Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1

by Michael Faraday

590. These experiments led to the expectation that the power of causing oxygen and hydrogen to combine, which could be conferred upon any piece of platina by making it the positive pole of a voltaic pile, was not essentially dependent upon the action of the pile, or upon any structure or arrangement of parts it might receive whilst in association with it, but belonged to the platina at all times, and was always effective when the surface was perfectly clean. And though, when made the positive pole of the pile in acids, the circumstances might well be considered as those which would cleanse the surface of the platina in the most effectual manner, it did not seem impossible that ordinary operations should produce the same result, although in a less eminent degree.

591. Accordingly, a platina plate (569.) was cleaned by being rubbed with a cork, a little water, and some coal-fire ashes upon a glass plate: being washed, it was put into mixed oxygen and hydrogen, and was found to act at first slowly, and then more rapidly. In an hour, a cubical inch and a half had disappeared.

592. Other plates were cleaned with ordinary sand-paper and water; others with chalk and water; others with emery and water; others, again, with black oxide of manganese and water; and others with a piece of charcoal and water. All of these acted in tubes of oxygen and hydrogen, causing combination of the gases. The action was by no means so powerful as that produced by plates having been in communication with the battery; but from one to two cubical inches of the gases disappeared, in periods extending from twenty-five to eighty or ninety minutes.

593. Upon cleaning the plates with a cork, ground emery, and dilute sulphuric acid, they were found to act still better. In order to simplify the conditions, the cork was dismissed, and a piece of platina foil used instead; still the effect took place. Then the acid was dismissed, and a solution of potassa used, but the effect occurred as before.

594. These results are abundantly sufficient to show that the mere mechanical cleansing of the surface of the platina is sufficient to enable it to exert its combining power over oxygen and hydrogen at common temperatures.

595. I now tried the effect of heat in conferring this property upon platina (584.). Plates which had no action on the mixture of oxygen and hydrogen were heated by the flame of a freshly trimmed spirit-lamp, urged by a mouth blowpipe, and when cold were put into tubes of the mixed gases: they acted slowly at first, but after two or three hours condensed nearly all the gases.

596. A plate of platina, which was about one inch wide and two and three-quarters in length, and which had not been used in any of the preceding experiments, was curved a little so as to enter a tube, and left in a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen for thirteen hours: not the slightest action or combination of the gases occurred. It was withdrawn at the pneumatic trough from the gas through the water, heated red-hot by the spirit-lamp and blowpipe, and then returned when cold into the same portion of gas. In the course of a few minutes diminution of the gases could be observed, and in forty-five minutes about one cubical inch and a quarter had disappeared. In many other experiments platina plates when heated were found to acquire the power of combining oxygen and hydrogen.

597. But it happened not infrequently that plates, after being heated, showed no power of combining oxygen and hydrogen gases, though left undisturbed in them for two hours. Sometimes also it would happen that a plate which, having been heated to dull redness, acted feebly, upon being heated to whiteness ceased to act; and at other times a plate which, having been slightly heated, did not act, was rendered active by a more powerful ignition.

598. Though thus uncertain in its action, and though often diminishing the power given to the plates at the positive pole of the pile (584.), still it is evident that heat can render platina active, which before was inert (595.). The cause of its occasional failure appears to be due to the surface of the metal becoming soiled, either from something previously adhering to it, which is made to adhere more closely by the action of the heat, or from matter communicated from the flame of the lamp, or from the air itself. It often happens that a polished plate of platina, when heated by the spirit-lamp and a blowpipe, becomes dulled and clouded on its surface by something either formed or deposited there; and this, and much less than this, is sufficient to prevent it from exhibiting the curious power now under consideration (634. 636.). Platina also has been said to combine with carbon; and it is not at all unlikely that in processes of heating, where carbon or its compounds are present, a film of such a compound may be thus formed, and thus prevent the exhibition of the properties belonging to pure platina[134].

599. The action of alkalies and acids in giving platina this property was now experimentally examined. Platina plates (569.) having no action on mixed oxygen and hydrogen, being boiled in a solution of caustic potassa, washed, and then put into the gases, were found occasionally to act pretty well, but at other times to fail. In the latter case I concluded that the impurity upon the surface of the platina was of a nature not to be removed by the mere solvent action of the alkali, for when the plates were rubbed with a little emery, and the same solution of alkali (592.), they became active.