Can you make water

Reacting hydrogen and oxygen is basically burning hydrogen gas, except rather than using the limited amount of oxygen in the air, you're feeding the fire. During combustion, oxygen is added to a molecule, which produces water in this reaction.

Combustion also releases a lot of energy. Heat and light are produced so quickly that a shock wave expands outward. Basically, you have an explosion. The more water you make at once, the bigger the explosion. It works for launching rockets, but you've seen videos where that went horribly wrong.

The Hindenburg explosion is another example of what happens when a lot of hydrogen and oxygen get together. So, we can make water from hydrogen and oxygen, and chemists and educators often do—in small quantities. It's not practical to use the method on a large scale because of the risks and because it's much more expensive to purify hydrogen and oxygen to feed the reaction than it is to make water using other methods, to purify contaminated water, or to condense water vapor from the air.

Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph. Chemistry Expert. Helmenstine holds a Ph. Is there one graphite electrode at which the reaction is more pronounced?

Which pole of the battery is this graphite pin connected to, the positive or negative? Put your nose inside the cup and smell the reaction products. Is there any smell? If so, how does it smell? Remove the cup from the battery again. With the medicine dropper, fill both plugged-up jumbo straws with the baking soda solution from inside the cup that has the graphite pins. Once they are full, close each with one of your fingers and turn them upside down. Submerge them into the cup with the baking soda solution and carefully place them on top of the graphite pins one straw on each so that the straws stay completely filled with baking soda solution.

If the straws do not stay upright, you can lean them against the side of the cup. What do you think will happen with the straws? Once the straws are placed on top of the graphite pins, put the cup back on top of the battery. Leave it there for 10 minutes and press the cup down a little to make sure that the electrodes stay connected and the electrode reactions are happening continuously throughout that time.

Observe the jumbo straws that you put on top of the graphite pins. What is happening to the water that you put in there? Do you notice a difference between the two water levels in both straws? Which one is higher, which is lower; to what battery poles are each of them connected?

After the 10 minutes are over, mark the water level in each of the straws with the permanent marker. How much more water was displaced by the reaction products on the negative pole compared with the positive pole? Is it the same, double or triple? Extra: If you have any pH strips that can measure the acidity or basicity of solutions, use them to measure the pH in each of the jumbo straws once the water level decreases by about 50 percent. Carefully remove the jumbo straws from the electrodes and immediately seal each one with a finger once you lift it off the electrodes.

Making sure you do not lose the water that is inside, dip a pH test strip inside. What color does the test strip show and what pH does this represent?

Is there a difference between the solutions in the two straws? How do they differ, and why do you think this is the case? Extra: Repeat the experiment, but instead of adding baking soda to the distilled water, add a teaspoon of table salt sodium chloride, or NaCl and let the electrolysis run for five minutes.

Do the electrode reactions change? What about the smell of the reaction products; can you make out a certain smell this time? Why do you think this is? Extra: Exchange the graphite electrodes with metal thumbtacks.

You might need to use a fresh cup for this. Push the thumbtacks into the bottom of the cup so that they do not touch each other but so that each one touches one of the battery poles once you place the cup on top of the battery. With the thumbtacks no glue seal is needed. Repeat the original procedure but this time add one teaspoon of table salt to the distilled water. Observe the electrode reactions. What happens this time? Look closely at the pin that is connected to the positive battery pole.

Can you see other reaction products besides gas? What do you think happened? How do the metal thumbtacks look after you take them out again? Build a Cooler. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Support science journalism. Knowledge awaits. See Subscription Options Already a subscriber?

Create Account See Subscription Options. Continue reading with a Scientific American subscription. Rather unfortunately, our water coolers are not cut out for scientific water experiments. Just in case you were wondering. It was easy to understand and not at all boring to read. Thank you for answering my question with a satisfying answer.

Your email address will not be published. But we also have an explosion and — if our experiment was big enough, a deadly one.