Justonium

Lol, electrolysis would be even slower than what I've already been doing, and yes, sodium chloride produces a significant amount of chlorine before concentrations of NaOH build up enough to inhibit farther production of it.

Vinegar reacts with magnesium too slow, sorry. The pencil sharpeners just don't have good surface area.

Wow, a lot of people have responded to this one. OK, I think I should mention that I originally tried making some hydrogen with NaOH and aluminum, but the gas had a smell so I didn't consider this method for my demonstrations. (Yes, making the gas is part of the demonstration, which is why I want a faster method.) The hydrogen had a sweet, kind of earthy smell. Could this be the smell of NaOH mist remaining in the gas, or could it be a smell of something used to make the NaOH? All of my NaOH was made by reacting soda ash with calcium hydroxide, which makes calcium carbonate as a byproduct, some of which is still contaminating my NaOH. Does calcium carbonate (chalk) have a smell when it is mixed with water? Another thing: about reacting magnesium with water... I saw a youtube video in which water was poured onto a piece of burning magnesium, and the screen went completely white. You're telling me that this reaction is not blinding? I have looked at gallium on United Nuclear and have decided it is too expensive, so I wont be using it. The sulfuric acid might be a good idea though, as it's boiling point is very high. I still don't want to try it though because, like with sodium hydroxide, the reaction is vigorous and gets hot, and I don't want a mist of sulfuric acid in my gas. I don't want to build an apparatus to bubble my gas through water, as that would involve epoxy and buying plastic tubing. I was hoping somebody would have an idea that is a fast reaction not involving harmful substances, but maybe there just isn't any such reaction (besides expensive gallium) that will work. I may have to just end up building a filtering apparatus and using sulfuric acid/sodium hydroxide. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged What I was saying was: I didn't want to use a method that used harmful chemicals because I was worried that filtering might not remove all of the impurities (and because I didn't want to build a filtering apparatus), and I was looking for a reaction that didn't need to be filtered that was faster. For example, you don't need to filter hydrogen made using sodium carbonate or calcium hydroxide.

I'm not going to try to filter hydrogen made from a process involving harmful chemicals, I don't want to take any chances of leaving any kind of harmful impurities in the gas. I will only use methods of production that leave nothing toxic in the gas. There was another suggestion in one of my other threads to use magnesium and water to make hydrogen, but this process produces a lot of blinding light, and I don't want to risk damaging my eyes. Does anybody know of a good method of eye protection when dealing with bright lights possibly containing high quantities of UV?

OK, for all of the acids, hydrogen forms on the negative electrode. As for the positive electrode, different things can happen depending on how strong the acid is. If the acid is relatively weak, you will get the most stable decomposition of its negative ion. If it is a stronger acid, however, you attract the hydroxide ion from water instead to form water and oxygen gas. You might be thinking "Well what about a concentrated strong acid?" Well, the reason acids dissolved in water conduct electricity is because they dissociate into their ions, but in a concentrated acid, they are not dissociated, so the acid is an insulator. If small amounts of water are present, I would think it possible to get the negative ions of a stronger acid, however, because those acids have such strong affinities for water. They would then most likely be more willing to donate the few sulfate ions created in the dissociation with the water present, but this would be a very slow process because there would be so few ions to carry a current.

NEVER BREATHE A GAS OTHER THAN AIR! IT DEPLETES YOUR LUNGS OF OXYGEN AND IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING, YOU CAN GIVE YOURSELF BRAIN DAMAGE! IN ADDITION TO THIS, HYDROGEN IS HIGHLY FLAMMABLE, AND SHOULD BE HANDLED WITH CARE. OK, that being said, I have been making hydrogen for the purpose of demonstrations showing how it is the lightest gas, in which I inhale some and then talk with a very high voice. I have tried reacting aqueous sodium carbonate with aluminum, and also aqueous calcium hydroxide with aluminum. (Well, actually the aluminum is reacting with water, but it can't happen without these catalysts.) Both of these reactions take several hours to make a sufficient amount of gas, so I was wondering if anybody has a faster method. I don't want to use sodium hydroxide, because, though it is not a gas, I don't want to take any chances, and I dunno, there could be trace amounts of sodium hydroxide vapor in the hydrogen or something. I don't even want to think about hydrochloric acid, that would be a breath of death. So... any ideas? And yes, hydrogen is not any worse for you than helium, and it used to be used by deep divers all the time. You just shouldn't take a puff off a cigarette while you have a lung full of hydrogen. You might not not feel very alive afterward. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedOh, I forgot to mention: Yes I was using boiling water to make the hydrogen, but it still took forever to make any significant amount. So yea, that's already been tried.

