Part 22

2. Heat is produced. This was very evident when we took the zinc cup up in our hands. It was as hot as though boiling water had been put into it.

3. An electro-motive force is produced. This we showed by connecting one end of a piece of copper wire to the binding post of the zinc cup and the other end of the wire to an electric bell. Another wire ran from the bell to the carbon rod. When the carbon rod was lowered into the acid the bell rang.

Within ten minutes holes began to appear in the side of the zinc cup. The acid contents began to flow out into the bowl, and not long after the zinc fell to pieces. After fifteen or twenty minutes the action began to grow less. The acid was being used up as well as the zinc. If enough acid is added the zinc will wholly disappear.

We have chosen substances which would produce striking results in this experiment, but the same sort of thing is going on about us continually.

One summer by the seashore I fastened a brass plate upon my boat with two screws--one of brass and one of galvanized iron. The plate was attached below the water line so that it might be acted upon by the salt water. Within three weeks the head of the galvanized iron screw had entirely dissolved, while the brass screw was as good as ever. A galvanized iron screw near by but not in contact with the brass was still in as good order as ever. I had simply made an electric battery cell out of the ocean by dipping into it zinc and brass in contact.

A most interesting relationship exists between the three kinds of activity in the cell, which have been mentioned, viz.: (1) chemical action; (2) production of heat; (3) production of electric current.

As has been already noted, chemical action produces heat. Conversely, if we apply heat to the cell we greatly increase its chemical action. We have also noted that chemical action produces an electric current, but unless the current is allowed to flow through some external channel like a closed circuit of wire the chemical action is greatly restrained or entirely checked.

In a glass tumbler I put a rod of pure zinc (Fig. 150, Zn), and an electric light carbon, C. A short wire, a, was arranged for connecting the two externally. In the tumbler was put some water with about one tenth its volume of sulphuric acid. No chemical action was evident until the wire was touched to the zinc, closing the circuit. Then bubbles of hydrogen gas gathered upon the surface of the carbon rod, and clung to it very tenaciously. We lifted out the carbon rod and rinsed off the bubbles in another tumbler of water, and then returned the carbon to its place in the cell. The experiment was repeated many times, and each time no bubbles of hydrogen, which is in this case the sign of the chemical action, appeared until the circuit was closed for the flow of the electric current. Incidentally it should be said that the amount of hydrogen produced by the chemical action is a measure of the amount of electric current produced. Incidentally also it should be said that the bubbles of hydrogen clinging to the carbon rod check and almost stop both the chemical action and the production of electric current when the circuit is closed. If now we put in sodium bichromate to use up the hydrogen as fast as it is produced we may have a continuous current whenever the circuit is closed. Chemical action does not entirely cease in this cell when the circuit is opened. But if two cells are prepared, and one is left with its circuit closed while the other remains with its circuit open, it will be found that the zinc disappears and the acid is used up in the closed cell in a short time, while these remain not greatly changed for a long time in the cell on which the circuit is open. No cell will remain forever without chemical action, yet a dry cell which might use up its zinc and ammonium chloride in a few hours if the circuit is closed may be kept idle three or four years, and still be able to furnish electricity enough to ring a bell. Some persons feel defrauded if the author of a book fails to give them all the new words and conventional terms which belong to any subject. For such here is a page or so.

It is conventional to speak of the electric current as flowing from the carbon through the wire to the zinc, although every one has suspicions that it may flow in the other direction or even that it may not flow at all. It is conventional to designate any part of the circuit from which the current comes as positive (+) to any other part toward which it flows, this latter being considered negative to the former and designated (-). The current is conceived of as making a complete circuit, from carbon to zinc through the wire and from zinc to carbon through the liquid. Hence, the binding post of the carbon rod is called the + pole and that of the zinc is called the-pole, while the zinc rod or plate beneath the surface of the fluid is called the + plate and the carbon is called the-plate. The liquid is termed the electrolyte. The sodium bichromate, introduced to cause the hydrogen to unite with oxygen, is called an oxidizing agent or even a depolarizing agent, and hydrogen collecting upon the negative plate is said to polarize the cell.

Hydrogen may be made to collect upon the carbon or negative plate until the electric current reverses its direction. The hydrogen is said to be more - than the zinc. If we connect the zinc and carbon rods with the wires bringing an electric current from the dynamo we may make either one positive as we choose, according to which is connected with the positive wire. Hydrogen bubbles will collect upon whichever plate we make the negative one.

