Faraday efficiency A charge of one faraday Waste Commentary

Michael Faraday chemistry

Faraday efficiency

• Ideally, during electrolysis,
• each electron from a battery
• moves one atom from a compound
• to the cathode or anode
• so you could measure
• the amount of electricity used
• by weighing the separated portions;
• however, chemistry can produce losses
• as separated elements can combine
• before they get to their electrodes.
• These losses produce heat
• instead of producing separated elements.

A charge of one faraday

• We used to measure electric charge in faradays.
• One faraday (the value of the Faraday constant)
• is the elementary charge times the Avogadro constant,
• that is, the amount of charge in a mole of electrons.

Waste

• A gold miner doesn’t try to sell
• his empty veins, his crunched quartz,
• his heaps of worthless slag.
• When all is said and done,
• the wasted time and energy
• won’t matter in the least.
• Or will it? Wouldn’t it show cause?
• Human effort? A struggle to do better?
• Don’t we learn anything from failures?