![]() Prepare the key for copper-plating by cleaning it with toothpaste or soap and water. Copper electrode (or coil of copper wire)ġ.> Watch our project video to see this project in action! What You Need: Professional electroplating requires specialized chemicals and equipment to make a high-quality coat, but in this electrolysis experiment you can try your hand at a simple procedure that will transfer copper to a brass key.Īdult supervision and chemical safety equipment required. Jewelers and utensil manufacturers use electroplating. Then, using a direct current as a power source, one of the electrodes is coated with the metal of the other one. Do this electrolysis experiment again using solar cells instead of a battery.Įlectroplating uses a form of electrolysis in which the electrodes (conductors, usually metal) are immersed in an electrolyte solution and kept apart from each other. For electrolysis to work as true renewable energy, you need to use a clean energy source to run the reaction.With some real electrolysis equipment you can collect the two gases in test tubes to measure the different amounts produced and test their different reactions to a flame.Can you make electrolysis happen with a 1.5-volt battery? What about if you add an electrolyte? Safety Note: using salt may produce small amounts of chlorine gas, similar to the amount present when using bleach. When this is done, you should see a change in how quickly the bubbles form. Water doesn’t conduct electricity that well by itself, but any electrolysis of water experiment could be accelerated by adding table salt to the water. Try adding an electrolyte to the water in the beaker.(Hint: Water’s chemical name is H 2O because it has two hydrogen atoms to every one oxygen atom.) Does one pencil collect more bubbles than the other? Which one? Why do you think this is? The pencil attached to the negative terminal of the battery collects hydrogen gas while the one connected to the positive terminal collects oxygen. Those bubbles are the components of water-hydrogen and oxygen gas-that have been split apart by the electricity as it travels through the water from one pencil to the other. You may need to use tape to hold the wires in place.Īs soon as you connect the wires to the battery, you will see bubbles appearing around each of the pencil tips in the water and floating upward. Wrap the wire around the graphite of each pencil and connect the wires to the battery. If you don’t have alligator clip leads, use two lengths of wire and strip an inch of insulation off each end. Connect each pencil to the battery with an alligator clip lead attached to the exposed graphite (pencil lead). They should extend into the water, but not touch the bottom of the glass. Push the pencils through the holes and set them in the glass. Cut a piece of the cardboard to fit over the beaker, then punch two holes in the center of the cardboard about an inch apart. The graphite in them will conduct electricity, but won’t dissolve into the water.ģ. Carefully remove the erasers and metal sleeves so you can sharpen both ends of each pencil. Fill the beaker or glass with warm water.Ģ. ![]()
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