What is it that affects the speed of electrolysis amperage or voltage? How much of it would I need to electrolyze 100 gallons in a reasonable amount of time?

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_Scratch_6 years ago
So after you acquire the heavy water (if you do) what exactly would you do with it... you wouldnt throw it away...
Getting 1.5 gallons of Heavy Water? That's.... wow! lol, I'm speechless. It's either you're going to have to pay a huge electricity bill, or pay it little by little over the course of months, maybe a few years. You're gonna have to get a lot of generators and a lot of fuel. Maybe buy a large generator that can pump out a few kW? It would be used only for electrolysis, and you could use dozens of separate electrolysis chambers to distribute the power fairly equally. According to some sources, 24 volts is enough, any more will produce heat. Amperage, I'm not so sure.
voltman6 years ago
Think about it, normal water contains about 0.015% deuterium oxide. To produce just a tiny amount will give you a collossal electricity bill!. Anyway pure water is essentially non-conductive, so you need to add something to make it conduct better, one method that has been used is to add a small amount of sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Problem is now that your heavy water will have a lot of sodium ions in it. So now you need to remove these, this is normally done by vacuum distillation. (BTW Heavy water has a boiling point of just about a degree higher than normal light water). Actually its cheaper and easier to buy the stuff.
United Nuclear sell it at about $10 for 10grams, this is far higher purity than any home scientist will manage ('Ultrex' grade (99.999% pure) Deuterium Oxide).
steven079 years ago
umm 100 Gallons how are you going to store 380 kilos of gas? I think when you intend to only electrolyze the water high voltage helps, however i check this out from an official source because im probably wrong. You should be able to get thousands of volts from a car coil, at a good current , but electrolyzing that much water? it would be much cheaper just to buy the gas.
Riley C (author)  steven079 years ago
Im not trying to get the gas. I'm trying to produce heavy water. Heavy water is present in normal water just in very low concentrations. Also heavy water can resist electrolysis so if I electrolyze most of the water I'll be left with a higher concentration of heavy water.
Kiteman Riley C9 years ago
Heavy water? Hmm, are we attempting cold fusion, perchance?

According to Wiki:

Normal water contains less than 200 parts per million of deuterium.


To produce pure heavy water by distillation or electrolysis requires a large cascade of stills or electrolysis chambers, and consumes large amounts of power, so the chemical methods are generally preferred. The most important chemical method is the Girdler sulphide process.

The Girdler Sulphide process enriches water to about 15-20% heavy water ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girdler_sulfide_process ), and you need to use vacuum distillation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_distillation ) to get to the >99% needed to make it useful for nuclear applications.
Riley C (author)  Kiteman9 years ago
I'm just seeing if it can be done using only electrolysis
Kiteman Riley C9 years ago
Good luck. Any thoughts on what you will do with the heavy water? Sell it? Try cold fusion?
Riley C (author)  Kiteman9 years ago
I dont know if it's even possible, and even if it is chances are I don't have accurate enough tools to measure the weight of the water. So I may never know if I actually made heay water
you can seal it in a plasticbag, freeze it, and drop it in water. If it sinks, its heavy water.
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