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I realize you couldn't get sodium Metal, it was a quick example that obviously wasn't well thought out ;-) Anyhow, I have a question: So if you have copper and Nickel together and you put it through electrolysis. The Nickel has a more positive oxidation potential than copper, so it is prefferred. But the Copper is also Turned into an Ion. But then The copper has a more positive reduction potential and so is the only one Reduced onto the Cathode. So Why do both the Ni and Cu Oxidize but only the Cu Reduce? You'd think it'd either work the same one way or the other.. but I don't know. BTW, a table of reduction potentials is EXACTLY what I wanted, thanks!

Hello, I was wondering if there was an online resource that would tell me at what voltages certain ionic bonds are broken. I was reading something woelen said in a different thread and apparently when the voltage was at a precise level electroplating began. So is there some resource out there I could use for like if I had a solution of NaCl and water, and I only wanted one of the compounds to be broken down. Is this even possible? Thanks!

Ok, now I'm jsut confused. When I put Aluminum in a Copper Chloride solution, Solid Copper was formed. So that means I had AlCl3. So your saying that would Decompose into Al(OH)3. Well, I didn't get a gell out of this, I got something that was fairly soluable in water. Apon heating, I got an offwhite powder. Doesn't sound like aluminum hydroxode or Aluminum Chloride for that matter.. Can you explain this?

Well, there are a few ways. I chose to throw some Copper into HCl. If you do this you will notice that nothing happens, because The hydrogen in the HCl is more reactive than the Copper you jsut put in. So you add some Hydrogen Peroxide to the mixture and walla, it turns a deep green color. You disolve as much copper as you can and then add peroxide until your sure that the Solution is a bright grren color, not dark and dirty. Then you evaporate or boil away the HCl and Water from the mixture (Be sure that this is done under a fumer hood or outside where the fumes will not harm anything!) After heating you are left with a brown Powder. After exposure to moister form the air or added water, the Powder Becomes bluish green, depending on the purity because it acts as a desicant. I thought this was a really cool experiment. Plus, from what I can tell; You can make ANY chloride with this stuff by adding the metal of what you want chlorinated. I've only done this with Aluminum, but as long as you put in a more reactive mteal you should be fine. I also have a question: If I have Aluminum Chloride and I would like to make Aluminum Powder suitable for a Thermite reaction (I'm going to make a ceramic mould thing ) How would I got about it. As far as I can Tell, I have 3 possibilities. 1: Heat it to over 100 degrees C. It suposedly decomposes, so wouldnt I get Aluminum That I could pulverize? 2: Get a solution of Aluminum Chlroide in a container. Throw in a Hunk of Aluminum and a hunk of Carbon. Connect a battery's Anode to the Carbon, and Cathode to the Aluminum. Unless Hydroxide Ions get in the way (I'm not sure of this), Aluminum should sloth off the Carbon. Maybe 3: Get a solution of Aluminum Chloride. Add magnesium ribbon. Wouldn't Aluminum Precipitate out leaving magnesium Chloride? So what would be the easiest way? (Or the one that actually works ) Lastly, Is there a good way of purifying aluminum? And Should I be worried about oxidation? Thanks!

I'm saying this without consulting an MSDS or anything, but maybe fractional crystalization? Assuming you have a solvent for these. I'm assuming water would be your solvent. EDIT: I consulted my trusty MSDS to find that Potasium Chlorate disolves 7g in 100 g of water. So basicly. if you disolve your stuff in water, chances are all youll have left is some potasium chlorate in the water. THIS IS ASSUMING your sulfur compounds disolve readily in water. If they also suck at disolving in water, it makes things harder on you.

Hey! I made some Copper (II) Chloride this past summer and I was thinking maybe I could Do a single replacement reaction to recover my Copper in Powdered form. So I disolved some CuCl2 In water and threw in some Aluminum foil. Sure enough the aluminum decentigrated and a brown precipitate was left on the bottom. I decanted the suposed resulting Aluminum Chloride and Left the Copper powder to dry in a glass cup. I came home for mschool today to find that around the edges of the copper it was green; A clear sign of a Copper salt. It's possible not all the Copper Chloride was converted to Aluminum chloride. Regardless. I filled the cup and decanted some liquid twice more to obtain nothing but pure Copper. I think it's copper. I know it has Copper IN it at least. I heated the powder up until it dried. If there is Copper (II) Chloride in this powder I will not know until it hydrates, assuming there is indedd some there. Anyhow, I was going to wash the copper powder in HCl to get rid of any contaminants. I assume any possible metals or metal compaounds that coudl even possibly be in here would be disolved in HCl and leave pure Copper behnd. So here are my Questions: Will there be Pure Copper left after HCl wash? How fast/will it oxidize? I assume powder would oxidize many tiems faster than a peice of Copper.. Can I prevent oxidation without submerging the powder in Mineral Oil? Thanks a lot guys...

Your telling me that would be 1,300,640 Farads?! Thats a huge amount!

Ok... Something must be wrong here. According to my calculations, it would be 13000 Farads. Heres what I did. the plate area is 650 CM squared. * 2 for teh wax paper. / .1 because its on to of the wax paper. so 1 mm even tyhought its more like .05 cm. in that case itd be 26000 Farads. Somethings not right here. theres no way that's correct.. right?

Excellant! So one last thing. Is there any formula to determin the capacity of a capacitor? Like say I had a capacitor that had a 2 70 square feet plates seperated by wax paper. Could I find it's capacity?

Wow, that was an extremely thorough explanation, thanks alot. I understand everything you said; You said a 1 Farad capacitor charged with 9 volts can discharge 1 Ampere in 9 seconds or 9 Amperes in 1 second. How would you pick which one you wanted ot happen, a resistor?

