[CrimpJiggler]

Heres something I've been pondering. Lets I have a solution containing electrolytes, in this case lets say an NaCl solution. Lets say I put the beaker in an electric field so that one side of the beaker is beside a positive terminal and the other side of the beaker is beside the negative terminal. Will the cations flow to the right side of the beaker, while the anions flow to the left side? The answer to this is probably yes, so what happens if I put a barrier right in the middle of the beaker then remove the electric field? Will the ions all get stuck to the barrier?

[DevaDevil]

an electrolyte cannot be net charged. (on average there is no charge separation)

So no, the ions will not be caught on different sides of the beaker

[spankythehippo]

I had to read your post several times to understand what you were saying. An "electric field", you say? No, ions can't be charged. Conducting electricity and capacitance are completely separate things.

Also, electricity must have a medium to be transferred into the beaker. As I recall, glass is not a conductive material. However, using inert electrodes, such as graphite, will chuck some electricity into the solution. But now, it's beginning to look like a galvanic cell.


So, the short answer is: no. The long answer is: f&#$ no.

[Borek]

I had to read your post several times to understand what you were saying.

And you failed - whatever you wrote doesn't address the question.

No, ions can't be charged.

Ions are charged.

Also, electricity must have a medium to be transferred into the beaker. As I recall, glass is not a conductive material.

Conductivity of glass doesn't play a role here. We are talking about electric field, not about current.

[Borek]

Will the cations flow to the right side of the beaker, while the anions flow to the left side?

To some minimal extent yes. However, try to calculate charge separation necessary to neutralize electric field in a beaker - assume it is enough that all 'separated' ions are on the beaker surface. Even in relatively high voltages these charges are pretty small.

You may also read about charged double layer and its capacitance - this is another example of charge separation in the solution (although this is a specific case, as we are talking about ordered part of the solution).

While in general solutions are electrically neutral, they are neutral only statistically - if you take solution of NaCl and split it into parts (just pouring it down, so that it separates into droplets on the fly) there is no process that guarantees every drop is perfectly neutral. Rather, some will have small positive charge, some will have small negative charge. Think about it this way: imagine water sample containing exactly one Na⁺ and exactly one Cl^- - it is electrically neutral. Ignoring for a moment water autodissociation, if you split this sample into half, it may happen that both ions land in the same half, and both half are still neutral, but it can also happen that each ion lands in different half, and neither is neutral. If you have more NaCl dissolved situation is identical - after splitting solution there is no guarantee all ions will be distributed evenly. However, they will be distributed pretty close to 50/50. Finding an average charge makes an interesting probability question.

[spankythehippo]

I had to read your post several times to understand what you were saying.

And you failed - whatever you wrote doesn't address the question.

No, ions can't be charged.

Ions are charged.

Also, electricity must have a medium to be transferred into the beaker. As I recall, glass is not a conductive material.

Conductivity of glass doesn't play a role here. We are talking about electric field, not about current.

I'm still trying to figure out what he meant by electric field and the whole one beaker is positive and the other is negative.

I admit, my wording was terrible. Ions are charged, but I meant externally. They have their own charge, but you can't change a Na²⁺ into anything else, without physically changing it.

I mentioned conductivity because of my understanding of the question. I thought he was imparting a current on the beaker itself, hence my reasoning about the glass.


If this was a galvanic cell, with a zinc cathode and a copper anode, the cations and anions will move across the salt bridge. But .

I just realised that the guy said ONE beaker. So he's putting two terminals in the one beaker.
It all makes sense.

The day I choose to smoke weed again is the day I screw up my basic chemistry. I should stop.

[Borek]

He means putting a beaker BETWEEN electrodes, not putting electrodes IN the beaker. And he clearly stated it.