Make a Nafion Divided Membrane Cell for Electrolysis

In this video we make a two compartment electrolysis cell divided with a Nafion membrane.
Ever wish you could filter just one ion? Nafion is an ionic polymer or "ionomer" that has sulfonate functional groups as part of it's PTFE structure. These sulfonate groups make the nafion permeable to cations, very similar to cationic ion exchange resin. Cations can hop from sulfonate group to sulfonate group and transfer through the membrane. Anions are blocked.
So if we apply an electric field we can force cations through the membrane and separate them from anions.
In this video we make a single compartment membrane cell that we'll use in a future video to make sodium hydroxide from sodium bicarbonate.
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My video posting rate will continue to be extremely erratic. But i hope to continue nonetheless. Thanks for still being there.

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With a mercury cathode cell metal ions are able to pass through the mercury but the non metal cannot. This does something similar but no toxic heavy metal. Awesome!

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When Cody's in the comments you know it's a good video !

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Can you use a lithium battery cell separator or the ions are incorrect size?

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please update mercury chatode for separating palladium with non metals contaminant Cody's

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*I have used common "Tyvek", the kind houses are wrapped in as a water barrier. It's cheaper than dirt to buy and does just about as good as Nafion.*

[@johnathancorgan3994]

I'm very interested in experimenting with novel (and existing) flow battery chemistry, and most of the amateur efforts I've seen use nafion for the separator. It would be very useful to see more about making it or a substitute in the amateur lab context. And welcome back, great to see you again.

[@ajjdgj6tmgedvnmtmek]

Making fluorocarbons is dangerous stuff because the process involves a lot of hydrofluoric acid, either as a reagent or as an end product. Hydrofluoric acid is a major health risk as it is both corrosive and a contact poison. Fluorine gas will also directly decompose into HF on contact with water, so trying to make small fluorocarbons and work from there via direct fluorination is also not safe in an amateur context. In theory you might be able to start with commercially available refrigerant and work from there, but anything going wrong would risk fluorine gas or HF buildup which would be very dangerous. Not to mention that polar fluorocarbon derivatives like Nafion are what the news is calling forever chemicals because they never degrade in nature and build up in living things because they're ionic. Any waste products (because nobody's going to be 100% in getting their components into their yield) would be incredibly hard to dispose of properly and would turn your lab into a brand new candidate for a Superfund site. Even disposing of a Nafion membrane can be legally problematic depending on local regulation, with the ultimate failsafe being incineration in a facility equipped to scrub out the HF released by thermal decomposition.

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