Essay on Electrolysis of Water Text

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Below is an essay on electrolysis from anti essays, your source for research papers, essays, and term paper examples. The reaction that occurs is: this process is one way of shifting society toward using hydrogen as an energy carrier for powering internal combustion engines. Electrolysis of water can be achieved in a simple hands on project, when electricity from a low voltage dc power supply e.g. Electrolyte is a dilute mixture of minerals and water used to enhance the flow of electricity. Seawater is an ideal electrolyte but adequate substitutes are mineral water, spring water or even regular tap water. The nvi hydrogen generator utilizes the electrolysis process, with certain patent applied for modifications built in, to improve its efficency, durability and ease of operation.

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Gases are captured by the generator, mixed with a filtered air flow, then directed to a vehicle's fuel intake system where they are combined with the vehicle's ordinary fuel/air mixture. The result is enhanced combustion, improved mileage and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The reduction in emissions is caused when non polluting hydrogen adds combustion energy, replacing some of the ordinary fuel needed to power the vehicle. Electrolysis works when an electric current is applied, through an electrolytic solution, between a cathode negative pole and an anode positive pole. During electrolysis, hydrogen gas will be seen to bubble up at the cathode, and oxygen will bubble at the anode. The two gases combined in a free state, constitute what is called brown's gas see note below if, however, the wrong metal is utilized for the anode, oxygen will react with the anode instead of being released as a gas.

For example, using iron electrodes in an electrolyte solution, will produce iron oxide at the anode, which will react to form iron hydroxide. To find the effect of time on copper deposition on the cathode during the electrolysis of copper sulphate solution. I am going to test the aim in this test by setting up a beaker with two carbon rods in it. The beaker will be half filled up with copper sulphate which is a blue liquid and will act as a electrolyte.

To save time and effort i will used a power supply instead of using some batteries. I will then turn the power on and wait and see if the cathode has gained any weight by picking up pure carbon from the impure carbon on the anode. Length of time i leave the power on i have chosen to change the length of time i will leave the power on because it will be a safe easy way to get a fair test and will not involve me having to change the wires to suite the power. I predict that the longer you leave the anode and cathode in the copper sulphate with the electricity flowing through them the more molecules of copper would of transferred from the anode to the cathode because of the more time there was for the electrolysis to take place. You get a pure metal building up on the cathode because it is negatively charged and all non metals are negatively charged so they repel. The cathode has pure metal building up on it because the positive metal is attracted to the negative cathode. All this relies on the positive and negative charges either repelling or attracting each other.

length: 2157 words 6.2 double spaced pages in chemistry, the production of chemical changes by passing an electric current through a solution or molten salt the electrolyte , resulting in the migration of ions to the electrodes: positive ions cations to the negative electrode cathode and negative ions anions to the positive electrode anode. The resultant atoms may be liberated as a gas, or deposited as a solid on the electrode, in amounts that are proportional to the amount of current passed, as discovered by english chemist michael faraday. For instance, when acidified water is electrolysed, hydrogen ions h+ at the cathode receive electrons to form hydrogen gas hydroxide ions oh at the anode give up electrons three laws of electromagnetic induction, and two laws of electrolysis, all proposed originally by english scientist michael faraday: english chemist and physicist. In 1821, he began experimenting with electromagnetism, and discovered the induction of electric currents and made the first dynamo, the first electric motor, and the first transformer. Faraday isolated benzene from gas oils and produced the basic laws of electrolysis in 1834.he also pointed out that the energy of a magnet is in the field around it and not in the magnet itself, extending this basic conception of field theory to electrical and chemistry and the discovery of benzene faraday was mainly interested in chemistry during his early years at the royal institution. He investigated the effects of including precious metals in steel in 1818, producing high quality alloys that later stimulated the production of special high grade steels.

In 1823, faraday produced liquid chlorine by heating crystals of chlorine hydrate in an inverted u tube, one limb of which was heated and the other placed in a freezing mixture. After the production of liquid carbon dioxide in 1835, he used this coolant to liquefy other gases. In the same year, faraday isolated benzene from gas oils and demonstrated the use of platinum as a catalyst. He also demonstrated the importance in chemical reactions of surfaces and inhibitors, foreshadowing a huge area of the modern chemical industry. Faraday's laws of electrolysis established the link between electricity and chemical affinity, one of the most fundamental concepts in science.

Electrolysis is the production of chemical changes by passing an electric current through a solution. It was faraday who coined the terms anode, cathode, cation, anion, electrode, and electrolyte. He postulated that, during the electrolysis of an aqueous electrolyte, positively charged cations move towards the negatively charged cathode and negatively charged anions migrate to the positively charged anode. Faraday conceived that circular lines of magnetic force reproduced around the wire to explain the orientation of oersted's compass needle. Faraday's conviction that an electric current gives rise to lines of magnetic force arose from his idea that electricity was a form of vibration and not a moving fluid. He believed that electricity was a state of varying strain in the molecules of the wire conductor, and that this gave rise to a similar strain in the medium surrounding the conductor. It was reasonable to consider therefore that the transmitted strain might set up a similar strain in the molecules of another nearby conductor.

Faraday set about devising an apparatus that would demonstrate the conversion of electrical energy into motive force. Above the vessels and connected to each other were suspended a magnet and a wire, which were free to move and dipped just below the surface of the mercury. When the current was switched on, it flowed the experiment demonstrated the basic principles governing the electric motor. Although the practical motors that subsequently developed had a very different form to faraday's apparatus, he is usually credited with the invention of the electric motor. Electromagnetic induction and the transformer faraday hunted for the electromagnetic induction from 1824 onwards, expecting to find that a magnetic field would induce a steady electric current in a conductor. He wound two coils around an iron bar and connected one to a battery and the other to a galvanometer an instrument for detecting small electric currents by their magnetic effect. Nothing happened when the current flowed through the first coil, but faraday noticed that the galvanometer responded whenever the current was switched on or off.

If the lines of force were cut that is, if the magnetic field changed then an electric current would be induced in a conductor placed within the magnetic field. The iron bar helped to concentrate the magnetic field, as faraday later came to understand, and a current was induced in the second coil by the magnetic field momentarily set up as current entered or left the first coil. With this device, faraday had discovered the transformer, a modern transformer being no different in essence even though the alternating current required had not then been faraday is thus also credited with the simultaneous discovery of electromagnetic induction, although joseph henry had made the same discovery in the same way in 1830. However, busy teaching, henry had not been able to publish his findings before faraday did, although both men are now credited with the independent discovery of induction. Arago's wheel and the electric generator in 1824, francois arago found that a rotating non magnetic disc, specifically of copper, caused the deflection of a magnetic needle placed above it. This was in fact a demonstration of electromagnetic induction, but nobody at that time could explain `arago's wheel´. Faraday realized that the motion of the copper wheel relative to the magnet in arago's experiment caused an electric current to flow in the disc, which in turn set up a magnetic field and deflected the magnet.

He set about constructing a similar device in which the current produced could be led off, and built the first electric generator in 1831. It consisted of a copper disc that was rotated between the poles of a magnet faraday touched wires to the edge and centre of the disc and connected them to a galvanometer, which registered a steady current. Electrostatic charge in 1832 faraday showed that an electrostatic charge gives rise to the same effects as current electricity.