When we send an electric current from the dynamo into this cell it is called an electrolytic cell, and when it is used to generate an electric current it is called a battery cell. In either case the electrolyte is decomposed and put through a chemical change, though the chemical action in one case is the reverse of that in the other, and the direction of the electric current in one case is the reverse of that in the other. For example let us consider the case of a zinc rod and a carbon rod immersed in sulphuric acid and the external circuit closed. The current passes as indicated by the arrows in Fig. 151, and the chemical actions result in hydrogen leaving the sulphuric acid and zinc taking its place, forming zinc sulphate. This is a white salt and for purposes of this experiment must remain dissolved in water. So far we have been considering a generator of electricity--a battery cell. We may introduce something at m, say a motor, which will indicate that an electric current is flowing. At length the cell ceases to generate current and is, as we say, "run down." Suppose now we substitute a dynamo in place of the motor in this circuit, connecting it so that the carbon rod shall be its positive pole and the zinc its negative pole. We now call this an electrolytic cell, (Fig. 152). The current will decompose the zinc sulphate. The zinc will be coated upon the zinc rod and hydrogen will be procured from the water present, of which it is a constituent, to form again sulphuric acid as originally.

We shall thus restore the conditions which prevailed in the first case as represented in Fig. 151. H{2}SO{4} is the chemist's designation of sulphuric acid and ZnSO_{4} is his expression for zinc sulphate.

The experiment illustrates a storage battery so called. It might better be called a chemical transformer.

It is wholly unnecessary that one rod be composed of zinc. If we begin with both rods of carbon immersed in a solution of ZnSO_{4}, and send into this cell the dynamo current, the carbon which acts as the negative pole will be coated with zinc in a short time, and we shall have in effect a rod of zinc and one of carbon as before. After a minute or two we may disconnect the generator and substitute in its place a bell as indicator, and it will ring, showing that we have transformed electrical energy into chemical energy which is now being retransformed into electrical energy. We say that we store electricity by this means, which is, however, no more true than that a farmer stores his farm in the bank when he sells it and deposits the money until he shall need it to buy another farm.

Here is a very beautiful blue salt. I will drop a few crystals of it into a tumbler of water and dip in two carbon pencils connected to the dynamo current, using between fifty and sixty ohms of resistance in the circuit so as to have two amperes flowing. After a minute or two I lift out the negative carbon and you see that it is well plated with copper. The blue salt is copper sulphate. If we weigh the negative carbon, both before and after the experiment, we shall find that copper has been depositing at the rate of one ounce in twelve hours. If we reduce the current one half, making it one ampere, it will deposit copper at the rate of one ounce in twenty-four hours. One ampere will separate three ounces of lead in a day from a solution of any lead salt; it will separate .9 ounce of iron in a day from a solution of any iron salt, and it will liberate from water, which is a compound of hydrogen, one gallon of the gas in ten hours. The amount of chemical action is a measure of the amount of electrical energy expended. Before the present form of commercial wattmeter was devised electrolytic cells were used to determine what the consumer's bill for electricity should be each month. These chemical meters contained a solution of zinc sulphate for the electrolyte and both the positive and the negative plates were of zinc. While the current is passing, zinc from the solution is coated upon the negative plate and zinc from the positive plate takes its place in the solution, thus maintaining a constant strength of solution.

Here are three iron nails. I propose that you plate one with zinc and another with copper and then expose all three to the weather and see which will rust. I propose that you replate all the spoons at the cottage and the metal tops of the salt cellars with silver. Electro-plating results better if done slowly. Ten volts and .1 ampere will be sufficient current.

In the storage battery we generally use lead for both positive and negative plates and dilute sulphuric acid for the electrolyte. Hydrogen is liberated at the positive plate and oxygen unites with the negative plate. When the charging current is cut off the chemical action reverses, and an electric current is produced by the cell.

In all other batteries there is a destruction of one plate and of the electrolyte, which cannot be fully restored by a charging current, although in the case of the lead and sulphuric acid combination the charging and discharging of the cell may go on alternately for a very long period without permanent change or loss of any substance except water. There is, however, plenty of loss of energy in this as in other transformers. One hundred ampere hours of current expended to charge a storage battery will yield from seventy-five to eighty-five ampere hours while the battery is discharging.

