Tuesday, October 27, 2009

How to Make Hydrogen and Oxygen out of Water sort of a hydrogen fuel cell

Materials:

  1. Water
  2. Salt
  3. 9 Volt Battery, Lantern Battery (6 volt), or a Power Transformer (I used a 120 to 9 volt Power Transformer)
  4. Some Sort of Wire (I used a copper wire, paperclips would work but would be harder to use)
  5. Hot glue gun
  6. Pencil or Thick Single Strand Copper Wire (separate from above), these aren't completely needed and a pencil works best

Procedure:

  1. Fill a tub with warm water.
  2. Mix salt into water (It doesn't matter how much, just use a bunch).
  3. Tightly wrap one wire around some pencil lead (which works the best so far), other material mentioned in 6 or a different material (it has to conduct electricity). I haven't tried stainless steel but it would probably be better than pencil lead.
  4. Cover the wire you wrapped with hot glue completely. This is very important because if you don't it will be eaten away by the oxygen. This information comes in handy when picking a material to use in step 3.
  5. Wrap the other wire to some stripped single strand copper wire. This wire doesn't have to be hot glued but can be to help keep it attached. Coil the single strand wire into a ball.
  6. Fix wires to power source. The wire in step 3 to the + side. The wire in step 5 to the - side.
  7. Put the ends of the wires in the salt water. Bubbles will begin to rise.

The wire with copper attached is making Hydrogen. The other wire is making oxygen. You can collect the bubbles in jars or containers. Fill the container with water and put it upside down on one wire. Put some rocks on top to hold it down.

WARNING: HYDROGEN IS FLAMMABLE. It will burn very easily. BE CAREFUL!!!!!