Ions and I

[Garrettguy457]

What would happen if every atom in my body gained an electron and became a (-) ion? What would happen if the air I breathed became (-) charged?

[Gilded]

To put it bluntly, sh!t would happen.

 

The "every atom in body becomes ion" case is an interesting scenario though. Molecules would tear apart due to electromagnetic repulsion and I'd imagine you would meet a quick end in a violent, presumably spectacular ionic explosion.

 

The ionized air scenario wouldn't be too pleasant either, one reason being that the oxygen molecules would turn into superoxide which is horribly toxic.

[hermanntrude]

fascinating thing to imagine. Surely an explosion followed by flames, poisons and much destruction.

[CaptainPanic]

Your body is 70 kg (70000 g), and the average molecule weighs about 6 g/mol (you're mostly water, and that has 3 atoms and 18 g/mol)... so you contain about 11700 mol of atoms. Or, 11700 * 6.022*10^23 = 7.03*10^27 atoms.

 

A coulomb is 6.241506×10^18 electrons.

 

So, you suddenly would have an excess charge of 1.12 GigaCoulomb... which is totally ridiculous btw.

 

I think you'd have more charge than all the thunderstorms on earth put together, and I wouldn't be surprised if you would pull the moon out of its orbit or something ridiculous like that

 

Anyway, let's try it!

*looks around for a volunteer*

[insane_alien]

anyone know how to calculate the potential energy involved there?

 

make the maths easier and say it is 1GigaCoulomb within a 1m diameter sphere.

[John Cuthber]

To a good aproximation you could count up how many atoms there are in the body and sum up the ionisation potentials. This ignores the problem that these atoms are present in molecules to begin with but that's not the major problem. Imagine that you had taken a lot of the electrons away - removing the next one would be not only taking it from it's atom, but also from the "you quite a lot + ion".

I guess that you could calculate this on the basis that you are roughly speaking a conductive sphere but I think it's unlikely to help a lot.

 

"Death" is the simple andswer to the question.

[frosch45]

this is a very interesting question

 

 

Your body is 70 kg (70000 g), and the average molecule weighs about 6 g/mol (you're mostly water, and that has 3 atoms and 18 g/mol)... so you contain about 11700 mol of atoms. Or, 11700 * 6.022*10^23 = 7.03*10^27 atoms.

 

A coulomb is 6.241506×10^18 electrons.

 

So, you suddenly would have an excess charge of 1.12 GigaCoulomb ... which is totally ridiculous btw.

 

I think you'd have more charge than all the thunderstorms on earth put together, and I wouldn't be surprised if you would pull the moon out of its orbit or something ridiculous like that

 

Anyway, let's try it!

*looks around for a volunteer*

 

 

I volunteer

 

so where would we get a GigaCoulomb

 

maybe if we were to take the sun and then, say, alpha centauri, and took some sort of tractor beam and squished them together like how we do fusion here on earth with radiowaves and such....

 

lets fuse alpha centauri and the sun guys!

 

oh wait, thats also incredibly rediculous

 

too bad theres not a word to describe rediculous to the trillionth power....

 

because it would certainly apply in this situation

 

 

 

I love how sometimes there are such funny things in science that the average jo would never understand

 

in short--science is really really cool

[Mr Skeptic]

fascinating thing to imagine. Surely an explosion followed by flames, poisons and much destruction.

 

And followed by a thunderstorm like you wouldn't believe!

[John Cuthber]

"so where would we get a GigaCoulomb"

Anyone care to calculate how long it takes as decent size power sation to deliver a gigacoulomb at 110V?

[Mr Skeptic]

You'd need more than 110 volts. Assuming a spherical person of radius one meter, the energy per coulomb required to reach a gigacoulomb would be [math]\int^0_{1 m} -\frac{k*1000000000 C * 1 C}{x^2}dx = \frac{k*1000000000 C^2}{1 m} = 9 * 10^{18} volts[/math]. That's 9 billion gigavolts. Of course, you'd need even more than that, since a person is smaller than a sphere of 1 m radius.

