The downfalls of conventional electrolysis - and how to fix them

[vrstud]

That is how the diet coke and mentos trick works.  The mentos surface is actually very rough and is filled with little pits and valleys.  This gives it a very large surface area which allows for more of the carbon dioxide to form on its surface.  The same thing happens your straw when you put it in a cup of soda, only on a much lower scale.

[oswaldonfire]

That is correct vrstud. But we're looking at using extreme surface area to get rid of the gasses - not collect them.

How is this possible? Find the answer to my quote below:

You're both thinking MACROSCOPIC - we want MICROSCOPIC.

Can you think of a system in which the electrodes are so small, it will be nearly impossible to get power to them? I can.

Which has more surface area: a bucket of peas, a bucket of rice, or a bucket of granulated sugar? As the particle sizes decrease, surface area increases - an inverse relationship. What states that we must stop at the size of granulated sugar? Think smaller!

[atlantex]

maybe a metallic powder wich is mixed with water.

[oswaldonfire]

Yes, you're getting there! This gives us a HUGE surface area, and there are very small particles dispersed within the water - the gasses are given off straight into solution.

Take a small block of, say, aluminum, with 6 square inches of surface area. Now grind it down into a VERY fine powder, and it has thousands and thousands of inches of surface area.

Now the question is, how do we provide electricity to these particles (our electrodes)?

[atlantex]

hold a blank end of copper cable into the mixture and see how the water becomes "dirty" :-)))

Well, the only way can be a electric or magnetic field, the positv side could be the container itself.