Aug
14
Water = Hydrogen + Oxygen. Water is abundant on earth. Why can’t we use watner to make hydrogen and oxygen?
Filed Under Chemistry
Sooraj Kumar asked:
Both are useful. Oxygen for breathing and for increasing ozone layer. Hydrogen to use as a pollution free fuel.
ROY
Both are useful. Oxygen for breathing and for increasing ozone layer. Hydrogen to use as a pollution free fuel.
ROY
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4 Responses to “Water = Hydrogen + Oxygen. Water is abundant on earth. Why can’t we use watner to make hydrogen and oxygen?”
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RONNIE
The conversion of Hydrogen and Oxygen from Water Requires very large electrical energy.
Water electrolysis does not convert 100% of the electrical energy into the chemical energy of hydrogen. The process loses energy because ions in the water need to move to carry electricity, and this movement ultimately heats up the water.
And to gain more Hydrogen and Oxygen, more water electrolysis is required. That’s why Nuclear Power plants etc. are required. These plants increse the Carbon Dioxide in air. So, water electrolysis to convert Hydrogen and Oxygen is used less.
You can also convert Hydrogen And Oxygen from Water from the following Experiment :
What do you need:
A 9 volt battery
Two regular number 2 pencils (remove eraser and metal part on the ends)
Salt
Thin cardboard
Electrical wire
Small glass
Water
What to do:
Sharpen each pencil at both ends.
Cut the cardboard to fit over glass.
Push the two pencils into the cardboard, about an inch apart. Dissolve about a teaspoon of salt into the warm water and let sit for a while. The salt helps conduct the electricity better in the water.
Using one piece of the electrical wire, connect one end on the positive side of the battery and the other to the black graphite (the “lead” of the pencil) at the top of the sharpened pencil. Do the same for the negative side connecting it to the second pencil top.
Place the other two ends of the pencil into the salted water.
What you’ll discover:
As the electricity from the battery passes through and between the electrodes (the pencils), the water splits into hydrogen and chlorine gas, which collect as very tiny bubbles around each pencil tip.
Hydrogen collects around the cathode and the chlorine gas collects around the anode.
How can you get chlorine from H2O? Good question! Sometimes in experiments, a secondary reaction takes place. This is what happens in this experiment.
Oxygen is not given off in this experiment. That’s because the oxygen atoms from the water combine in the liquid with the salt to form hydroxyl ions. Salt’s chemical formula is NaCl - sodium chloride. The chlorine gas is from the chloride in the salt. The oxygen in the hydroxl ions stay in the solution. So, what is released in this reaction is not oxygen but is chlorine gas that collects around the pencil tip. Around the other pencil is hydrogen gas.
In real electrolysis systems, a different solution is used, and higher levels of electricity help to split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen without this secondary reaction.
REED
Water -> hydrogen+oxygen is a process that absorbs lots of heat (energy) and is very inefficient.
The reverse “hydrogen+oxygen -> water”, on contrary, gives off a lot of heat, which make hydrogen an efficient fuel.
But H2O just does not decompose easily…
LAURENCE
The reason we can’t do this is because most water on earth is not pure so the oxygen and hydrogen is effected so to do this you would need to purify it and it really isn’t worth the cost. Also to contain both after separating them will be very hard and the process itself takes a lot of time.
JERRY
it can be done through the process of electrolysis, an electrical current can also be used to separate water into its components of oxygen and hydrogen. This however requires the use of power from coal, oil natural gas which defeats the purpose. currently processes are being developed to use solar power to perform this task.