anode then
oxygen is produced at the cathode, but the current remains
constant.  Two electrons for every H20 molecule.  I believe that it
takes two culombs of current for one mole of water.

This is the philosophy behind this, but I may have a few things
reversed.  Also, you have to figure out what the electron potential
of hydrogen and oxygen is because it may (I doubt it) require more
than six volts.

RvS