Sodium Acetate

[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.

Hi Russ,
You can find info about the chemistry of Sodium Acetate on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_acetate

I switched from KOH to Sodium Acetate for the same reasons you mentioned - it's a lot easier to deal with harmless non-caustic chemicals than messing around with toxic KOH. If you use baking soda or vinegar by themselves they don't work as well as KOH, but mixed together they make an excellent electrolyte that appears to perform just as well (but I only verified this empirically).

In cold weather you may want to add a bit of antifreeze to it, and in worm weather you may want to add some anti-fungal (for example mildew remover for bathroom tiles) since this stuff is organic and can get moldy in warm dark environments.
Cheers,
H2GEN

[Stevo]

Compared to KOH, how much particulate has anyone seen in the electrolyte after moderate useage? KOH usually stays nice and clear, but I know that Baking Soda tends to produce quite a bit of particulate, while Acetic Acid will not produce the particulate. Any pictures?

[h2gen]

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

You can have some fun with Sodium Acetate coming out of the freezer - check out these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQcQt1JvpRQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy6eK...eature=related

Don't worry, once you dilute it in distilled water for your electrolizer it doesn't do that anymore ;-) And you can lower its freezing point even more by adding a bit of antifreeze (or just add some alcohol, for example some vodka).
Cheers,
H2GEN