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Topic: Splitting Water  (Read 3449 times)

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Offline ifuller

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Splitting Water
« on: April 17, 2007, 11:09:53 PM »
Can anyone give me any ideas on how to split water without using electrolysis? I am looking for a catalyst or something of the like that will work or could possibly work to split water into its constituents. Thank you for any ideas.

Offline FeLiXe

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Re: Splitting Water
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2007, 03:28:26 PM »
it does not seem quite possible because the reaction is so endothermic

you may be able to do something like this:
add Zn to produce hydrogen
add a strong oxidizing agent to produce oxygen
Math and alcohol don't mix, so... please, don't drink and derive!

Offline Donaldson Tan

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Re: Splitting Water
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2007, 05:08:55 PM »
Combine Steam with Iodine Vapour at about 400-600C , 1 atm should do the trick.

I2 (g) + H2O (g) -> HI (g) + HIO (g)

2 HIO (g) -> 2 HI (g) + O2 (g)

2 HI (g) -> H2 (g) + I2 (g)

But you will have difficulty separating hydrogen, oxygen and iodine.

The beauty of electrolysis is that your products are already separated at formation. In fact, electrolysis isn't that bad. The efficiency of Electrolysis of Low Alkali Water with a Platinum Electrode is in fact 90% at 1 atm.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2007, 05:14:26 PM by geodome »
"Say you're in a [chemical] plant and there's a snake on the floor. What are you going to do? Call a consultant? Get a meeting together to talk about which color is the snake? Employees should do one thing: walk over there and you step on the friggin� snake." - Jean-Pierre Garnier, CEO of Glaxosmithkline, June 2006

Offline ifuller

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Re: Splitting Water
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2007, 08:34:16 PM »
Thanks for the information. I was hoping to find a catalyst so that I wouldn't have to worry about separating the products. Thank you for your information though.

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