My attempt at making Hydrogen / Browns Gas. Dont try this at home :D.

[Bulbz]

Well... I have done small experiments with hydrogen in the past. I have done the one where you immerse two metal rods into some water, connect it up to a powerpack, and listen for very feint pops when a lighter is held on the waters surface.

Now... I was getting kind of bored with this, so I assembled this apparatus today.   ... But I wish that I had a video camera handy, because this was fun  .

First, I built this.


Then I immersed it into a glass coffee jar, full of tap water, and connected it to a 12-Volt, 30 Amp-Hour battery that I borrowed from one of my Dad's mobility scooters.



I held one of those long-reach cooker lighters near the surface, and I was experiencing fairly loud cracking sounds from the bubbles.

After about five minutes of playing with my creation, I remembered reading something about adding salt to the water to increase the conductivity   .

I took my jar to the kitchen sink, and emptied the water from the first experiment. Then I filled it about one third of the way with warm water. Then I thought to myself... I wonder how much salt I'm supposed to use, so I just shovelled in 2 heaped desert spoonfulls of salt into the jar, and put the lid on and gave it a damn good shaking. Then I filled the rest of the jar with cold water and gave the jar another shaking.

Next... I immersed the electrode assembly into the jar, and re-connected the power. To my astonishment, I was getting not just bubbles, but a heavy fizz of them. I thought to myself... I better not waste these nice fizzy bubbles, so I held the lighter near the surface again. The sounds that I was getting were... POP-CRACK-SNAP, now this was getting exiting.

After about twenty-thirty seconds of playing around with this, a manifestation of green gunge, about an inch thick appeared on the surface, and the twisted pair of wires that were carrying the current to the setup suddenly burst into flames  .

Here is a picture of the jar, a bit poor on quality though.



I appologise for the bad quality of the pictures, and the blurriness is due to the camera shaking, due to me being in fits of laughter and exitement.

[EDIT] Can anybody tell me what the emmission of green gunge was?.[/EDIT]

[hoptoad]

[EDIT] Can anybody tell me what the emmission of green gunge was?.[/EDIT]

@Bulbz

Possibly, Copper Chloride or Copper Chlorate or even Copper Oxide, if the electrodes are made from copper ?

Be very careful if you use Carbon rods in salt water, because they will facilitate the release of Chlorine Gas which is quite noxious and toxic.
Chemically speaking, salt is Sodium Chloride, and it's reaction with the electrodes accounts for the chlorine content in the green gunge.

[Bulbz]

[EDIT] Can anybody tell me what the emmission of green gunge was?.[/EDIT]

@Bulbz

Possibly, Copper Chloride or Copper Chlorate or even Copper Oxide, if the electrodes are made from copper ?

Be very careful if you use Carbon rods in salt water, because they will facilitate the release of Chlorine Gas which is quite noxious and toxic.
Chemically speaking, salt is Sodium Chloride, and it's reaction with the electrodes accounts for the chlorine content in the green gunge.

The electrode is made from a 3 inch long piece of mild steel tubing, 3/4 inch inside bore, with a 10 mm threadded bar through the centre. The insulating pegs are made from balsa wood.

[hansvonlieven]

@ Bulbz

Ir is not a good idea to do these experiments with salt water as an electrolyte. Better is sodium hydroxide (caustic soda or lye) potassium carbonate, or even sulfuric acid, vinegar or lemon juice. Caustic soda appears to work best and does not generate toxic fumes as salt water does.

Hans von Lieven

[Bulbz]

Thankyou for the advice Hans.