You don't understand, the hydrogen is being made for the purpose of powering a fuel cell to make electricity, but I am trying to make the process more efficient by making even more electricity by harnessing the aluminum's strong affinity for the oxygen in the water. I think when I said fuel cell you were thinking of electrolysis, which is the reverse. What I am doing is making a battery that runs on aluminum and water, and makes hydrogen as a waste product, which then goes to a fuel cell to make more electricity. By the way, doing what you said with magnesium and water is very bright, and can cause eye damage. Oh, I've made hydrogen with aluminum before, it sure beats buying helium at the party store! The balloons lose it in a few hours though cuz its soluble in the latex. PS: You don't need to tell me basic stuff like how to find density, or about what coins are made of, I know about basic stuff like that. Not to be ungrateful or anything, I really appreciate that you spent the time to try to help me with my experiments.

The reason I'm using aluminum is because it is very reactive with water when sodium hydroxide is used as a catalyst. It produces hydrogen as a byproduct, which can farther be used in a secondary fuel cell. Some people have been using aluminum and water to make hydrogen to power their cars, and I am looking into this method because it has the potential to produce a lot more electricity than just the hydrogen can. Just for anybody who was wondering why I chose aluminum, which has the horrible tendency to develop an insulating coating of aluminum oxide.

There's a harder substance that is similar to a diamond, but it's formed from graphite being rapidly heated and pressurized, and the only place it forms in nature is on meteors impacting the earth, and very small crystals are formed this way, and with impurities that render them softer than diamond. If a pure crystal could be synthesized, it would be much stronger than a diamond. In addition to this, there's another compound called rhenium diboride that has a hardness very close to that of diamond, and may also be harder.

Do you know where I can get some high surface area carbon that will work for my purpose? Activated carbon will not work because it quickly fills with hydrogen and loses its surface area (not to mention its higher resistivity than graphite). A big flat piece of graphite might work, but the only place I know of to get graphite is from pencils.

I don't have any zinc or copper sulfate, and I definitely don't have any high-surface area platinum. The zinc-carbon battery I was talking about must not be the standard battery referred to by that term, but there is a type of battery in which the electrodes are zinc and graphite, and they are both in sulfuric acid. The hydrogen bubbles form completely on the carbon when the circuit has sufficiently low resistance. Do you know why they use carbon instead of platinum? Do you think my aluminum battery would work like this if I used carbon? By the way, zinc-carbon-sulfuric acid batteries aren't even used any more, they have been replaced by many better types of batteries. You seam to be very active on this site, thanks for replying to my posts.

Wow I have a lot of questions... OK, I just made an aluminum battery using a piece of aluminum foil for the negative terminal, and steel wool for the positive terminal. I put both pieces of metal in a container of NaOH solution. (The NaOH catalyzes aluminum's reaction with water.) Before I connected the aluminum to the steel wool, lots of bubbles of hydrogen formed on the aluminum as the aluminum ions displaced hydrogen ions in the water. But when I connected them in a circuit, though some bubbles started forming on the steel wool (giving me a current), most of them still formed on the aluminum. Steel is a resistor, which may contribute to this inefficiency, but I tried copper too, and though it worked better than steel, I can't get very much surface area with pennies, and most of the bubbles still formed on the aluminum, forming waste heat. Does anybody know a good material I can use for my positive terminal to efficiently redirect all of the electrons exchanged between the aluminum and the water? Here are the equations: Al --> Al3+ + 3e- 3e- + 3H+ --> 1.5H2 The second reaction is supposed to move from the aluminum to the steel wool terminal, but it hardly does. I only got my cell to produce 150mA (1V), but I know it could produce waaay more if I had a better material for my positive terminal. This battery is using the same technology as the zinc-carbon battery. Hey! Maybe I should use carbon, huh? But where the heck can I get a piece of high surface area graphite? Any ideas for what to use?

Try and focus on what the liquid actually is; if I can't make sodium from it it's no big deal, I have plenty of NaOH, but I really want to know what I've made. Does anybody know at what temperature acetone decomposes, and what it's decomposition products are? If I can rule out acetone then I know I've just made some vinegar "tar," basically just junk. It does seam strange that the acetone would decompose before it left the pan as a gas, so, I dunno, any ideas on what made this liquid would be helpful. Yes my sodium acetate was anhydrous; I started with the hydrate, and then it decomposed into an aqueous solution, which boiled off. This isn't necessary information, but if you're interested, I boiled the sodium acetate down until it crystalized when blown on, and then removed it all and made it "freeze" solid for a demonstration. After that, I felt like playing around so I continued as already stated above.

