Hyrdolosis question..

Factual Questions
1

At school, my whole grade has been issued an assignment. This assignment is to design an experiment, any experiment.

Now because i am in the highest science class my teacher told us she expects a certain (high) level of experiment from us, now while everyone else is making batteries out of lemons and growing plants using different soils or even teaching rats to do tricks, i have been given advice to make a Hydrolosis Machine (i.e something that seperates water into Hydrogen and Oxygen) I have been told that these arent hard or too expensive to make. I may even then power something with the Hydrogen.

All i need is any info you can give me and even websites that would instruct me in building one of these things.
What i know at the moment is…
i have 2H(2)O -> -> 2H(2) + 0(2)

i need to find out what happens in , in other words, what do i do to the water in order to turn it into Hydrogen & Oxygen?

I would be thankful for any information you could give me.

If anyone can help me, its the people of the Straight Dope Message Boards.

2

Very easy - but no web links (sorry)
Just apply an electric current under water. One side will generate O2 and the other H2 (you will get 2x more volumn H2 then O2). To collect the gasses use a glass (actually 2) filled with water upsidedown over the + and - terminals.

I think you will need pretty high DC voltage for it.

3

It might help your search if you spelled it correctly: HYDROLYSIS
:wink:

4

  1. http://www.google.com

  2. “Hydrolosis Machine” as the search.

  3. Hit the “go” button.

-Rue.

5

Come to think of it, the process implied in the OP (and more fully described by k2dave) isn’t hydrolysis but electrolysis. Hydrolysis is something different.