ELECTROLYSIS OF WATER

ELECTROLYSIS OF WATER

• Electrolysis of water, or hydrolysis is the process of separating the hydrogen and oxygen from water using an electric current.

How the experiment should go

In hydrolysis, two electrodes are put in a container of water near the bottom. When the electric current goes into the water, it causes the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. A way to test if it worked is putting a match underneath the test tubes. If there is a pop, then there is hydrogen.

We posed the question, "How does hydrolysis work and what happens when it is performed?"

Materials

Distilled water
Tap water
2 "Bunny Ears" Fasteners
9V battery
Small, clear plastic container
2 test tubes
Baking soda

Procedure

Insert the Bunny ears into the bottom of the plastic container so that the points push up into the container.
Connect your wires from the battery pack to the Bunny ears
Slowly fill the container with distilled water.
Add a pinch of baking soda.
Hold two test tubes above each push pin to collect the gas being formed. Record your observations.
After a few minutes, take out the test tubes and put a flame underneath them.

Making the apparatus I

First we used a small plastic cup and cut some of the top off. We then made holes in the bottom and put the bunny ears through the holes. We sealed the holes with play dough. We connected the bunny ears and the nine volt battery with alligator clips.

First try

In our first try, we poured the water and baking soda in, and the cup immediately started leaking a lot. We couldn't even try to collect the gas because of how much the water leaked. We learned that play dough would not work as sealer

Making the Apparatus II

For our second try, we were planning on sealing our holes with rubber cement, but when it dried, it was too thin to use. We decided on using hot glue. We also stopped using alligator clips and used a battery pack instead of a 9v.

Second Try

In our second try, we poured in the water and baking soda, and there was still a little leakage, but not much. We held the test tubes over the electrodes for a couple minutes and saw a lot of bubbles, but not enough for the hydrogen to light up.

An extra try

One day Jackson performed electrolysis in a beaker with Ms. sims in advisory. It was to see what it would be like if the apparatus was more professional and less make-shift. There were a lot of bubbles, but yet again, there wasn't enough time to gather the amount of gas we needed.

In a final analysis, time was all that we needed, but we always did our experiment late in class and did not have much time. If we were to do this again, we would make sure we had the experiment running for at least 10 minutes.

Conclusion

One thing we learned from this project is that you really have to sit down for a while and let the test tubes gathers lot of bubbles in order to light up the hydrogen. It seemed that all the times we tried, it was rushed, and we didn't have enough time to let the hydrogen fill up the tube. Still, this was a fun project which taught us a lot of stuff. We learned that hydrogen is flammable (We just didn't get to see it live), we learned the answers to both of the questions that we had. I learned how hydrolysis works, and I learned what happens during electrolysis. It was a fun project.