Electrical Sparks

[YT2095]

you`ve got NO CHANCE old pall! LOL )

 

your nails will rust, pure water wont split it needs to be acidified, and HT won`t electrolyse.

 

you need a serious re-think!

[Callipygous]

you`ve got NO CHANCE old pall! LOL )

 

your nails will rust' date=' pure water wont split it needs to be acidified, and HT won`t electrolyse.

 

you need a serious re-think![/quote']

 

i dont care if the nails rust, they're getting detonated anyways. its a one time use thing, which is why i want to keep the cost down. as for pure water, could you explain that pls? and HT?

[YT2095]

how then will you account for the gap between the nails that have rusted being totaly random due to corrosion?

 

HT= High Tension (high voltage) used to make your spark.

 

why not make a simple Jackson generator and use a length of visco fuse?

[Callipygous]

how then will you account for the gap between the nails that have rusted being totaly random due to corrosion?

 

HT= High Tension (high voltage) used to make your spark.

 

why not make a simple Jackson generator and use a length of visco fuse?

 

dont just shatter my dreams... tell me why. the nails will rust, yes (slower if theyre galvanized?) but i dont think fast enough to matter. why will high voltage not electrolize water? i thought it was just the charge on each nail attracting electrons from one and adding electrons to another, higher voltage=bigger charge=faster reaction. am i wrong? (and why)

 

and why wont pure water split?

[drz]

I think it is only one nail that will rust, isn't it the positive? I've heard you can use the insides of a normal pencil, or the carbon rods inside regular c or d batteries instead of nails for this purpose, which should prevent the rust problem.

 

Your idea sounds real similar to one I was reading about,

http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/echem/echem.html#bomb

Except for instead of an explosion, it simply squirts water in the air. Also, instead of relying on the positive and negative nails to cause the spark, (which could take sometime btw) it simply uses an electric igniter like those found in gas grills or electronic lighters.

[Callipygous]

I think it is only one nail that will rust' date=' isn't it the positive? I've heard you can use the insides of a normal pencil, or the carbon rods inside regular c or d batteries instead of nails for this purpose, which should prevent the rust problem.

 

Your idea sounds real similar to one I was reading about,

http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/echem/echem.html#bomb

Except for instead of an explosion, it simply squirts water in the air. Also, instead of relying on the positive and negative nails to cause the spark, (which could take sometime btw) it simply uses an electric igniter like those found in gas grills or electronic lighters.[/quote']

 

yeah, i actually read that too. i have a book by the guy who runs that site.

 

how could it take time to spark? it either will or it wont. if i place the nails close enough, and the voltage is high enough, it will spark.

 

problems with that design: i cant be close enough to use a bbq lighter, will carbon rods spark?

 

 

(still waiting to hear why H2O wont split and why high voltage wont do the job)

[drz]

well, the time I was reffering to was the time it would take to lower the water to the point where the rods would be exposed.

 

as to your other two questions, I do not know.

 

As to the bbq lighter, you can put wires on it, although I'm not sure how far you can run it before it weakens the spark.

 

If you just want a big bang, throw a spray paint can in a fire barrel and run like, really fast.

[Callipygous]

well' date=' the time I was reffering to was the time it would take to lower the water to the point where the rods would be exposed.

 

as to your other two questions, I do not know.

 

As to the bbq lighter, you can put wires on it, although I'm not sure how far you can run it before it weakens the spark.

 

If you just want a big bang, throw a spray paint can in a fire barrel and run like, really fast.[/quote']

 

lol... im not just looking for a really big bang, i want it to be cool, and up high in the air.

 

i know it will take a while to expose the nails, but your also making guesses about how much water will be in the bottle. according to my understanding of electrolysis, electrons get sucked off of and pushed on to, water molecules that have been split by the charge of the nails. from what i have read it doesnt seem like there would even have to be current flow between the nails, just charge. if this is the case, then logic would dictate that more pressure(voltage) would push/suck the electrons faster, thus filling the balloon and lowering the water level at a more reasonable rate.

 

if someone wants to correct any part of that i would greatly appreciate it. (as long as you tell me WHY it wont work)

[pulkit]

(still waiting to hear why H2O wont split and why high voltage wont do the job)

 

Pure water even under aplpication of high DC voltage will not electrlyse simply because it does not conduct very well.

The method used to electrolyse it is to intentionally add a little bit of ionic impurity in form of salt or strong acid. Even a little ionic impurity will increase the conductivity sufficiently for electrolysis.

[Callipygous]

Pure water even under aplpication of high DC voltage will not electrlyse simply because it does not conduct very well.

The method used to electrolyse it is to intentionally add a little bit of ionic impurity in form of salt or strong acid. Even a little ionic impurity will increase the conductivity sufficiently for electrolysis.

 

PURE water wont conduct at all. that was actually kind of what i had in mind (to save power in the battery for the spark) because of my understanding (or misunderstanding) of electrolysis explained above.

[Callipygous]

can someone please explain some of the problems here? why wont pure water split? why wont high voltage work?

[drz]

http://scienceathome.cienciaviva.pt/conduti_agua_eng.html

 

answer for your water question

 

With this simple experiment you can verify that the distilled water presents a very low conductivity because the potential of the first circuit is much less than the developed by the battery. The small potential of this circuit is due to the presence of the H+ and OH- ions produced when some molecules of water are dissociated.

