What is the efficiency of brute force electrolysis

[iteration69]

What i am wondering is has anyone been able to cite their brute force electrolysis efficiencies?

Allow me to define just exactly what i am asking here so that no one jumps on the waggon with bogus numbers.

Standard conditions- What are they and why do we need them?

Lets start with the basics.

Type of water (tap,distilled,deionized, doped, etc)
The mass of the water. The initial temperature of the water. The final temperature of the water. The applied voltage and current. The configuration of the cell. The volume/pressure of the gas. Instructions for replication as per peer review.

This should serve as a primitive baseline for all experiments.

The next step involves the sophistication of analysis in regard to the scientific method.

This is what seperates the tinkering and thinking one has found something and the science of knowing one has found something.

It's known as replication. Under the exact same conditions the experiment will produce exact results. The repeatability is reported in standard deviation from a baseline(which is defined with standard conditions)

Detailed logs are needed for every variable that is changed, this also changes the standard conditions and thus the baseline is moved. This brings us into calibration. To extract valid data there must be a known condition(standardization) in order to validate results.

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I don't have enough data points to cite any figures yet. But i will share how the cell is constructed and operated thus far.

Water is supplied from the tap, which is from a well with very little conditioning. This water bath is sized so that a given number of experiments may be performed before a new batch is acquired. The water is allowed to thermally stabalize before any experiment may be conducted. After thermal equilibrium, The water batch is pumped to an intermediate stage which has an overflow that returns to the control batch. This effectively calibrates the intermediate stage to a given mass of water.

The intermediate stage is emptied into the electrolysis appartus, allowed to settle an exact amount of time and then emptied into a container that has been previously weighed. The water is then weighed and logged. This process is repeated untill the control batch is deminished. This gives the initial fill cycle replication in terms of mean and standard deviation.

This figures are used to evaluate the integrity of the apparatus. If everything is within predefined limits The process is permitted to continue to the next step. If it is not permitted this must be logged, the problem citied, correction actions taken and verification must be once again conducted.

With a primitive baseline in terms of water mass the new batch is only wieghed once since the mean and standard deviation have already been cited. If the new batch fails, the process must be repeated. This allows the evalulation of the water source itself. Should something change in the supply it will also do so in the analysis.

So far all i have covered is replication of the water source and the fill cycle. There is also a thermal baseline determination built into the fill cycle. A heating element and small submersible pump are mounted inside the apparatus. The heating element delivers a known amount of energy to the water and the pump ensures even distribution of the thermal gradient. A thermister is mounted to detect the temperature rise of the apparatus See foot note(1). Again points are plotted, mean and standard deviation are cited, logged and another characteristic of the apparatus is now known and under supervisory control. See foot note(2)

At this point the primitive apparatus is proven repeatible in both terms of water fill and thermal tanking.

There is yet another aspect which takes place in addition to previously mentioned. This is the leak test. Using a pressure transducer which operates from 0-10" H20 (0-2490.8 n/m^2) Thus reported in n/m^2, a rolling diaphram pump supplies a very small pressure in the range of the previously cited figures. The apparatus is allowed to stabalize and the pressure is logged. If the leak test fails, the problem is logged, corrected, and another test is conducted.


At this point the apparatus has proven replication on the following.

water mass
thermal tanking

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leak testing is still in the works, as we have developed a leak from a recent change. A single drop of water is capable of changing the raw pressure transducer output in the range of 5-9 mV which has a maxima of 3.54v. I'm sure some of you will quickly appreciate that precision.

I'm still working on precision current and voltage measuring techniques for the electrolysis portion since i can't use the same method which is employed on the heating element.

"The power source i built can't supply much more than 100 watt. A preliminary test was capable of producing impressive stimulus change on both the temperature and pressure values over a few moments of test."

Notice the quotes around the statement. This is a classic example of why standard conditions and all data must be cited.
The statement is accurate in my own mind, but it conveys NOTHING. It helps no one. Anyone who reads such a statment has more questions than answers. I'm sorry to say that this appears to be the normality in which most experimenters report their results.

I'm simply sharing my thoughts on a problem that is far greater than most will ever acknowledge.
I hope that some of the methods may help someone.

With that said, good luck with your experiment and PLEASE conduct your experiments properly and cite meaningful figures.








Foot notes.

(1). Thermistors are not terribly accurate or linear but they are very precise and repeatible if properly applied. Since the apparatus is designed to operate with a low thermal delta (~10c) Multipoint linear interpolation methods coupled with long term integrating conversion methods provide a very high degree of precision and repeatability. Thermistors are categorized by two types. NTC and PTC. Namely, Negative Temperature Coefficient, Positive Temperature Coefficient. Just as the name suggests, the coefficient changes with temperature. NTC will reduce resistance as the temperature increase, The inverse being true of the PTC type as it it will increase resistance as the temperature rises. There are two other common device for measuring temperature. The RTD and thermocouple. It is beyond the scope of this foot note to ascribe such devices any further so i encourage you to research such.

(2) A calorie is defined as the amount of energy required to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree c. It must be pointed out here that we can not use this definition to determine the specific heat capacitiy of the apparatus. The heat tanking characteristics are very complex. Consider that the apparatus is constructed of more than water. Plastic, Metal, change the specific heat of the apparatus. Thermal transfer modes are another complication, albeit Conduction through the gas, radiative gains and losses via line of site, etc. By using a short experiment time and differentiating a known energy input with terms of heat and temperature rise, the mean and standard deviation effectively filter out the previously stated complications.