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Rakeallday t1_j67evhg wrote

Reply to comment by mmmmmmBacon12345 in ELI5: why can't we use electricity to kill microorganisms in small amount of water ? by FreshT3ch

When electricity meets water, it heats up and boils the organism. The problem is it'd take a lot of electricity to kill as much bacteria as we do with other methods that are more energy efficient.

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Kidiri90 t1_j67nw3g wrote

And, you know, it gets turned into hydrogen and oxygen.

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[deleted] t1_j67wnz1 wrote

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Vitztlampaehecatl t1_j680u5c wrote

Moral of the story, don't boil pool water

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[deleted] t1_j6815sg wrote

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Chromotron t1_j68255q wrote

Pure water electrolyses if you try hard enough. It's just silly inefficient.

Table salt is normally not used by people doing electrolysis. Other salts such as sodium/potassium hydroxide, or if nothing better is at hand, sodium (bi)carbonate, are safer, similarly cheap, and also do the job better.

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zebediah49 t1_j68j9is wrote

> Pure water electrolyses if you try hard enough. It's just silly inefficient.

You have to be trying really really hard though. There's a classic demo where you can make water maintain a bridge between two beakers, by putting a decent few kV across it. You need to use extremely pure water to avoid electrolysis, which is pretty successful.

> > Table salt is normally not used by people doing electrolysis. Other salts such as sodium/potassium hydroxide, or if nothing better is at hand, sodium (bi)carbonate, are safer, similarly cheap, and also do the job better.

Well.. It's actually pretty common, but not for when people want to make hydrogen. The Chloralkali process (i.e. NaCl hydrolysis) is the primary industrial method for producing tens of millions of tons of chlorine and sodium hydroxide.

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shinn91 t1_j680thg wrote

Little funfact my chemistry prof once told us. If you use desinfect, like isopropanol, it kills the bacteria by dissolving their shell and their inner parts run out and they die.

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mr_birkenblatt t1_j68df5l wrote

That's why you should still wash your hands even after using hand sanitizer. The dead bodies of the bacteria become food for the next generation

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happykittynipples t1_j694d91 wrote

If I tossed you into a swimming pool and added a few volts it would not pass through you unless you touched a ground, like the metal ladder. Then you would be in trouble. So, you could kill all those tiny bugs but they would need to touch a lot of tiny ladders.

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