What Happens to a Magnetic Sphere in an Electrolyte with Current?

[sitisuhanis]

If you have a metal sphere of the order of a say, few micrometers in diameter, and you put it in an electrolyte solution - what would you expect to happen when a current is passed through that solution? I am referring here to charges on the surface of the sphere.
Cheers!

 

[P-man]

Well the sphere would get electrically charged?

 

[somasimple]

The sphere will be possibly in the circuit but charges will go once the current will stop.

 

[P-man]

You want this sphere to continue being charged once the current has stopped flowing?

 

[rachmaninoff]

The applied voltage would create an electric field across the microsphere. Since it's a good conductor, electrons/holes in the metal would re-arrange to try to cancel the electric field. Ions in solution would be attracted to these charges, sheilding their effect.

electrode                                                      electrode
+    ------> current, +ion motion                              -
+   <------  -ion motion                                      -
+                                                             -
+              +             -                                 -
+            +     -     +                                   -
+                -   ball  +     - free ions               -
+          +     -         +                                 -
+                  -      +       -                         -
+            +                 -                              -

(note the distinction between the current ions, and the "stationary" ions shielding the sphere)
These are relatively small effects; consider that you have only 2-3V across several cm of electrolyte (small electric field). Ignoring the ion current (which has no not charge), this can be treated as a simple problem of electrostatics: a metal sphere surrounded by a dielectric, in an applied E field - you can solve this with an expansion in spherical harmonics.

 

[P-man]

And if you set that ball in motion in a strait line, which way would it bend? Or would the elctric charge not affect it?