Come on, you're telling me it doesn't matter what I've made? Of course it does. I've done an experiment and now want an explanation for the results. As for making sodium, why do you think it would not work? If I do indeed have sodium carbonate dissolved in an organic solvent, then electrolysis should yield sodium, as there is no other ion competing with it such as hydrogen. I don't know this for sure, but is there a problem with trying? Don't criticize me please; if you don't have an answer, please don't post here.

I made sodium acetate by mixing distilled white vinegar with baking soda, with a little excess vinegar so that all of the baking soda reacted. Then I heated it on the stove until all of the water evaporated. This formed anhydrous sodium acetate. Upon farther heating, this turned completely into a black liquid that smelled TERRIBLE. Sodium acetate decomposes before melting (according to Wikipedia) into acetone and sodium carbonate. Acetone would definitely explain the reeking smell, but what is the liquid? Sodium carbonate remains solid sodium carbonate up to 851C, which I know I didn't reach on my stove. Acetone boils at well under the decomposition of sodium acetate, so the only logical explanation I can think of for the liquid is that the acetone decomposed farther upon contact with my hot pan, making another organic compound with a higher melting point. When I poured this yucky liquid into a pot of water, it immediately solidified into a gray solid that commenced to dissolve. Sodium carbonate was dissolved in the liquid, but what was the liquid it was dissolved in? The black color may be due only to burnt impurities from the vinegar. EDIT: I want to make sodium metal from this liquid through electrolysis, but first I want to know what the heck I'm dealing with.

Sounds like you made copper hydroxide. Remember, the weakest ion is the one that you are going to remove from the solution. In this case, magnesium is stronger than hydrogen, and sulfate is stronger than hydroxide, so the only function of the epsom salt will have been to carry a current through the water, but you were still separating water. Edit: copper hydroxide is light blue, so this could not be what you made. I would guess you some how made copper carbonate (the green stuff you see on old copper roofs and on old pennies). Dunno how though. That is weird, almost as if you were using carbonated water.

I don't know many specific things to smelt, but if you use a better reducer than carbon, say, aluminum, you can make the smelting reaction self sustainable, so you only need to initially heat it to the activation energy. Example: iron oxide is often reduced using aluminum. Once the reaction is started, it is almost impossible to stop, and the result is white hot molten iron with aluminum oxide floating on top. This is the most common thermite reaction. Thermite reactions generally take something very hot to get them started, despite their highly exothermic nature; I don't think a bunsen burner would be hot enough, but you can certainly light a piece of magnesium ribbon on a bunsen burner, which would certainly be hot enough. If you don't have any magnesium, most sparklers contain magnesium.

For me, probably chlorine gas. It's a greenish gas that is toxic to breath, and was a major chemical weapon in world war I. It reacts I think all but the noble metals spontaneously at room temperature. It also reacts spontaneously with most organic molecules, and if you put a leaf in a container of chlorine gas, it turns brown in a matter of minutes. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Just for people who aren't familiar with sodium hydroxide, it's very caustic and if you spill it on you, you won't feel it for hours, but it reacts with you're flesh slowly and makes it fall off. As long as you wash any spills after you spill it, there is no real harm, but the main reason for danger is that you don't feel it until it is too late. (The same is true -worse- for HF)

Oh, sorry if I've made a mountain out of a particularly large mole hill, but I read the MSDS and it said all these things. I guess they just have to tell the maximum amount of precautions that they can for legal reasons. You probably know more about methanol though, and if you're saying it's ok to touch, I'll take your word for it.

Do not touch methanol, ever, and make sure you are in a well ventilated area! Methanol is very poisonous and small amounts can lead to blindness!

Just burn sulfur in oxygen to make sulfur dioxide, and then bubble it through hydrogen peroxide. Please make sure you know what the heck you are doing.

I was using two steel electrodes to pass a current through a solution of ascorbic acid. The negative electrode was the only one that bubbled at first (hydrogen bubbles of course). But when I came back an hour later I was most surprised to find both electrodes bubbling, and many different things going on. Both electrodes were bubbling, and the negative electrode was actually corroded! It had turned dark black. There were also pieces of this black substance falling off, which aligned when put under a magnetic field. The positive electrode had corroded too, but was a lighter, grayish color. In addition to this, a soluble violet salt was dissolving off of it. When the electricity was turned off, the grayish surface did not dissolve, indicating that two different salts had formed on its surface. Both electrodes remained bubbling for quite a while, though the next morning when I took them out, they both looked no different than they had before, the negative one black, and the positive one gray. Three different substances were formed in this multi-variabled experiment, one of which which was actually on the negative electrode. Could anybody give any insight as to what the heck has happened?