Prevent rusting by connecting to electricity?

[glycerol]

My textbook says that we may prevent a water pipe from rusting by connecting a more reactive metal to it with a wire... so i was thinking that can we prevent it from rusting by just simply connecting it to an electric source since electricity is a running electron flow...

 

[sigmavirus]

yeah that would work because you would be liberating the oxygen from the metal through electrolysis, so it shouldn't rust

 

[Doug Huffman]

See 'anodic protection' as in the Wikipedia.