Well, the carbon rods I talked about in my last post proved to be... disappointing. The cathode ended up dissolving for reasons somewhat unknown, most likely due to oxidation. However, it did disappear more gradually than previous electrodes such as copper, which was the only positive aspect. This means I will have to resort to using some sort of platinized material as an electrode in the future, but luckily only for one of them, as the anode does not corrode during the process. I used the epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) as an electrolyte and luckily, it did work. I assumed as much, as magnesium sulfate is soluable in water (necessary for it to be an electrolyte), but also had stronger bonds between its atoms than NaCl, so it did not produce any unwanted materials at either electrode. I will be ordering platinum electrodes (of some sort) and post another update when they arrive. I'll also be trying to find another voltage source that hopefully is a bit better than my current 24 volts :D.
Note: When I iron out all of the problems with the water electrolyzing process, I plan to run it (full scale) off of solar power, which means that it would cleanly generate hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles, the only byproduct being water, which was the "fuel" that provided hydrogen in the first place.
I look forward to posting an update soon!
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