|
Alessandro Volta
Anthony Carlisle |
Water is a stable compound, whose
elemental make-up confused chemists for centuries. They did not think
water could be broken down into simple substances. It was identified as
the product of combustion between oxygen and hydrogen
gases. Water was discovered after
the invention of the electric battery by the Italian physicist,
Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) in 1800. Water was recognized as a
compound of hydrogen and oxygen in the eighteenth
century.
|
William Nicholson |
The
first known successful chemical reaction using electricity (electrolysis)
was completed by English chemist William Nicholson (1753-1815)
and English surgeon Anthony Carlisle (1768-1842). Carlisle
heard about the invention by Volta and immediately started to experiment
with his friend William Nicholson. They discovered that when you place
the anode and cathode leads of the battery in water, two
gases are given off. Nicholson and Carlisle used platinum electrodes and glass tubes to
collect the gases at each electrode. Hydrogen gas bubbled from around
the cathode and oxygen gas from around the anode in the ratio of two
volumes of H2
for every volume of O2.
When a current is passed through water, the molecules accept electrons
from the cathode, where hydrogen is reduced to H2
gas. |
