Sodium Acetate

[vicep]

Has anyone tried sodium acetate as an electrolyte? I read somewhere that it was a pretty effective electrolyte. It produces hydrogen, CO2, and ethane. Do you guys think the ethane would do anything to improve the performance?

[Q-Hack!]

Has anyone tried sodium acetate as an electrolyte? I read somewhere that it was a pretty effective electrolyte. It produces hydrogen, CO2, and ethane. Do you guys think the ethane would do anything to improve the performance?

Only one way to find out... Try it. I would be interested in knowing how it works out. I suspect the ethane might act much like when one adds acetone to the fuel to change the octane rating. The CO2 would probably hinder your performance, but you wont know unless you try it out.

[h2gen]

It's very easy to try - you can simply mix a few teaspoons of baking soda in a glass of white vinegar. Add baking soda only a little bit at a time, as the mixture will foam up at first and if you add too much at once the vinegar will spill out of the glass. Keep adding until the baking soda does not dissolve anymore in the vinegar: you now have Sodium Acetate. Add 30% of it to distilled water and you'll have a great electrolyte and huge HHO production - much better than using baking soda alone.
You can dip a 9V battery in the electrolyte to test that it's working, the bubbles will form at the anode and cathode.
Have fun,
h2gen

[Painless]

It's very easy to try - you can simply mix a few teaspoons of baking soda in a glass of white vinegar. Add baking soda only a little bit at a time, as the mixture will foam up at first and if you add too much at once the vinegar will spill out of the glass. Keep adding until the baking soda does not dissolve anymore in the vinegar: you now have Sodium Acetate. Add 30% of it to distilled water and you'll have a great electrolyte and huge HHO production - much better than using baking soda alone.
You can dip a 9V battery in the electrolyte to test that it's working, the bubbles will form at the anode and cathode.
Have fun,
h2gen

Interesting!

Can any of the chemists here tell us:

A) The equation for the adding of the baking soda to the vinegar? I'm guessing that carbon dioxide gas gets vented (causing the foaming)?

B) The electrolysis equation for the Sodium Acetate? Are there any by products? Does it get used up?

I can't express how much I want an alternative electrolyte. KOH is great, but expensive and caustic. NaOH is cheap, but caustic and makes a nasty mess everytime I use it, damn white muck just seems to appear everywhere. Distilled White Vinegar alone is nice and safe, but leaves residue and doesn't produce very well.

Russ.

[Painless]

Just found part of the answer to my question:

In the electrolysis of a concentrated solution of sodium acetate, hydrogen is evolved at the cathode and a mixture of ethane and carbon dioxide at the anode.

According to H. Jahn, 2 the processes at the anode can be represented by the equations 2CH 3 000+H 2 0 =2CH3 000H+0 2 C H 3. COO H +0 = C 2 H 6 +2 CO 2 +H20.

The hydrogen at the cathode is developed by the secondary action 2Na+2H 2 O =2NaOH+H2.

Carbon dioxide I don't see as a terrible emmission, otherwise we'd better all duct tape our mouths shut. Ethane anyone?

[coffeeachiever]

That sounds great. The only other issue is freezing point. White vinegar is said to freeze at 28 degrees. Does that change when mixed with baking soda?

[Painless]

That sounds great. The only other issue is freezing point. White vinegar is said to freeze at 28 degrees. Does that change when mixed with baking soda?

I'm going to mix up a small batch tonight and put it in my freezer.

[H2OPWR]

Anyone who thinks KOH and water will not freeze is wrong. Yesterday I mixed 5 cups of KOH flakes with one quart of water. That is a very strong concentration! I left it outside last night. It got down to zero. This morning I checked it. Frozen almost solid. It was a veryfirm slush. If I had left it one more night it would have been a brick.

[coffeeachiever]

Anyone who thinks KOH and water will not freeze is wrong. Yesterday I mixed 5 cups of KOH flakes with one quart of water. That is a very strong concentration! I left it outside last night. It got down to zero. This morning I checked it. Frozen almost solid. It was a veryfirm slush. If I had left it one more night it would have been a brick.

I had no doubt that it would freeze, the issue is what the threshold is. I am a little discouraged that it is only around zero. I posted in another thread that my 25/75 ratio of NaOH and water survived down to fourteen degrees. I was very excited about that. Doesn't get below 10 degrees very much in Memphis.

[Painless]

The bottom line is that everything becomes a solid at some point. My full strength KOH and NaOH solutions have been fine down to about 15 F.

I made up a solution of sodium acetate last night, I took some distilled white vinegar (95% distilled water, 5% acetic acid). And slowly mixed in sodium bicarbonate until I was getting powder on the bottom (I wpuld guestimate about 20% by volume) and left it in the freezer overnight.

This morning, it was a little slushy. The temp of the solution was 23 F.

I also put in two wall plates connected to my jump start battery last night, it produced very well with an inch between the plates. We should consider though that we are producing hydrogen, carbon dioxide and ethane though.