Electrolysis

The activities in this section illustrate the many different applications of electricity in chemistry and include examples of electrolysis to extract and purify substances as well as experiments involving fuel cells, for example.

While we are still at an early stage with this website it's probably more useful to look at the page with our complete list of experiments in alphabetical order. See the list on About this website.

We are starting with GCSE-level experiments.

Experiments

• Rechargeable commercial cells: the lead-acid accumulator

  A simple cell lead-acid cell is constructed and charged and discharged for varying lengths of time.

• Which substances conduct electricity?

  This experiment looks at covalent and ionic compounds, and which conduct electricity.

• Migration of ions

  This experiment shows that ions move independently in aqueous solutions and that they are attracted to electrodes of opposite charge.

• Exploding bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen

  Bubbles containing a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas, produced by electrolysis, are ignited and explode.

• Quantitative electrolysis of aqueous copper(II) sulfate

  This demonstration experiment shows how to find the value of the Faraday constant using electrolysis.

• Identifying the products of electrolysis

  This experiment allows students to investigate the products formed by electrolysing various solutions.

• Preferential discharge of cations during electrolysis

  This experiment shows the order in which cations are discharged during electrolysis.

• Reaction of zinc with iodine

  In this experiment students note the differences between a metal and a non-metal, and their reaction to form a metal salt.

• Electrolysis of copper(II) sulfate solution

  Students look at what happens when a constant electric current is passed through an aqueous copper(II) sulfate solution.

• Electrolysing molten lead(II) bromide

  In this demonstration students will see that lead(II) bromide only conducts electricity when it is molten, and that the products of electrolysis are metallic lead and bromine.

• Colourful electrolysis

  The electrolysis of salt (sodium chloride) solution performed in a U-shaped test tube with universal indicator.

• Electrolysis of zinc chloride

  Demonstration showing that an ionic compound will not conduct electricity when solid, but will do so when molten.

• Anodising aluminium

  An experiment showing a useful application of electrolysis.