5E20.12 – Electrolysis of Water

Description: This demonstrations shows how the separation of hydrogen and oxygen in water creates an electric current.

Equipment:

Procedure:

Remove the red pin from the tube connected to the top nozzle on the H2 side
Using the syringe, add distilled water to the tube until water leaks out the bottom nozzle of the cell
Cap off the tube and let the cell settle for three minutes
Take out the inner containers from the H2 and O2 beakers, and fill the beakers distilled
water until the water level reaches the 0 line
Insert the containers back into the beakers
Adjust the water levels using the syringe until both beakers have the water level at the 0 line
Connect the battery pack to the cell using the plugs and the terminals on the cell
Turn the battery pack on; the inner containers should start filling up with H2 and O2 gas
Turn the battery pack off after the H2 gas fills the beaker to the 20 level or so
Unplug the battery pack and plug the motorized fan into the cell; the fan should start to spin

Notes:

There’s a manual that should be with the kit that can help you set it up
It might be interesting to note that the H2 gas fills up twice as quickly as the O2 gas; this makes sense since it’s breaking down water (H2O), which has twice as much hydrogen as oxygen
There’s a solar cell that you can use instead of a battery pack to split the water, given enough sunlight