Electrocution in Water
Why Chemistry Stack Exchange recommends it
Chemistry Stack Exchange users cite it as the source experiment when asking or explaining what happens chemically when AC current runs through salt water with copper electrodes.
Recommended by 1 people across 1 different months, 2015 to 2019.
What it is
A 2013 ElectroBOOM video by Mehdi Sadaghdar that tests how dangerous it is to be in water with a live wire, running household AC through a tank of salt water. At the end the water turns cloudy and a copper wire is visibly eaten away.
What people said
Recommends Nicolau Saker Neto · 2015-02 · Chemistry Stack Exchange · on “Can water electrolysis detect the water impurities?”
Depending on the electrodes used and the voltage applied, the cloudy material may well be caused by degradation of the electrodes themselves. Here's an interesting related video [this video] . Notice that after becoming more conductive, the water allows more current through, which speeds up corrosion of the copper wire. So naturally, after a certain amount of time at a given voltage, regular tap water with salts inside will become cloudier than distilled/deionized/RO water.
Cites got trolled too much this week · 2019-04 · Chemistry Stack Exchange · on “What are we seeing in this AC salt-water copper-wire experiment?”
There's a highly watched video on YouTube by "ElectroBoom" on the effects of passing AC (not DC) current through salt water. The water gets cloudy and at the end of the video [this video] we can see one of the copper wires has been eaten away by the process. Is there really "a reaction of the copper with the salt in water" as the author of the video claims? Or is it a pure physical process where the copper "boils off" the wire?
Cites ManRow · 2019-12 · Chemistry Stack Exchange · on “What happens when you run house electricity through salt water?”
What happens when you run house electricity (120VAC) through salt water? (with standard copper wires!) Well, in [this video] , an interesting experiment was conducted to find out! At the end of the video, however, I noticed the salt water became rather dark and murky, and I'm wondering what happened inside. Did the copper wires just corrode into some kind of precipitate? $$\ce{Cu(s) + H2O(\ell) -> CuO(s) + H2(g)}$$ $$\ce{Cu(s) + 2H2O(\ell) -> Cu(OH)2(s) + H2(g)}$$ Was there chlorine gas even created too? $$\ce{2H+(aq) + 2Cl^{-}(aq) -> H2(g) + Cl2(g)}$$