[frosch45]

so we would need some sort of controlled fission explosion, actually, many many many explosions, and a whole lot of water and a turbine the size of a football field?

[CaptainPanic]

Case 1:

We get the electrons as a present (a gift from... eeh... some nasty person, it's not a nice gift!), but we get no equal amount of positive charge. Therefore we'd charge the earth, and the difference will cause lightning to spark from Earth to the Moon and Sun and Mars and Venus.

 

Case 2:

We also need to dump 1 gigaCoulomb of positive charge somewhere... Balance outside the system of the earth remains the same... but we have one massive charge buildup in Garrettguy457's body, and in another place... Any ideas?

 

I propose we make a very very large glass sphere (VVLGS), put all the electrons in through the mother of all diodes (MOAD), and disconnect it from reality exactly at the moment they're all inside.

 

This might be the least scientific post I've made on this forum ever... apologies.

[John Cuthber]

"You'd need more than 110 volts."

I know, but feel free to answer the question anyway. It reveals that 1GC is big, but not impossibly big.

[Garrettguy457]

Are (+) and (-) oxygen Ions toxic or just one of them?

[CaptainPanic]

Please tell us where you found positive oxygen ions?

 

About negative ions of oxygen. They're not all bad. The negative ions are totally common, and are everywhere. When bonded in an ionic bond to a metal, they can be basic (meaning that if you put it in water, or in your own body, it makes the pH go up a lot).

 

I think you should realize that ions are never alone: when you find a positive ion, there is always a negative ion too!

 

So, the oxygen ion ([ce] O^2-[/ce]) will for example be accompanied by an iron ion ([ce] Fe^2+[/ce]), forming [ce] FeO [/ce], which is also known as rust.

 

Two [ce]Al^3+[/ce] and three [ce]O^2-[/ce] form [ce]Al2O3[/ce], also known as aluminium oxide.

 

You see that each time, the charge of the ions balances so that the total charge of the material is zero!

Edited August 5, 2008 by CaptainPanic

[John Cuthber]

"Please tell us where you found positive oxygen ions?"

 

Here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioxygenyl

[jdurg]

Please tell us where you found positive oxygen ions?

 

About negative ions of oxygen. They're not all bad. The negative ions are totally common, and are everywhere. When bonded in an ionic bond to a metal, they can be basic (meaning that if you put it in water, or in your own body, it makes the pH go up a lot).

 

I think you should realize that ions are never alone: when you find a positive ion, there is always a negative ion too!

 

So, the oxygen ion ([ce] O^2-[/ce]) will for example be accompanied by an iron ion ([ce] Fe^2+[/ce]), forming [ce] FeO [/ce], which is also known as rust.

 

Two [ce]Al^3+[/ce] and three [ce]O^2-[/ce] form [ce]Al2O3[/ce], also known as aluminium oxide.

 

You see that each time, the charge of the ions balances so that the total charge of the material is zero!

 

Well, in a plasma you have only ions and not positive AND negative charges. Granted, that's nitpicking but it is true.

[CaptainPanic]

"Please tell us where you found positive oxygen ions?"

 

Here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioxygenyl

 

Hmm... yes. Not very common though. I didn't know it even existed

 

Well, in a plasma you have only ions and not positive AND negative charges. Granted, that's nitpicking but it is true.

Plasmas are still neutral. It's individual particles that are charged, but the overall charge does not change. Plasmas consist of ions (both positive and negative) and some free electrons... and some neutral particles too.

 

Earlier, I simplified things a bit, I admit. The type of questions here suggested to me that it would be wise to start slowly.

 

So, yes, in a plasma you can have even free electrons, which are not classified as ions. For each electron, there is also a positive charge on a nucleus (the core of an atom)... and if you add all the positive and negative particles together, the net charge will be zero.

 

Still, you should realize that the amount of excess charge in any material will never even approach the number of atoms... even if you apply external potentials (connect it to a massive battery). Only in boundary layers on for example electrodes there is a clear charge separation that might approach this... But I don't think this thread is the right place to expand on that topic.