Isolating electrodes

[Electrojolt]

@Electrojolt,
   Well that answers that question, thanks for saving me some time.  Can I also ask what your cell configuration was like including things like dielectric thickness and plate spacing, mechanical configuration such as parallel plates or capacitive wound plates etc. as all of this will have an effect on whats happening as I'm sure you know.

When I tested this I used several configurations, I started used a small plastic cup, and 2 small aluminum foil pieces placed in oposite sides on the outside of the cup. the gap was pretty big. nothing happened.

I then made a retangular thin plastic container (about 0.5 mm) and with a gap of 5mm. also placed aluminum foil sheets. aplied about 50KV and nothing, no gas at all.

I also inserted small electrodes in the water to check if water was easier to break when exposed to the HV field. didn't notice anything.

[wojwrobel]

and there is nothing gonna happend because water conducts electricy and your cell works as a wire from + to -

you have to islate electrodes and use electron resisting plastic container ....

cheers from poland

ps. soory for my english

im waiting for my corona dope (isolator) from radio shack and then will post some more pic and results from my project ...

[Farrah Day]

Curious by your last reply there Woj as Electro surely has isolated electrodes and hence a good capacitor.

anyway i think high voltage electrolysis is key, and to get HV in your electrodes you have to isolate them with something ... then you get true capacitor (cell), if not you just have regular electrolysis

Not exactly sure what some of you are trying to achieve here.  Anyway, it all comes down to the reliable old problem of trying to produce gas without current being drawn from the supply.

To quote the common adage, most people seem to 'want their cake and eat it'.  Put HV across electrodes actually in contact with the water or solution and you get no capacitance to speak of and high current flow - standard electrolysis. Insulating the electrodes completely from the water or solution gives you a good capacitor with HV, no current flow, but of course, no gas either.

Unless you want to be forever going around in circles with this, you have to ask yourselves what are you doing to the water solution, and why you get no gas from completely insulated electrodes?

To me it is quite obvious what the problem is, but then I tend to look at things differently to everyone else. Too often ionisation is simply ignored. If you understand what is occurring in standard electrolysis and when you cause water to ionise, you will see that it doesn’t dissociate conveniently into 2H2 and O2, which is why HV alone will not result in evolving gas.

I expect that the HV is actually promoting ionisation, but that’s only the first part of the process, and without charge exchanging, the HV simply provides H+ and OH-.

How are you expecting to get gas evolved from the ions, H+ and OH-?

I assume that no one has looked at the thread I started on the ‘Dissociation of the Water Molecule’, because there are clues to solving the problem there.

[Electrojolt]

Farrah Day,

Exactly, I did those tests long time ago, because people where spreading rumors about the excellent results they got with insulated electrodes. and it looks like it is coming back.

[Farrah Day]

In my experience only electrodes insulated poorly evolve gas, and this is all still to do with ion exchange at the electrodes. The best way of completely insulating an electrode is to wrap ali foil around a glass jar and have the other electrode inside the jar, sitting a few mm from the inside.  You will get no current flow at all... but no gas either!

But that is not to say that you have not increased ionisation, of the water between the electrodes.

Now I'm not exactly sure what conditioning of the electrodes Bob Boyce did, or why it is said to increase efficiency, but I have made my own experiments on this.

If you condition electrodes in tap water (particularly hard water that produces scale in kettles, aoround taps, etc), after time you will get a build-up of white compound on your cathode.  I assume this is calcium carbonate (the main constituent of lime scale), and indeed I found that I could promote this by adding extra minerals to the water.

Interestingly, the white covering on the cathode is an insulator, and your multimeter will indicate the high resistance. However, the electrode will still produce gas.  This I assume to be due to microscopic 'holes' in this insulation.

In fact, in my tests this insulation did not seem to affect the gas output of the cell, though it surely must have some consequence.