A Hydrogen Generator

[@EdwardTriesToScience]

Well whadda know, I was just working on my new electrolyzer after my last sprung a leak, good design

[@christinley5213]

I always learn from you.. thank you!! I just want to 3d print a case for your powersupply lol!!!!

[@ScrapScience]

Haha! The power supply could definitely do with a nicer case. I've been using that janky cardboard box for a long while now. I'll make it look nicer one day... hopefully.

[@christinley5213]

@@ScrapScience hey if it gets the job done lol!!! Its not the paint brush.. but the artist.. and your a dam good artist !!:)

[@kreynolds1123]

Make the hole in the pieces of acrylic almost all the way up. Add fabric between the two acrylic plates, it is hydrophilic thus preventing gas bubbles from crossing the membrane. The greater area and shorter distance through which ions have to travel will decrease resistance.

[@Kevin-jz9bg]

I love how compact it is. Also impressed that it draws 10A at 5V. I didn't know you could use NaOH, I've been using baking soda this whole time. Will KOH will work better for the same molarity as the NaOH since K+ is more mobile?

[@EdwardTriesToScience]

KOH is actually ideal for water electrolysis, around 5-10% will be good

[@sharadkumarsingh4802]

KOH is much better but it's also more corrosive and dangerous, also baking soda gives off CO2 at the anode not oxygen. The resistance of NaHCO3 is muchh higher than NaOH

[@ScrapScience]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed. There are many electrochemically inert electrolytes that will work for water electrolysis in principle. Sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, sodium sulfate, sodium hydroxide, and all of their corresponding potassium salts will work if you have unreactive electrodes. This is because they are made up of ions that are completely electrochemically inert under normal conditions (which means your products will always be H2 and O2, provided your electrode materials don't react in any way). Of these main options, the potassium salts are better, since (as you've said) K+ is more mobile than Na+. Additionally, the mobility of the anions follows the trend: OH- > CO3(2-) > HCO3- > SO4(2-), so the hydroxides are most ideal. NaOH and KOH also give the benefit of being extremely basic, which allows you to use a nickel anode without any significant corrosion over time. Other electrolytes usually require more expensive anodes like platinum in order to avoid corrosion. In general, KOH is a clear winner as the electrolyte, but it's a little tricky for me to find any, so I've used NaOH (which is the next best thing).

[@koukouzee2923]

I have been using lead electrodes and sulphuric acid as electrolyte (30%) And a microwave transformer I modified it for 6.5volts and 30 amps And it works excellent It gets hot (30 ducking amps duh) but if I make an electrolyte circulating system that could fix that

[@kreynolds1123]

@@koukouzee2923 what is the current density with lead electrodes?

[@BalaMurugan-hk2gd]

This channel contains interesting contents. Keeping doing bruh

[@fallu6224]

Hey, Is it possible to make sodium using electrolysis without melting sodium hydroxide. Could you help me with this problem. Every year I always stumbled to the same problem and you I can't buy any sodium where I live unfortunately

[@ScrapScience]

I'm afraid there really aren't many ways of making sodium that are easier than electrolysing molten sodium hydroxide, especially not ones that involve electrolysis. There is, of course, Nurdrage's 'menthol catalysed magnesium reduction method', which is about as easy as it gets for making sodium (this doesn't involve electrolysis). Beyond that, you could conceivably electrolyse sodium perchlorate in a propylene carbonate solvent at room temperature (probably under inert atmosphere and very dry conditions) to make sodium. However, if you can't get sodium, you probably can't get propylene carbonate or an inert atmosphere. Other than that, the electrolysis of molten sodium hydroxide is about the only way to do it. Molten sodium chloride is also a possibility, but that's even more difficult generally.

[@ivanfaye3041]

Loge ur vids keep it up Ps : I still remember the building of the old hydrogen generator

[@bobonestone1807]

Where can I find out more about how electrolysis effects chemistry.. bowling points exedra

[@ArktourosUltorMaximus7600]

Hey bro continue with that Heavy water series......

[@nadi_3305]

Hey, because you have much experience with elecrolysis, could you make a video about making hydrogen peroxide by the electrolysis of suphuric acid?

[@ScrapScience]

I've looked into this a lot in the past. The electrolysis stage (to generate persulfuric acid) doesn't seem too tricky, but it's the vacuum distillation step afterwards (to convert the persulfuric acid into peroxide) that's a little bit beyond my ability at this point in time. One day I'll hopefully have the setup to be able to pull it off, and I'll give it a go, but for now it's a little bit too difficult to try.

[@kreynolds1123]

Take note, the plastic bags are relativly highly permible to hydrogen gas. So it won't store long. Aluminum lined plastic bags will help.

[@ScrapScience]

Thanks for the tip!

[@kreynolds1123]

@@ScrapScience mylar, potato chip bags. 😀

[@6alecapristrudel]

TBH the volume in the bags is kind of tricky to judge. If we approximate them as spheres, the volume varies quickly with radius (cubed), so you may be closer to 2:1 volume than you think. But then again hydrogen is good at leaking out of things. Who knows.

[@ScrapScience]

Yeah definitely. Volume is always pretty difficult to judge just on sight. When I was filming that bit, I was pretty convinced that the oxygen had more than half the volume of the hydrogen (I was doing my best to judge the cubic relationship between diameter/volume). But now that I look back on the footage, the ratio looks a lot more like 2:1 than I thought...

[@BubblesAdventures17]

You should do a video on electrosis oxidation of metals under certain voltages for various metals!!

[@RittifiHffjdidi]

Im not able to find pure Nickel electrodes, but i found Nickel plated steel would that be also resistant in a NaOH solution?

[@ScrapScience]

If it's a good plating, then yes it will do fine.

