H2O Into O2

I’ve read and seen Oxygen and Hydrogen separated from water using electrolysis and I have a few questions.

  1. Is the oxygen produced breathable?
  2. If not, then how could we make it breathable?
  3. I read a comment on a video that said Chlorine gas is produced when using electrolysis from salt present in the water. Is this true? If so, is there a way to separate it from the Oxygen and Hydrogen?

Thanks to anyone who responds.

  1. Yes, it is.

  2. Well, we still have to separate out the hydrogen because it is explosive. That isn’t any good.

  3. Sure, chlorine gas can be produced from the electrolysis of sea water. However, that is because of the salts present and a simple distillation prior to electrolysis eliminates this problem. Or it could be separated based on the relative weights of the gases. Chlorine and Oxygen are pretty close, so it requires a bit more work but it isn’t impossible.

I’ve read that the Oxygen and Hydrogen would separate themselves into two separate containers. Also, minerals are required to produce an electrical current, so salt is used.

This is just what I’ve read. I haven’t done any experiments yet.

Depends on how you set up the battery, but sure. It’d be easy to design that way.

So from what I’ve gathered, the O produced through electrolysis is breathable which was one of my main concerns. But how would one go about separating the chlorine gas from the O and H? Obviously this proves a very large drawback if the breathable O also contains a poisonous gas. :laughing:

Is there perhaps a mineral that we can breathe that is non-poisonous in gas form that could be added to the water to help produce a good current?

I really appreciate your responses. Thanks a lot.

Just use distilled water.

Can I? Will it produce a current? Isn’t minerals required for an electrical current? I’ve read that pure water isn’t a good conductor.

Pure water isn’t a good conductor. But distilled water still has carbonate in it from the air. It should conduct electricity just fine. You have to distill the water something like 6 times under a vacuum to remove all conductivity.

But if you want a really big current, add baking soda, red devil lye (the purest brand available to home chemists), or sulfuric acid (not the car battery kind – see if you can find a purer one). Any of those should work fine. Just add them to distilled water.

Will those produce any kind of poisonous gas? Also, can I distill pure water and get the same result? The carbonate from the air, I mean.

None of those will produce a poisonous gas. Sulfuric acid might produce an off-odor if you let it run long enough but it shouldn’t represent a serious health concern. The lye probably represents your best choice.

The carbonate from the air will be present in water that you distill yourself, correct. But the more I think about it, it would probably be best to add some sort of additional ions to the solution. You’d need a big power-source otherwise.

Thank you so much for your input. And for once, I’m out of questions. :smiley:

http://www.ehow.com/about_5387620_red-devil-lye.html

At the bottom it says that Sodium Hydroxide can cause burns when touched. Now I just want to clarify that it will not produce a poisonous gas, right?

http://dangerouslyfun.com/electrolysis

Edit:

Never mind.

Right, lye (sodium hydroxide) is incredibly basic and will burn you if you get it on your skin. Wear gloves! But no poisonous gas. The products of the electrolysis of NaOH would be Na(s) and H2). Na(s) reacts immediately with the water to form NaOH and heat. And, yes, when choosing a baking soda, make sure it doesn’t have any salt added to it, otherwise you are right back where you started.

As an added bonus, lye solutions make for great pretzels! Get that dough-a-dunkin’!

Thanks for the information Xunzian. I appreciate it.

A quick question. How much air and of what kind of air should the water be exposed to get carbonate in it? Is it from CO2? Also, how long should it be distilled to get the maximum amount of carbonate from the air? (This is just in case I have no access to the materials you have suggested.)

No access to baking soda or lye? Stock up on what them! That would make it easy. Though, baking soda will produce some CO2, just so you know.

As for the carbonate from the air, don’t worry about it. It is already there. Just buy the distilled water and you’ll be good. But you’ll need a lot of current to make that work.

Well it’s not that resources are unavailable, it’s just that I want to learn how I could do it from scratch and for personal knowledge.

So say I bought a bottle of pure water. What part of the air would produce carbonate in the water?

Also, is there an easy way to separate the CO2 produced from the baking soda?

If it is in contact with the air (and it is), then it will have the carbonic acid in it. You can’t really do anything to increase or decrease it, it is a function of it being in the air. I suppose you could exhale into it a bunch through a straw and bubble the CO2 in your lungs through it. That would increase the amount of carbonic acid in the battery.

As for separating the CO2 from the baking soda, no, not easily.