The lead storage battery is, however, full of disappointments for those who do not properly care for it. It is irretrievably ruined if neglected and allowed to charge too far, or discharge too far, or evaporate too much water, etc. The voltage of a lead cell must not rise above 2.2 nor fall below 1.8. It must not be allowed to furnish at any one time a greater number of amperes than it is rated for. It must not stand idle too much. It must not be cleaned up and put away for a period. In fact, the lead-sulphuric acid battery is so poorly adapted to our need that I feel disposed to try Mr. Edison's new storage battery. This has nickel hydrate packed in tubes of metallic nickel for the positive plates and iron oxide pressed into pockets in a sheet of metallic iron for the negative plate. A solution of potassium hydrate in water is used for the electrolyte. This is said to be uninjured by being emptied out and left idle, as our batteries must be for a large part of the year. The e. m. f. of this battery is less than that of the lead battery, being only 1.2 volts. We shall therefore need ninety-six cells (type B-4) for the machine shop and ninety-one cells of the same kind for the cottage. Our dynamo will be unable to charge at one time more than sixty of these cells connected in series.

The particular chore which you boys must perform is to see that the voltage of these batteries is maintained at about 1.2. It should be charged up to 1.8 volt at least once a week and never allowed to discharge to a lower pressure than one volt. The level of the electrolyte must be maintained one half inch above the plate by adding distilled water occasionally.

A few years ago every student of chemistry was more or less agitated by the thought that more than half of every clay bank was composed of metal nearly as valuable, or at least as costly, as gold. This is aluminum. By all the methods then known it was a very difficult and expensive process to extract the metal from the clay. At length, by the perfecting of the dynamo, the chemist had under his control great and powerful electric currents which enabled him to unlock any chemical compound however refractory and isolate its elements. As a result aluminum became common enough and cheap enough for even kitchen utensils.

The metal calcium which a short time ago was an exceedingly rare substance worth $40 an ounce is now fairly abundant and cheap for chemical experiments, although it has no qualities which will give it an extended use.

Powerful electric currents, such as are obtained at Niagara, enable us to combine elements into hitherto unknown chemical compounds. Carbon and silicon are made to unite to form carborundum, which vies with the diamond for hardness. Carbon and calcium unite to form calcium carbide, used with water to form acetylene gas.

In such processes the intense heat of the electric arc--perhaps 6000 degrees--is employed, together with the electrolytic action of the current, to separate and combine substances. Enormous currents are used in the electric furnaces for producing chemical reactions--from 1000 to 30,000 amperes at a time.

Electric currents passing through the human body expend their energy partly in heat and partly in electrolysis. So simple and harmless a thing as common salt would become a virulent poison if it could be electrolized in the body into its elements sodium and chlorine.

Let us make use of an electric current to decompose water into its elements, hydrogen and oxygen. I have a three-ounce wide-mouthed bottle (Fig. 153) and through its cork I pass two short pieces of No. 24 platinum wire by pushing a stout needle through first. I fill this bottle with pure water and cut a slight furrow in the side of the cork, where water may drip out when the gas is produced in the bottle. We crowd the cork firmly into the mouth of the bottle and invert it. No water drops out. We bend the ends of the platinum wires into hooks and hang upon them the wires bringing the dynamo direct current. There is no evidence of chemical action. Pure water is an exceedingly poor conductor of electricity. Let us now put about fifty-five ohms of resistance into the dynamo circuit, so that it will pass about two amperes, and put a very small pinch of salt into the water, which makes it so good a conductor that its resistance may be ignored. When now we close the circuit, as before, a brisk effervescence takes place. Bubbles of gas rapidly form on the platinum wires and break away, rising through the liquid. Twice as many form on the negative wire as on the positive one. As these gases rise to the top of the bottle an equal volume of the water drips out through the small hole in the cork.

Two amperes of electricity will liberate two fluid ounces of hydrogen at the negative pole and one fluid ounce of oxygen at the positive pole, in five minutes. Hence in five minutes the bottle should be full of a mixture of two gases, two thirds of which, by volume, is hydrogen and one third oxygen. We will catch the water which drips out so that we may measure it. The bottle being now full of gas I shut off the current, and removing the cork I bring a flame to its mouth. A very loud and startling explosion takes place. We pour the water back into the bottle, and it seems to fill it as well as before. We have decomposed a few drops of water--not enough to measure--into two gases, one of which, the hydrogen, occupied two thirds of the bottle, and the other, oxygen, occupied the remaining third. At ordinary temperatures they would not reunite, but when raised to their kindling temperature they united, producing light, heat, a loud noise, and the few drops of water which had been originally decomposed by the current.

This is the electrolysis of water. I wonder if any such chemical action took place in Ernest's body when he received that severe shock on the motor boat the other day.