AC and Electrolysis

[Highlight]

I am not a scientist. But I hope you will bear with me anyway. Everybody knows how you can use DC to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in water through electrolysis. I don't know which is which, but oxygen is drawn to one pole of an electrode in water and hydrogen is drawn to the electrode with the other pole. I was just wondering if anybody knows this. With the H20 molecule being electrified, can the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in H20 take on an attribute of being attracted to one pole or another in a magnetic field? If not, then you can reject the rest of what I am going to say.

I was reading that using a Tesla coil, you could use just one volt of DC current and transform it into many thousands of volts of AC current. Then use that current to simply electrify water. Though not to the point of sending AC arcs of electricity through the water. With the water being highly electrified with AC current, use very strong Neodymium magnets to help break the H20 molecular bond and having oxygen being attracted to one pole and hydrogen being attracted to the other pole.

Electrolysis by itself using DC isn't very efficient. But adding the power of strong Neodymium magnets to the process with an AC current could make it much more efficient. And if you can efficiently get hydrogen out of water, our energy problems would be solved.

 

[renormalize]

With the H20 molecule being electrified, can the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in H20 take on an attribute of being attracted to one pole or another in a magnetic field?

The answer to that specific question is no. But that's not to say that magnetic fields can't have a (modest) effect on water electrolysis. See:
The effects of magnetic fields on the electrochemical and molecular dynamics during water electrolysis

 

[Baluncore]

Electrolysis by itself using DC isn't very efficient. But adding the power of strong Neodymium magnets to the process with an AC current could make it much more efficient.

DC is more efficient than AC when you convert the AC to DC by using a rectifier bridge with a reservoir capacitor, or a big inductive choke. One reason is that the reaction runs continuously, without reversing or stopping.

You get efficiency with DC by connecting many electrolysis cells in series, so the same current flows through all cells. That needs a higher voltage, but for say six cells, the loss of energy in the rectifier becomes irrelevant.

You can take the current directly from say, a 30 volt solar panel, to drive say, fifteen electrolysis cells in series.

 

[Highlight]

The answer to that specific question is no. But that's not to say that magnetic fields can't have a (modest) effect on water electrolysis. See:
The effects of magnetic fields on the electrochemical and molecular dynamics during water electrolysis

I don't have a lot of time or expertise to go through the document you provided a link to. Though it said that in one application, the introduction of a magnetic field could result in a about a 6% increase in electrolysis. Which isn't enough to make much difference. But I'm glad to see that there are scientists working on the problem of improving electrolysis.

 

[Highlight]

DC is more efficient than AC when you convert the AC to DC by using a rectifier bridge with a reservoir capacitor, or a big inductive choke. One reason is that the reaction runs continuously, without reversing or stopping.

You get efficiency with DC by connecting many electrolysis cells in series, so the same current flows through all cells. That needs a higher voltage, but for say six cells, the loss of energy in the rectifier becomes irrelevant.

You can take the current directly from say, a 30 volt solar panel, to drive say, fifteen electrolysis cells in series.

I spoke of converting DC to AC. No doubt doing so would cause some loss in efficiency. And no doubt a huge drop an amperage. But I was thinking that having around 100,000 volts of AC from a one volt DC source might be beneficial. Though not knowing much about electronics, maybe doing so isn't possible from a one DC source without causing too much draw from the one DC source.

Also, Tesla was able to cause arcs of electricity to spark through the air using his Tesla coil AC current. I was thinking that such energy run through water might do something to weaken the molecular bond in H2O. Maybe doing that in conjunction with a regular DC electrolysis might help improve the electrolysis in an overall manner. Using both AC and DC. Along with doing so in a strong magnetic field.

Basically, I am just spitballing with the whole idea. It might give somebody with much more knowledge to be able to build off of.

 

[berkeman]

I don't have a lot of time or expertise to go through the document you provided a link to.

That's not a good sign. You were given a good reference to help you answer your question, and you don't have time to read through it?

