This neat little experiment shows you how salt water chlorine generators work
06 Jun This neat little experiment shows you how salt water chlorine generators work
Produce your own chlorine!
from EuroChlor.org
Perform your own electrolysis. My own WHAT? Well, electrolysis: a chemical reaction between the electrons of electric current and the ions of a dissolved substance
You can for instance produce some real chlorine gas (a limited quantity of course) by applying electrolysis on a salt-in-water solution!
Complicated? Not at all. At least not on a ‘kitchen-scale’ 🙂 See here how you do it:
Download a full description of the experiment here
View the video animation of the experiment
Check out the list of the stuff you need:
The basic raw materials are a glass of salt water: +/- 2 teaspoons of kitchen salt per glass. Stir well.
Of course we ONLY use a low voltage power source: a 4.5 Volt battery. Effictive but not expensive!
The electrodes that conduct the current are two standard pencils, sharpened at each side. We fix these via two holes in a piece of cardboard.
The electrodes go into the salted water (tape the cardboard onto the glass for stability) and we connect them to the battery with two stripped electric wires.
The chlorine production starts nearly immediately at the pencil connected to the + pole. At the pencil connected to the – pole, another gas is formed: hydrogen. In the water, a third substance is generated (at low concentration): sodium hydroxide. Smell the swimming pool smell above the glass. You’ve just produced your own chlorine!
♦ Please respect these safety rules:
Perform the experiment in a well ventilated room
As a power source, use ONLY a 4.5V battery
Do not drink the water afterwards
♦ Let us know how it went and win a prize!
Did it work well? Was it messy or simple? Did you surprise your friends with your own chlorine production? Did you like the experiment?
Send us your feedback with the Euro Chlor Contact Form.
Every month, five sticky notes booklets and five memory sticks (8 GBytes!) can be won!
These will be sent at random to all website visitors who sent us feedback on the above experiment.
And a selection of your comments will be published (anonymously) on the brand-new ChlorineThings website that will be launched in September 2013