On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 08:49:53PM +0100, Nick Palmer wrote: > "The hard part of getting water to split is not the hydrogen -- platinum > as a catalyst works fine for the hydrogen. But platinum works very poorly > for oxygen, making you use much more energy," said MIT chemistry > professor Daniel Nocera. ... > > So how efficient is ordinary "two copper wires in salty water" > electrolysis at splitting H20 by comparison?
Carbon rods from flashlight batteries worked pretty well for both cathode and anode, with a solution of "washing soda" -- Na2CO3 -- for the electrolyte. Hydrogen and oxygen bubbled up, and the carbon didn't seem to dissolve. But this was in 1955, with the power source a very old Lionel model train transformer with multiple secondary taps, feeding a 10 inch long selenium rectifier. Such apparatus may not be obtainable anymore, likewise zinc-carbon D-cells, so platinum electrodes may be necessary. Or perhaps the Solar System has rotated out of a stream of subspace particles from the galactic center that previously catalyzed the reaction. Maybe it was neutrinos from the nuclear bomb testing. If only Sir Humphry Davy were still alive. I'm sure he'd be able to find an answer.
