Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

hi! me and my partner needs your help!!!! we already have an experiment in which we are separating the hydrogen and the oxygen gasses and we have this problem.... we have a 6 volt battery (Duracell) and when we tried the experiment its producing bubbles really slow... our teacher said 6 volt is not good enough... any suggestions on what battery to use??? AND HERE IS WHERE WE NEED YOUR HELP.... me and my partner wants to go to the annual science fair in a university, and we want to make it there.. and if we did, we want to go to the last stage which is the gold medal stage.. but we have to make our experiment very powerful to impress the judges! we need powerful background research and also our back board that will look awesome.. any suggestions on what we should do? and also tips will helps us too!!! you can reply down a really cool backboard ideas for electrolysis!!! PLSSS WE REALLY NEED YOUR HELP! OUR DUE DATE IS ON MARCH 6! 2 WEEKS LEFT!!!!

ninafigurasin16 - One problem you may have is the purity of distilled water, if that is what you are using, in your experiment. Most electrolysis experiments suggest using some highly ionic addition to the water to improve conductivity. In some cases salt is suggested, but that produces chlorine gas as a by-product of electrolysis. Best recommendation is sulfuric acid which can be obtained from any auto parts store (or borrow a tablespoon from a car battery). A slightly higher voltage, perhaps 12 volts (from the battery you borrowed the acid from) will improve electrolytic action and will be a huge current source for your experiment.

Rick Marz