Electrolysis and Fire!

This is part of a series on cleaning cast iron with electrolysis.

I couldn't resist any longer and I decided to try to light the hydrogen on fire.


SAFETY WARNING: Electrolysis produces hydrogen and oxygen gases in exactly the ideal ratio for the biggest possible explosion. If you like having eyes and fingers, proceed with caution!

My batter charger is putting out 12V and 10A into my solution of water and washing soda. Actually, my attempt to bring the anode closer to the cooking surface with loops of metal was rather disappointing, as I didn't have very good material to work with and only ~2A flowed through (my gauge is not easy to read).

Anyway, I taped some wood to the end of a broom, lit it on fire, held it near the solution, and turned on the charger. By the way, this was AFTER having it off and popping all the bubbles! I started from the minimum amount of hydrogen present and worked my way up, to make sure it would be safe.

Nothing happened. It turns out that the newly formed hydrogen gets trapped in bubbles on the surface of the water. Since I am not separating anode from cathode and getting them to bubble separately, I assume each bubble holds a pretty good mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. So anyway, no big fire happened when I turned on the batter charger in the presence of fire. But when I popped the bubbles with the end of my stick, they exploded with little pops. Bigger bubbles popped louder. I bet if I wait until the froth forms, it will really make a boom.

If you look on youtube, you can see how big a pop is produced by a glob of hydrogen bubbles. So, based on how many bubbles you see at the top of your water, you can estimate how dangerous that will be. Remember, the hydrogen seemed to be trapped in bubbles in my setup, but could yours be letting gas go free in an amount that would be dangerous? You can test this from a safe distance if you put your fire on the end of a nice long stick, such as a broom. Wear eye protection. If you suspect you've generated a lot of hydrogen, use hearing protection, as well.