SOME VALUABLE ELECTRICAL PROCESSES
Students of that branch of science known as physics are coming to the conclusion that electricity plays a much more important part in the universe than was supposed. They are led to believe that electrical attraction is the cement which binds together those exceedingly minute particles out of which everything is built up. Whether electricity binds them together or not, it is certain that electrical action can in some cases separate those particles, and this process of separation provides a means of carrying on some very remarkable and useful industrial processes.
Let us imagine a vessel filled with water to which has been added a little sulphuric acid, while suspended in it are two strips of platinum. There is a space between the strips, so that when their upper ends are suitably connected to a source of electric current that current flows from one strip to the other through the liquid.
That is an example of the apparatus for carrying out this electrical separation in its simplest form, and it will facilitate the further description if the names of various parts are enumerated.
The process itself is electrolysis; the liquid is the electrolyte, while the strips are the electrodes. The individual electrodes, again, have special names, that by which the current enters being the anode and that by which it leaves the cathode. It is not difficult to remember which is which if we bear in mind that the current traverses them in alphabetical order. Since, however, it may not be easy for the general reader to carry all these terms in his mind, we will, when it is necessary to differentiate between the two electrodes, call one the in-electrode and the other the out-electrode.
Returning now to our imaginary apparatus, let us turn on the current. At first nothing seems to be happening, although suitable instruments would show that current was flowing. Soon, however, little bubbles appear upon the electrodes, and these grow larger and larger, until they detach themselves from the platinum to which they have been adhering, float up to the surface and burst. The question which naturally arises is, What do those bubbles consist of? Are they air?
If we take means to collect the gases which formed them we get an unmistakable answer. The bubbles which arise from the in-electrode are oxygen, those from the other hydrogen. If we allow our apparatus to work for some time, and collect all the gas which arises, we shall find that there is twice as much hydrogen as oxygen. We shall also find, as the process goes on, that the quantity of water diminishes.
Perhaps I may be allowed at this point to remind my readers that water is a collection of minute ultra-microscopic particles called "molecules," each of which is formed of three smaller particles still called "atoms." Of the three atoms two are hydrogen and one oxygen. Water therefore consists of hydrogen and oxygen, there being twice as much of the former as there is of the latter.
We see, therefore, that electrolysis gives us hydrogen and oxygen in exactly those proportions in which they occur in water, and since we also see that as these gases appear the water itself disappears, we are led to conclude that the current is splitting up the water into the gases of which it is formed.
But the strange thing is that this will not work with pure water. We have to add something to it. In the case of our imaginary experiment it was sulphuric acid. What part does that play?