SpudFiles

I'm surprised he never learned that. My teacher showed up pure water wont transmit electrity using a lamp and using pure and tap water as switches.

May I ask why you want hydrogen anyway? Is it for a cannon?

Insomniac wrote:Bicarbonate of soda is a good alternative to using salt, and its cheap and easy to find.

Yea use bicarbonate of soda like he says, it's cheap, easy to get a hold of, and it doesn't produce noxious fumes that can eat the tissue away from the insides of your lungs like salt does.

Is it possible to get hydrogen from a welding supply store? I know that it is used to weld aluminum sometimes but I can't find any online.

What, might I ask, are you planning on using it in anyhow?

Just curious *looks around and whistles to self*. I plan on making a mini soon from a small hydraulic cylinder and it would be neat to use hydrogen. If I did though I would probably use the drano and foil method.

Just keep in mind that hydrogen and oxygen are both extremely dangerous, especially pure. If you have any thought of using them, especially together, you'd better have one strong cylinder, and you'd better have a system to detonate it remotely in case something fails structurally.

Salt (sodium chloride) is just fine as an electrolyte. It will release chlorine gas for a while until all the salt is broken down, and the sodium will combine with a hydrogen and an oxygen to make sodium hydroxide.
NaCl -----> Na + Cl
(2)H20-------> (2)H2 +O2
(2)Na + H2 + O2 ------>(2)NaOH

You don't need to use a lot of sodium chloride. I just add like 1 gram to like 12oz of water and it works fine. Of course, just do it in an area with some ventilation, and don't collect any gas until all the sodium chloride has been broken down. And it would probably be best not to use iodized salt for this. And since sodium hydroxide isn't used up, you can keep adding water and it will keep going indeffinitely.

That design for a cell would be awesome. I think I may need to make one out of clear PVC or something. Having pure O2 would be awesome to mess with.

Electrodes can be carbon rods from lantern batteries, except they deteriorate very quickly. I ran a small cell with one (I was using it as the cathode I think, and had steel wool as the anode I believe) just overnight using a 9volt (with like a tablespoon of sodium chloride as an electrolyte) and it was probably half the diameter it was when I started.

Welding tungstens work well, I have found. I believe they only have like 2% tungsten, but I used the same one for like 4 days straight with no noticable deterioration. Of course, I wasn't using any electrolyte. I was using a 9 volt 1 amp AC adapter with this by the way though. You could get these online or at a welding supply store. I kind of, accidently, put this one in my pocket when I was at school in welding class. We don't use the TIG welder though, so I figure nobody will mind it going missing. There were a bunch more though, so I think I may need to get a couple backups.

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Someone was talking about using hydrogen for welding aluminum. I have not heard of that before. Shielding gases are usually inert gases, or sometimes carbon dioxide. They may have pure argon, pure CO2, argon/co2 mixes, some things they use "tri-mix" which has CO2, argon, and oxygen. I think helium can be used. I'm pretty sure nitrogen is used also. How would using a highly explosive gas in the presence of an arc, and oxygen around it be a good idea though?
I looked it up and Wiki says Hydrogen is indeed used, so I believe it. I just don't understand why you would want to?

No, the hydrogen is the fuel gas.

So about what is the volume of your chamber going to be?

i dunno exactly. but im probably going to have a 4in by 12in chamber. i might change it tho

LGM wrote:Is it possible to get hydrogen from a welding supply store? I know that it is used to weld aluminum sometimes but I can't find any online.

could i ask what kind of aluminum welding this is i have never heard of this method for welding

peace
chaos

Yea most welding I've seen is with oxyacetalene or arc welding.

ive heard of hydrogen being used to weld aluminum, but usuaully it is used when welding or cutting underwater is needed to be done because the acetylene will become to unstable as you take it down deeper (its like 15 feet or something thats the max to use oxy acetylen underwater, then you have to switch to oxyhydrogen.) And you should be able to get it at a welding supply store or a gas supply store.

Weld with gasoline!!!
FTF!