[@kreynolds1123]

1)KOH has a higher conductivity over a wider range of concentrations. Check out conductivity graphs. 2) Distance between the plates does matter, and so does the cross section through which current is conducted. It is very much like a wire, where the thinner the wire, the more resistance the wire has, except we're talking about ions being conducted through the water. And the more narrow a channel through which ions can travel the more resistance they will have. 3) And then there is the area of the plates which limits how much current can flow. Doubling the surface area is sort of like adding two resistors in parallel reducing the resistance to ion current in half. With stainless steel You want to run no more than 0.5 amps per square inch plate surface area. And there are 6.4516 square cm in a square inch. I suspect Nickle is roughly similar limit. Anyone or a combination of these factors can contribute to the cells high resistance as reported at 1:20.

[@noicefroog8056]

when you were designing it, it didnt look anything like a bomb?

[@PotionsMaster666]

Awesome work ! Now I want to see it run on brine to generate chlorine, but I recon electrode would get fucked. Anyways Thanks for the content man... Looking forward to peroxide update ;)

[@ScrapScience]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm afraid the nickel anode can't be used to make chlorine, it'll just form nickel chloride in solution instead. Even if the electrodes were inert, the poor quality separator means we'd be generating mostly chlorates on the anode instead of chlorine gas. It's funny you mentioned peroxide though, since that's the major reason I made this generator in the first place. Eventually, the H2/O2 gasses from this thing will hopefully be used as inputs for the fully catalytic anthraquinone process for making H2O2 (I've given up on the direct electrolytic production). That's a long, long way away though, so don't get your hopes too high.

[@kreynolds1123]

18 grams of water (1 mole) elelectolitically broken down makes 1 mole molecular hydrogen (2 grams), and 1/2 mole of molecular oxygen, (16 grams). 1 mole of gas at standard temperature and pressure (stp) =22.4liters. So 1.5 moles of hydrogen and oxygen = 33.6 liters of hydrogen and oxygen gas at stp 33.6liter/18grams of water = 1.8666 liters of HHO per gram of water. The above doesn't count water vapor in the gases.

[@TeslaFactory]

So what are you wa ting to use the Hydrogen for? As a reducing agent, or?

[@ScrapScience]

It's the first step in a very very long term goal where we'll be making hydrogen peroxide from the hydrogen/oxygen output. I haven't made any progress with it at this stage, but I'll get there eventually.

[@RittifiHffjdidi]

​@@ScrapScienceThats sounds interesting do you have more information on it?

[@Jkauppa]

making helium through fusion from ionized deuterium gas, ie, mini desktop fusion reactor, not necessarily "above one"

[@Jkauppa]

fluorescent glow tube from a light

[@Jkauppa]

based on that, the plate capacitor with electrolyte is the best generator

[@Jkauppa]

as much plate surface area you have, the better you have total conductivity, amps

[@Jkauppa]

carbon to hydrogen forced electrolytic oxidation below 1.23, at 0.2v

[@Jkauppa]

destructive distillation of biomass into carbon and hydrogen, water, all co/h2 to c/h2/h2o

[@learodriguez1362]

YEAAAH BAYBEEEEE

[@koukouzee2923]

Around 9:00 Why is it pulsing ?

[@ejkozan]

For just hydrogen production, maybe some experiments with urea electrolysis? More hydrogen for the buck (of electricity XD)

[@ScrapScience]

Definitely! I bought some urea specifically for testing this not long ago, so I'll be trying it out at some point in the future. To be honest, I'm most impressed by the opportunity to make nearly pure nitrogen gas...

[@ejkozan]

@@ScrapScience True, especially for home organic chemistry it can be godsent.

[@bobsagely812]

How can nitrogen be made with this contraption? Imagine how much money can be saved not buying gas canisters if you're doing reactions with inert gas

[@ejkozan]

@@bobsagely812 In case of urea electrolysis, on one electrode you are producing hydrogen and other mixture of N2 and CO2. And with lower voltage than splitting H2O. True is that even cheaper nitrogen source are medical oxygen concentrators: in their case enriched nitrogen is byproduct of oxygen concentration. And because they use just molecular sieves it is even cheaper source. Everything depends on amount of nitrogen that you need, small scale, electrolysis, medium, oxygen concentrator can be great, even bigger scale, nitrogen bottle or special separation membrane. Technology depending on your needs.

[@jjprospector9170]

What u seal it up

[@kreynolds1123]

Yup, only 1.23 volts × amps = power in watts consumed in the chemical process of splitting water while Every volt × amps above that is power in watts going to make to making heat. 3.3v × 5 amps = 16.5 watts consumed from the power supply, but 1.23v×5amps = 6.15 watts stored in splitting water which leaves (3.3v-1.23v)×5amps=10.35 watts going to heat. One can electrocically simulate this with a resistor and a 1.23v zener diode. The power the zener diode consumes simulates power for producing HHO, while power the resistor consumes is lost as waste heat. And just as no current flows with a supply voltages below the zener voltage 1.23v. No current flows below waters break down voltage.

[@ScrapScience]

Awesome explanation, thanks! I've always loved the zener diode representation of electrolytic cells, it's a very elegant electrical representation of the whole process.

[@klokoloko2114]

You should consider design of HHO generators with membrane , they need just 1.8 volts so much less heating and higher efficiency. Find some on KZbin. And to be clear I do not support HHO for cars because it's a scum that do not improve fuel efficiency..

[@niaimack]

You might want to take a look at the NightHawkInLight channel, he has a very good design for a Hydrogen/Oxygen Generator from 2 months ago. I would link it but i dont know if I would be flagged as spam.

[@ScrapScience]

Ah yes! I've been a fan of NightHawkInLight for a long while now. His hydrogen/oxygen generator video was excellent (though the corrosion of his electrodes did make me a little nervous).