.. _sphx_glr_api_gallery_electrochem_electrolysis:

Electrolysis
-------------

Faraday's laws of electrolysis, Nicholson and Carlisle's electrolysis of
water, and Davy's electrolytic isolation of the alkali metals.


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  <div id='sg-tag-list' class='sphx-glr-tag-list'></div>


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    <div class="sphx-glr-thumbnails">

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    <div class="sphx-glr-thumbcontainer" tooltip="Faraday&#x27;s first law: the mass liberated at an electrode is proportional to the charge passed, m = QM/(nF). His second law: for a fixed charge, different substances are liberated in proportion to their equivalent weights M/n. This example verifies both with faradays_law_mass and mass_from_charge, recovering the single universal constant -- the Faraday -- that links charge to chemical change.">

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  .. image:: /api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/images/thumb/sphx_glr_plot_01_faradays_laws_thumb.png
    :alt:

  :doc:`/api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/plot_01_faradays_laws`

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      <div class="sphx-glr-thumbnail-title">Faraday's laws of electrolysis</div>
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    <div class="sphx-glr-thumbcontainer" tooltip="Days after learning of Volta&#x27;s newly announced pile, William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle connected one to a bowl of water in May 1800 and watched gas bubble from each wire -- the first electrolysis, and the first new discovery the pile made possible. This example reconstructs both halves of that observation from functions already in this package: the theoretical minimum decomposition voltage of water (~chemistrykit.electrochem.systems.electrolysis.minimum_applied_voltage_electrolytic, applied to the tabulated H+/H2 and O2/H2O standard potentials) comes out at the textbook 1.23 V, and Faraday&#x27;s law (~chemistrykit.electrochem.systems.electrolysis.moles_from_charge) recovers the 2:1 hydrogen-to-oxygen ratio Nicholson and Carlisle actually saw bubbling from the two wires, directly from electron-transfer stoichiometry.">

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  .. image:: /api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/images/thumb/sphx_glr_plot_02_water_electrolysis_thumb.png
    :alt:

  :doc:`/api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/plot_02_water_electrolysis`

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      <div class="sphx-glr-thumbnail-title">Nicholson and Carlisle's electrolysis of water</div>
    </div>


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    <div class="sphx-glr-thumbcontainer" tooltip="In 1807 Humphry Davy passed current through molten potash and soda and isolated potassium and sodium -- metals no chemical reducing agent of the day could free, because their reduction potentials are among the most negative in the electrochemical series. This example ranks Davy&#x27;s two couples against the rest of STANDARD_REDUCTION_POTENTIALS, shows why the common reducing metals (Zn, Fe) cannot reduce K+ or Na+, computes the minimum electrolysis voltage for the molten chlorides with minimum_applied_voltage_electrolytic, and uses Faraday&#x27;s law to estimate how much potassium a current yields.">

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  .. image:: /api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/images/thumb/sphx_glr_plot_03_davy_alkali_metals_thumb.png
    :alt:

  :doc:`/api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/plot_03_davy_alkali_metals`

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      <div class="sphx-glr-thumbnail-title">Davy's electrolytic isolation of potassium and sodium</div>
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.. toctree::
   :hidden:

   /api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/plot_01_faradays_laws
   /api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/plot_02_water_electrolysis
   /api/gallery/electrochem/electrolysis/plot_03_davy_alkali_metals