Ok, that's great. So is there any way of... inferring what the voltage and current would be? There has to be some ratio or equation.. BTW, thanks for taking the time to help me out. It IS appreciated edit: I think im understanding this. The size of the capacitor has nothing to do with what the voltage and current will be, the size will determin how long that charge will last?

So what your saying is that If i charge the capacitor at 1 volts. It will discharge at 1 volts with a varying amperage? So it could be said that a larger Capacitor would hold a higher "start" amperage, therfore holding the voltage longer... right? Does that also mean that you can store more energy in a capacitor at a higher voltage? If you can charge a capacitor 1 Ampere at 1 volts and 1 Ampere at 20 volts, then the only real limit to the amount of charge the capacitor can achieve is either when theres so many electrons in the capacitor that it physically cant fit more in it or if the voltage gets so high that it spontaniously arcs and shorts itself out... I think this is all right.. yes? no? If all this is true then my questions are answered! EDIT: I guess when I say 1 ampere I really mean that the capacitor is rated at one farad, so the capacitor would discharge 1 amp in 1 second at one volt. But if the capacitor were charged at 9 volts, the nthe capacitor should discharge 1 amp at 9 volts in a second. OF COURSE this does not take resistance into effect; All I'm trying ot do here is understand capacitors fully, I'll add resistance to the equation later

So, if I had an extremly large capacitor, say The size of a computer tower, and hooked up a variable resistor to it, I could make a low voltage that would last a while or a high voltage that would go by quick.... right? If so, this serves my purpose exactly. Lastly, The two capacitors are charges with 1.5 volts. I'm just assuming that you "short" the capacitor. So we'll jsut say that the resistance is negligible. SO that's all there is in the circuit. My question would be, if i hooked up a voltmeter to it would it read 1.5 volts or would it read a higher voltage the bigger the capacitor is. Same thing with Amperage. I thought that capacitors kept a constant voltage as the amperage dereased and an inductor keeps the same amperage while the voltage increases and decreases depending on the power going to it. Am I right or wrong in saying this...

"-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ....."First off, I need clarification on some things. I know what an amp is. It's how fast the current is moving. Great. ------> WRONG. First, it is not amp. It is Ampere, and second, is the amount of electrons flowing per second. EXACTLY as water flowing in a pipe at a constant velocity." I know it an Ampere, excuse me for abreviating. Next, I have "mastered" the relationship between current, voltage, and resistance. I=V/R takes care of that. I also understand that Capacitors are rated in Farads. my questions are about the current produced when the two wires of a charged capacitor are brought together. Since noone is touching my huge paragraph, ill structure two questions I have in Paragraphs. Question 1: If I have two different sized capacitors and they are both charged using 1.5 Volts DC; What difference would there be in the Capacitors. The larger one would obviously Have more electricity in it, but would the larger capacitor have more volts or Amperes in the current it produced when connected to itself. Question 2: Do capacitors dump out all of their energy at once or is it relativly slow (by that i mean a few seconds/minutes instead of instantaniously)? It doesn't make much sense for a computer to use a capacitor if all energy it had is expelled instantaniously, it woul have to be able to slowly draw power from the capacitor. So either the capacitor dumps it's energy slowly or there are other components that conserve the charge. Can soemone please tell me which? Because Camera flashes use capacitors that dump their energy all at once..

Hello, first off, I will warn you that my questions are really fundamentals of Physics that I probably should already know, but EVERYONE doesn't know something until they learn, so here's my chance. First off, I need clarification on some things. I know what an amp is. It's how fast the current is moving. Great. Now Voltage. I know the literal definition. It states that Voltage is the Potenital difference of charges or something ot that effect. What I may or may not understand is it's relationship with Amperage. I know that you can convert high voltage low amperage currents to low voltage high amperage currents, but I don't understand how voltage is measured. It's easy to understand that current moves faster in higher amperage currents so that means high amperage can kill you easily. thing is, If I have a high and low voltage of the same amperage going throuh me, what would be the difference. I realize that the higher voltage could be converted to a higher amperage, then again so coudl the lwoer voltage. So like I said, whats the relationship here, other than jsut sayuing voltage is lie kthe pressure in a water pipe. that doesnt hlep. What difference does a high and low voltage have when both currents have the same amperage? So that's that. Now we go to resistance. I understand the equation I=V/R . It's all good. Here's what I dont get. If you have a current thats 9 volts flowing at 1 amp, the resistance would be 9 Ohms, correct? That would satisfy the above equation, but then you have to deal with the resistance of the wire the current is traveling through. I understand that the resistance would be higher (since the equation could be re-arranged as IR=V) so wouldn't the voltage continually rise as it flowed through the wire? I know it doesn't SEEM correct, but that's what the equation states. Of course some power would be lost due to heat from the resistance, but I'm not sure if that's relevant. So here comes my last 2 questions. Sorry again. If I have 2 capacitors; one the size of a marble and the other the size of a 2-liter bottle, and they were both charges at 1.5 Volts; What would happen? Would they both be charged at 1.5 votls and the bigger capacitor have a larger amperage? Would they both have the same amperage and the bigger capacitor have a larger voltage? Would the larger capacitor have a larger amperage AND voltage? If so, what determines the ratio of power between voltage and amperage. So thats one quesiton ; here is the last one. If I have 9 volts flowing at 1 amp from a capacitor, and in the "circuit" is a mor eresistive material, like graphite; would that raise the voltage since resistance was added? That ties in with a previous question I guess.. So thats everything I'd lie kto know. I'm sorry if all this has been answered, i looked around for a little while.. And I'm sorry that this was very long also. SAo thanks in advance for anyone who helps me!