Producing hydrogen and oxygen gas

[kleptophobiac]

I've built myself an electrolysis unit, but I keep destroying electrodes. Aluminum, copper, stainless steel all fail within hours of applying power.

I'm currently testing nichrome wire, and the results have been far more promising.

Is there anything else that is readily available that is up to the task?

I did manage to collect some hydrogen before I destroyed all those electrodes, and shot off my basic combustion gun with it. It was quite a roar. My calculations suggest pressure got to about 115 psi, and with no valving or U shaped tubes to get in the way that spud went a very, very long way.

[DReynolds]

The problem you're having is that you are producing ions. As the water dissociates, you have H+ ions on one side and O2- ions on the other side. Most of these ions combine into diatomic hydrogen and oxygen which are gaseous (What you're collecting) some of those ions are actually attacking the metallic electrodes and corroding them, if I understand you correctly. What you need are carbon electrodes. They'll be a bit more expensive, but they'll last for as long as you need them. What does this whole mechanism look like? Are there plans online or did you wing it?

[DReynolds]

Also, I believe they use platinum. Also, this site has all the electrodes you need, and cheap.
www.hometrainingtools.com/catalog/physical-science-physics/electricity-electronics/cat_electrodes-static-electricity.html
What are you using for electrocity? and as collection vessels?

[DReynolds]

Additionally, are you just using the hydrogen and regular atmospheric oxygen? or are you recombining the hydrogen and oxygen you produced? The latter option seems like it would be enormously powerful, as in, too powerful for the materials.

[Lukas]

Let me jump in on this one. As I recall, using iron for the electrode where hydrogen is produced is Ok, hydrogen doesn't attack it as much as oxygen. For carbon electrodes, try pencil leads. Either the little ones for mechanical pencils, or whittle down some cheap wooden ones. Also, some batteries have carbon electrodes, but they are a pain to get out and they don't last all that long.

But I think using sulfuric acid (commonly sold as "Liquid Fire" drain cleaner at hardware stores) as the electrolyte can prolong the life of any electrodes. I don't know how well this would work, but charcoal is also a source of carbon. You could try making your own charcoal out of some sticks. Platinum and silver electrodes would do well, but I don't know where to get those materials.

For the amount of trouble you're going to need to go to to collect H2 and O2, the power of the gun isn't going to be that impressive, but you can certainly try.

Lukas

[DReynolds]

After reading this post, I decided to do it myself. I used Steel wool and my electrodes (lots of surface area.) It worked well enough - I generated about a liter of hydrogen. However, as expected, the steel woll corroded fairly quickly, and I got some realy nasty, slimy precipitate out of it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try a cannonn with it. (Probably too cold to ignite anyway.) Have you addressed the question of where you're getting pure oxygen?

[blowemupspudguy]

besides what has allready been mentioned i don't know how to make oxygen. You can make hydrogen much faster by dropping some alluminum foil in some hydrochloric acid(muratic acid works fine for me, if anyone knows any reason y i shouldn't do this please tell me)

you can't just do this in a bottle or it'll heat up to much to touch and could explode, you gotta have a glass bottle to hold the acid and alluminum foil, and a cork with a piece of that copper pipe used for blowers on air compressors comein out of it into the bottom of a plastic bottle. the plastic bottle needs to be at least 1/2 filled up with water to cool the gass and get rid of any junk that might come through the pipe with it. You can just put a balloon or whatever you want right over the top of the plastic bottle to collect the gass. The glass bottle needs to be set in a pan of cool water the whole time to keep it from getting too hot.

i haven't done this nearly enough times to say it's safe so try it on a VERY small scale. The chemical reaction is very violent(it uses the nearly same stuff as those ever so common federal offence creating draino bombs) If you don't want to build the bottle setup you can buy a hydrogen genorator off ebay that will do the same thing. If anyone can offer me any advice or safety stuff on this, i'll take it. iv read everything i can find online but im open to any new stuff.
-Mr Man Personguy

[blowemupspudguy]

ok iv got your oxygen producing method, drop some yeast in hydrogen peroxide, pure oxygen bubbles to the surface. also iv since tested the hydrogen producing method in my last post more fully and havn't blown myself up yet. i keep the hydrogen in milk jugs, you have to use it within like a half hour or so because the hydrogen tends to leak out of anything you put it in. i tried to make a test potato gun out of a milk jug and wanted to see if it would work with a piece of 1/2" taped to the jug as a barrel, it just blew it to pieces. ill bet you could get it to work like none other in a hybrid with a little oxygen from the yeast.

[turbosuper]

Try using the graphite rods in 6V batteries for your electrolysis unit, I read in Popular Science that they never wear down. Also you could try mixing hydrochloric acid and magnesium and collecting the resulting gas (hydrogen).

[blowemupspudguy]

magnesium does the same thing as aluminum, iv tried both and i like the aluminum beter because it's cheaper and there is a delay before it starts reacting with the acid

[kvakkelars]

A easy way to make hydrogen:

Take a 1.5 litres soda bottle and fill it half away with
Aluminium foil, NaOh (a soap type) and
water. This will produce hydrogen.

I'm a norwegian (europe), so my english
is a little bit stiff

[Lukas]

Very good, kvakkelars! I'd forgoten about that method. NaOH is sodium hydroxide for the non-chemistry-freaks, you can find it as Draino crystals. To make sure that's what you have, look at the warnings on the label for "CAUSTIC" or "Caution, contains sodium hyrdoxide" or "STRONG BASE" or "ALKALI".

DReynolds: Actually, you hit upon an interesting method. Using steel wool makes the oxygen produced react with the iron, which generates extra electricity. That means you can make hydrogen faster. It also means you don't need to try to collect each gas seperately, just seal the container and have one hose for the hydrogen coming out.