Most interesting gadget in ages

These are getting pretty common in the US in swimming pool systems. It's cheaper after the initial install, since you only have to put common salt into the water. There is less chlorine, but it's the same amount all the time, so it disinfects just as well without the negative impacts of shocking the water. And the water isn't very salty. Next time you're in a pool owned by a big company taste the water, if it's slightly salty you're probably in a pool that uses this sort of system. The water isn't very salty, only about 1/10th the salt level of the ocean.

James Sutherland

I've ordered one of these, it'll be fantastic for spot treating canvas tents for mildew and mold.

Drachnien

This seems similar to a swimming pool chlorinator. I have one on my pool. Much nicer to swim in than chucking in chlorine

The big systems do have to get rid of the hydrogen. I don't know whether they burn it or just vent it with lots of air.

Big Clive

The floor scrubber I got for work has basically the same system. It works great but the plant manager didn't trust it because we weren't adding chemicals to the water so I had to completely disconnect the system because if the cleaning crew had cleaner in the scrubber and turned on the device bad things would happen.

Earl Plotner

5g? It's everywhere!

Michael Thompson

Brings to mind the "A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind" which we (still!) console ourselves with when things get a bit out-of-order!

Stephen Eyles

That's an interesting coincidence: I was chatting with a colleague at work today and he was telling me that one of our water treatment sites used to have an Electrochlorination system to purify the water. Apparently it kept exploding due to the buildup of Hydrogen gas in the system! And here's BC making videos about the same thing but on a much smaller scale :-) Hope we don't hear news about a house on the Isle of Man being destroyed in a gas explosion over the next few days!!

Stephen Eyles

That would require a huge amount of current to support a continuous flame across the surface. Jewellers use tiny torches that use electrolysis of water and sodium hydroxide to create a hydrogen/oxygen gas mix on demand.

Big Clive

It runs for 6 minutes at around 600mA.

Big Clive

*idly wonders if you can give it some more welly and get enough production to have flaming water*

Chris Crowther

Gratzi

Cerity

What was the timer? there doesn’t seem to be an upper limit (chemists chime in please) in the hydro chlorination papers about. Is this due to as mentioned, UV degradation of chlorine in situ❓

Cerity

The beeper (if I'm correct) has a 10R resistor to avoid crowbarring the supply. Bare piezos are about 20nF and if your supply is only 100nF you can lose enough volts to trigger a brownout reset, particularly if bridge driving. You can use higher resistances to knock off the higher harmonics but TBH the plastic enclosure will do that anyway. OR if it's DC (self resonant) you'll attenuate it a titch. But I've never needed to turn down a beeper! Only ever UP. Preferably to 11.

Mike Page

Oh no, 10g of Salt? That's twice as bad as 5g

MrTridac

Oh no, after what we saw on the recent streams not sure we can trust Clive with something that produces flammable gas on demand. If it ever heals itself can you stick a balloon over the end and see how much hydrogen it actually produces?

Matt Tester

I have sprayed it on some stuff to see what happens.

Big Clive

The main one seems to be hypochlorous.

Big Clive

I was wondering if carbon or graphite electrodes would work.

Big Clive

The PH of freshly prepared solution is around 8. I've ordered some tests strips for measuring the chlorine content.

Big Clive

For anyone who is interested in buying the same unit from the same seller as in this video: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283850407281

Gadgetman

Glad you enjoyed the recommendation Clive! Did you test what the PH of the final solution was? Interested to see if that unit could make KOH using Potassium Carbonate instead of the Sodium Chloride. KOH is a powerful cleaner and degreaser. I believe the electrodes they use commercially on these types of units are graphite so it may well have a graphite coating to prevent a reaction. Does the hydrogen water unit give the same result?

Do you have the keywords to find this on eBay please?

Gadgetman

Carbon, like the hydrogen gen the guy from England had? Is that why there is no foot detox discoloration ?

I have seen SWG (salt water generator) on the swimming-pool forums and have never looked into exactly how they work.. seems like this is the same thing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_water_chlorination

Something for cemistry lessons at school. Nice! But the price for it is a little bit steep (yes, I'm Dutch;)) At home I just use plain water with a drop of bleatch for sanitising the water containers I use for birds in my garden. After cleaning, rinse with plenty of water. Same with the food containers. Thanks for this nice video!

Hub Rijcks

I love your mess ! A wise bear once said "a messy workbench means that science is happening" so true, this is genuinely fascinating.

Wow this was very interesting! I did not know any of this until now thank you knowledge giver

Michael Thompson

Scotty would say it was "transparent aluminium" to let the LED shine through ;-) If it is SS does that not cause Hexavalent chromium gas, I have seen warnings about it regarding electrical rust removal. Wish I knew more. As a kid we once made copper foil by electroplating a SS fountain pen top. I also used to use copper sulphate to coat metal for marking out in the machine shop, make up the blue solution and wipe it on and as it dries it leave a dark layer of copper. I also found this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride

John Harrison

Can you test spray it on some unwanted greenery? I suspect the resulting solution will be a herbicide.

The Tinkering Shed

Sodium Hypochlorite is Bleach usually 3% to 5% chlorine. When I was a water plant operator the plants I was working at switched from 2 ton tanks of chlorine which was dangerous when switching them. They first went with making it which after a few months they switched it out to thousand plastic tanks that had concentrated basically bleach 12% to 15% because generating it was beyond a pain, besides the custom system would fail and to change the production rate was very slow. We had only 1 slight annoyance, which was , even though covered, enough indirect sunlight could reach the tanks degrading the bleach and the concentration would drop up to half a percent of chlorine a day.

Cleveland Prescott

That was very interesting, I have never heard of it before either. I seem to learn something new every time I watch your vids Clive. Excellent.

Mike Hughes