Dear Neville, You're asking great questions. Keep it up and you'll get it in time.
> One has a circuit... does the electricity run > directional? ie; does it circulate starting at the positive passing the > 3:00 and return through the negative, or does it pass around the 9:00 > and return to the positive...or neither, and just 'flows' so to speak to > complete a circuit meaning there is no 'particular' directional flow. > P.S. 25 words or less would be good...! :-) How about 100 words each on several topics? <grin> The answer depends on what the current is flowing in, so lets take a few different cases. In metals and other good conductors, the medium by which current flows is usually moving electrons. They sort of pick themselves up and glide along the atomic lattice of the metal from atom to atom, while the nuclei of the metal atoms stay locked in place by various atomic forces. So it's reasonable to state that electrons are flowing from the negative terminal of your battery, through the wires and load, and back to the positive terminal. The actual linear velocity of the electrons within the wire is proportional to the current: Zero with the switch off, and limited by ohm's law, ie. total circuit resistance and voltage, when on. However, the *effect* of the voltage pushing your electrons propagates at close to the speed of light around your circuit, as the pressure caused by the applied voltage propagates through the cloud of electrons in the metal. Think of a tube filled end-to-end with ping-pong balls. Push one in one end, another falls out the other end instantly. As it turns out the *convention* of current flow from plus to minus was created before they figured out what was actually carrying the current, and stuck, as tradition often does. Of course, there are materials other than metals that can carry current, including semiconductors like they make transistors, diodes, and integrated circuits with, and, as in our case, water in an electrolysis cell. In semiconductors you may have electrons flowing, as in conductors, or you may need to consider "holes" or the absence of an electron in the crystal lattice of the material, flowing in the opposite direction. Yes the current is still actually carried by moving electrons around, but for reasons understood by the physicists, materials scientists, and engineers who design these things, hole current may be important. Hole current is generally not important to us, however. <grin> Now, in water, you may actually have both electrons flowing *and* atoms or molecules of the solvent (water) or solutes (silver or salt, or whatever) flowing in different directions... Electrons will still flow from your battery's negative terminal, through the wire to the negative electrode, through the water to your positive electrode, then back through the wire to the battery positive terminal. However, there may also be a gradual drift of atoms or molecules from one electrode to the other in the water, provided that they lose or gain electrons from being dissolved. An example would be salt, sodium chloride, which breaks up into positive sodium ions (Na+) and negative chlorine ions (Cl-) when you dissolve it in a polar solvent like water. The sodium ions will be drawn toward the negative electrode and the chlorine ions will be drawn toward the positive electrode. Something like sugar dissolves in water without gaining or losing an electron, so it will have no charge and won't be involved in any current flow. The other obvious example for us would be silver: For every so many electrons that hit the surface of the positive electrode, a proportional number of silver atoms, minus an electron and thus carrying a positive charge, get blown out of their nice cozy crystal lattice and find themselves in the water, lazily drifting toward the negative electrode. Now, since the mass of any atom or molecule is many times the mass of an electron, the linear velocity of the ions will be much less than any electrons whizzing by. The exact magnitudes will be proportional to their mass and lots of other factors on an atomic scale I don't know hoot about. That's why I used words like "lazily drifting" and "gradual drift" to describe their motion above. <grin> That's also why stirring can be useful. Because the ions move relatively slowly, they can get lost and end up staying in the water rather than actually *reaching* the opposite electrode's surface, where they lose their net charge, and often decide to stick around in their nice new neighborhood. (Read: That fluffy build-up you get on the negative electrode after a while if you're not stirring and/or switching polarity every once in a while...) Also, a silver ion might randomly pick up an electron somewhere in the water and lose its charge, and thus stop moving toward the negative electrode. It may also bump into another silver atom and start forming a new comfy crystal lattice that can grow into a particle... Thus our brew ends up with both ionic and particulate components. So, to summarize, negatively charged particles like electrons or Cl- ions will be drawn towards a positive electrode or terminal; positive particles like Na+ or those hypothetical "holes" will move from a positive electrode or terminal toward a negative one. Think: Opposite charges attract and like charges repel. Okay, all of the above is grossly simplified, but at the practical level you and I are operating at here this description ought to help you visualize what's going on, both in your generator circuit and in the water of your brewing cell. Be well! Mike D. [Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian] [mdev...@eskimo.com ] [Speaking only for myself... ] -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. 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