I am new to the forum and would like to create my own homemade hydrogen/oxygen generator. I have experimented with simple systems stainless steel bolts. I can see Hydrogen bubbles on the electrode but some sort of corrosion on the anode. I can not see any evidence of Oxygen production. After a short period the water is cloudy from the oxides caused by the electrolysis process. I am using plain tap water. I also tried using salt water but found out you can create chlorine gas so I stopped using it. Is the stainless steel I'm using causing the problem? I do not know what grade it is. I picked it up at a hardware store. I would like to make a larger generator and have a ton of questions. Here they are:
1) What is the best material to use as electrodes beside platinum?
2) What is the most efficient electrode size? (LxWxH)
3) What is the most efficient distance between plates for hydrogen/oxygen production? I am looking for data on electrode plate distance and electrolyte type used vs resistance?
4) Is the ideal voltage drop of 1.24V across a series of plates or just two plates +/-?
5) If using multiple +/- plates in series do you have to connect all the + and all the - electrodes together or can you just connect the first plate to the + source and the last plate to the negative source? The plates in the middle will form +/- electrodes since the current will flow from the first to the last plate, taking the path of least resistance through the electrolyte to the middle plates.
If all the + plates are connected together and all the - plates are connected together the current would not flow uniformly between the plates do to the varying distances between plates. Hydrogen and oxygen production between a single set of electrodes would not be uniform. Is this assumption correct?