[Callipygous]

http://scienceathome.cienciaviva.pt/conduti_agua_eng.html

 

answer for your water question

 

thank you, but that doesnt confirm that salt water will work better for what i want. i want there to be more OH- and H+ molecules, which will then be attracted to the positive and negative electrodes respectively, where they will even out their electrons and 2OH will become O and H2O leaving me with H2 and O2. that article doesnt say anything about salt causing more of the water molecules to become disassociated. i dont care about conductivity, i dont need current flow. i just need lots of disassociated water molecules.

[pulkit]

A more technical explanation for conductance under presence of H+ ions goes by the name of "Grothus mechanism".

 

What ionic salts do is that they get attract water molecules towards themselves. Water is polar, hence negative ions will attract positive hydrogen heads toewards themselves. This leaves negative oxygen centres exposed outside. There is a net negative charge here as well as negative oxygens sitting up, which is why it starts conducting. H+ and OH- get involved if you add weak electrolytes or acids and bases.

[Callipygous]

acids and bases... so if i added soap, i would ge a faster reaction?

 

and are there around the house electrolytes i could use? (should i just use gatorade instead of water?)

[Kedas]

from what i have read it doesnt seem like there would even have to be current flow between the nails, just charge. if this is the case, then logic would dictate that more pressure(voltage) would push/suck the electrons faster, thus filling the balloon and lowering the water level at a more reasonable rate.

 

If I could split H2O with static electricity then I would be rich now and I'm not,so it can't be done

moving electrons is current. (higher voltage will also mean higher current)

The heat energy that you get by burning the gas is the same as the electric power that you put in it to make 2H2 & O2.

[Callipygous]

this has been dead for a long time now, but im getting interested in it again.

 

lets try a broader approach this time...

 

 

i want to have a fairly simple, cheap contraption that will sit there and do its thing (electrolizing water) until its possible to lift off, and then after it floats for a while i want it to explode in a fiery blaze.

 

im curious if its possible. what electrolyte should i use? will a 9volt have enough energy to electrolize all that water and still be able to spark at the end? whats required to get a lot of hydrogen and oxygen fairly quickly? do i need high voltage? will i have to use carbon rods?

 

whats the best set up you guys can come up with?

[Callipygous]

no one wants to help me with this?

 

how about this. if i just wanted to make some hydrogen, forget the whole float up in the air thing.

 

what electrolyte to use? how much voltage? carbon rods better than nails? do i need something that can provide a lot of current? is there a way to pull it off with a 9 volt, or something similar?

[swansont]

no one wants to help me with this?

 

how about this. if i just wanted to make some hydrogen' date=' forget the whole float up in the air thing.

 

what electrolyte to use? how much voltage? carbon rods better than nails? do i need something that can provide a lot of current? is there a way to pull it off with a 9 volt, or something similar?[/quote']

 

As long as you are sufficiently above the ionization potential, so that the atoms don't recombine, then the voltage won't matter, as far as being able to do electrolysis. I've done it with two or three AA batteries in series (1.2V each) and apinch or two of table salt. IIRC the electrolysis potential is 1.24V, so you need that plus a little for the "overhead" involved. A 9V battery will work just fine. I did it with pretty generic wire, so I don't know that any special electrodes are required, other than you'd want something that won't react with the gases.

 

After that, the capacity of the battery is what's important, and will be related to If the voltage is high, I can see that you'd be wasting some energy, since you don't care if the atoms have a lot of KE. OTOH, having a high voltage would allow multiple events. Interesting experiment to see if two 9V batteries in series gave you more or less H and O than two in parallel.

[5614]

For water graphite rods are better than random old nails.

[Callipygous]

how can i speed the process up? will higher voltage work faster or slower or no difference at all? more electrolytes= faster reaction? if so will i be lowering the production capacity of my battery because it conducts more and uses up the energy?

[Insane]

For HV, couldn't you use a fluorescent lamp driver? It's $3 and uses a 5vdc power suppy, it pumps out 5kV. Do you need amperage? If not this is perfect:

 

http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G12866

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=search&item=INV-7&type=store

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=search&item=INV-9&type=store

 

Good Luck!

[5614]

how can i speed the process up? will higher voltage work faster or slower or no difference at all? more electrolytes= faster reaction? if so will i be lowering the production capacity of my battery because it conducts more and uses up the energy?

Make the water conduct better, which as a standard 'at home' experiment requires adding salt but then that produces some Cl which isn't always suitable.

 

Higher voltage --> more current --> more electrolysis

 

I think by adding more electrodes (the rods in the liquid) you'd allow more electrons to be distributes faster in wider array of areas so it'd be faster. I mean, that's a total guess, but if you had all the electrons in one place the water around it would turn to oxygen then you'd have to wait for that to move before more reduction could take place... whereas if the electrons were spread out all the electrons could bond immediately and wouldn't bump into each other and hit atoms that had already lost/gained electrons. It'd kinda be like increaseing the surface area in a chem reaction -- whatever, I just think more electrodes would increase the speed!

 

More electrodes would use the battery up quicker, assuming they were in parallel.

[Lance]

For HV' date=' couldn't you use a fluorescent lamp driver? It's $3 and uses a 5vdc power suppy, it pumps out 5kV. Do you need amperage? If not this is perfect:

 

http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G12866

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=search&item=INV-7&type=store

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=search&item=INV-9&type=store

 

Good Luck![/quote']

 

That wouldn't work because they are current limited to just a few milliamps.