I spoke of converting DC to AC. No doubt doing so would cause some loss in efficiency. And no doubt a huge drop an amperage. But I was thinking that having around 100,000 volts of AC from a one volt DC source might be beneficial.

No, that is basically impossible and/or extremely inefficient.

Basically, I am just spitballing with the whole idea.

Please don't do that. It's fine to ask reasonable questions, but it's not fine to suggest blue-sky impossible stuff here at PF.

 

[Highlight]

That's not a good sign. You were given a good reference to help you answer your question, and you don't have time to read through it?


No, that is basically impossible and/or extremely inefficient.


Please don't do that. It's fine to ask reasonable questions, but it's not fine to suggest blue-sky impossible stuff here at PF.

1. I did read through some of it. But as I said, I'm not a scientist. Much of it was way over my head. Such as speaking of effects I have never heard of before. I just came here to ask a simple question to those who are educated in such matters. I didn't mean to offend you or anybody else. I asked about using AC instead of DC in electrolysis might make it more efficient. And if using magnets in conjunction with that would cause any significant difference. From what you said and the article you provided, I found out that it didn't. So you educated me some there. For that, I thank you.

2. Next, I spoke of converting DC to AC. In that, I will again bring up Tesla. I've seen him sitting amongst his equipment with huge arcs of what were basically AC lightening bolts flashing around him. As you no doubt have too. I have absolutely no idea as to how efficiently he was able to turn DC current into AC current like that. Maybe it took more DC current to get out what AC current he did produce. Again, I don't mean to offend you with my ignorance. I am just trying to come up with any idea that might benefit humanity. Which though it comes from ignorance, is still a noble cause in my view.

3. Next, I will bring up something that isn't "blue-sky impossible stuff." From the paper you showed me, I was able to find out that ultraviolet light - radiation can be useful in breaking the H20 molecular bond. I can go a step beyond that. But it involves radioactive material. Which I know even less about. For instance, I have seen pictures of spent nuclear fuel rods sitting at the bottom of a pool meant to keep the rods cool. You could clearly see through the water that the rods gave off a bluish glow. That as you no doubt know is because they were giving off gamma radiation. The thing that puzzles me about that is how they can do that without making the entire pool of water radioactive.

Beyond that, I was watching something once on some science show where they were using gamma radiation to sterilize pallets of food. Apparently they were able to do so without making the food itself radioactive. Maybe that was because they didn't expose the food to the radiation for very long. Basically all they had to do was to expose the pallets of food to the type of nuclear material as the kind that they kept at the bottom of a spent nuclear fuel rod cooling pool.

What if you exposed the water that you wanted to put through an electrolysis process to the same kind of radiation. Wouldn't such energy make the H20 molecular bond easier to break? And apparently the water wouldn't become radioactive. The hydrogen and oxygen gas that came from it shouldn't be radioactive either. And all you are using to produce the gamma rays is useless nuclear waste. So, what do you think of that idea?

 

[Baluncore]

@Highlight There are thousands of scientists looking for ways to increase the efficiency of the electrolysis of water. Unfortunately you are a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in that you are so far behind that you think you are first.

Maybe you should ask Google AI separately about each of your ideas. That way you will discover more about the science, and in a more orderly manner.

Unless you are investing money in actually generating hydrogen and oxygen efficiently by electrolysis, you should not be dreaming of ways to do it differently, it is as if you have ADHD.

The electrolysis of water requires high currents at very low voltages. The impressive lightning strikes from Tesla coils are irrelevant, as they have tremendous voltages with very low current.

 

[berkeman]

I didn't mean to offend you or anybody else.

No offense taken. We just strive to keep the signal-to-noise ratio very high here, so spitballing ideas is not consistent with that.

One of the most important things I have learned over the many years of my engineering brainstorming and patents is to look for "non-existence proofs" early in the pursuit of each idea. The proof can be some fundamental law (like conservation of energy) or some more subtle issue like efficiency of energy conversion. If you can more quickly eliminate non-fruitful ideas, that leaves you more time and bandwidth to spend on other ideas that may bear fruit.