Nicholson, water electrolysis

I It must be noted that already a decade earlier the Dutchmen R van Troostwijk and J.R. Deim [7. Phys. 2,130 (1790)] showed that during spark discharge a (short-time) process of water electrolysis is achieved. These results were known by Nicholson and Carlisle when (using the then new Volta pile) they reported on long-time water electrolysis, but in their publication these results were not mentioned [R. de Levie, 7. Electroanal. Chem., 476, 92 (1999)]. 

Electrolytic water splitting was the first electrochemical process to be performed. Historically, the first experiment on water electrolysis was attributed to Nicholson and Carlisle, who in 1800, using the newly invented Volta s pile, observed the formation of gaseous products in the laboratory [1]. In reality, there are documents proving that Volta himself noted the phenomenon a few years earlier, although he never reported the observation in a publication [2]. 

Just a few months after the appearance of the Volta pile it was found that the electric current can exert a chemical action. As early as May of 1800, Nicholson and Carlisle carried out water electrolysis. In 1803 the processes of metal electrodeposition were discovered. In 1807 Davy for the first time isolated alkali metals by electrolysis of salt melts. Thus almost simultaneously with the creation of the first electrochemical power source - the "galvanic cell" or "galvanic battery" - many electrochemical processes were discovered and the foundations were laid of the science which to-day we call electrochemistry. 

After having learned about the work of Alessandro Volta (1747-1827) on the invention of the first electric battery, William Nicholson (1753-1815) and Anthony Carlisle (1768-1840), two British chemists, attempted to reconstract sueh a battery. During these tests, they discovered - by accident - that when the ends of the electrical conductors are submerged in water, the water is decomposed into hydrogen and oxygem They had just performed the first form of water electrolysis with DC supply. 

In parallel to the French Revolution, the earliest observation of water electrolysis was made by 1789 in Holland by A. Pacts van Troostwijk and J.R. Deiman. Some authors attribute the discovery to two British scholars, W. Nicholson and A. Carlisle, in 1800. 

In 1800 William Nicholson and Sir Anthony Carlisle discovered electrolysis and initiated the science of electrochemistry. In their experiments they employed a voltaic pile to liberate oxygen and hydrogen from water. They discovered that the amount of oxygen and hydrogen liberated by the current was proportional to the amount of current used. 

Electrolysis of water, mentioned above, had been described by the British chemists WilUam Nicholson (1753-1815) and Sir Anthony Carlisle (1768-1842) in 1800. But Grove s experiment seemed to go in the opposite direction. This reverse eleoctrolysis is the basic operation of the fuel cell—the combination of hydrogen gas (H ) and oxygen gas (O ) to produce water and energy, as described in the following chemical equation ... 

British chemists William Nicholson (1753-1815) and Sir Anthony Carlisle (1768-1842) discover electrolysis of water. 

In 1800. William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle decomposed water into hydrogen and oxygen by an electric current supplied by a voltaic pile. Whereas Volta had pruduced electricity from chemical action these experimenters reversed the process and utilized electricity to produce chemical changes. In 1807. Sir Humphry Davy discovered two new elements, potassium and sodium, by the electrolysis of ihe respective solid hydroxides, utilizing a voltaic pile as the source of electric power. These electrolytic processes were the forerunners of the many industrial electrolytic processes used today to obtain aluminum, chlorine, hydrogen, or oxygen, for example, or in die electroplating of metals such as silver or chromium. 

Hydrogen as an energy carrier and potentially widely used fuel is attractive because it can be produced easily without emissions by splitting water. In addition, the readily available electrolyzer can be used in a home or business where off peak or surplus electricity could be used to make the environmentally preferred gas. Electrolysis was first demonstrated in 1800 by William Nicholson and Sir Anthony Carlisle and has found a variety of niche markets ever since. Two electrolyzer technologies, alkaline and proton exchange membrane (PEM), exist at the commercial level with solid oxide electrolysis in the research phase. 

Water was first decomposed by electricity in 1800 by Nicholson and Carlisle, and confirmed by Davy by a series of brilliant experiments extending through a period of six years. The decomposition of water by electricity is called Electrolysis. 

The nineteenth century was an exciting time for electrical experimentation and discovery. Shortly after Alessandro Volta demonstrated the voltaic pile to the Royal Society of London in 1800, two experimenters, William Nicholson and Sir Anthony Carlisle, discovered that hydrogen and oxygen could be produced by passing an electric current through water. This was the first demonstration of the principle of electrolysis. 

Cecil s suggestion came only 20 years after another fundamental discovery electrolysis (breaking water down into hydrogen and oxygen by passing an electrical current through it). That discovery had been made by two English scientists, William Nicholson and Sir Anthony Carlisle, 6 years after Lavoisier s execution and just a few weeks after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built his first electric cell. 

In that same year William Nicholson noticed the products of electrolysis of river water appearing at the free ends of wires connected to a voltaic pile. Hence one of the first acts of Sir Humphry Davy, on becoming director of the laboratory at the Royal Institution in London the following year, was to construct a large battery of the sort Volta had described. With it he followed up Nicholson s observation vigorously over the next five years, with results that he symmarized in the following words. 

In effect, Nicholson and Carlisle had decomposed water into hydrogen and oxygen, such decomposition by an electric current being called electrolysis. They had achieved the reverse of Cavendish s experiment (see page 62), in which hydrogen and oxygen had been combined to form water. 

Nicholson and Carlisle achieved the first electrolysis of water by means of a battery and observed gas evolution, revealing the production of dIhydrogen. It can be noted that Volta had also achieved similar findings but he did not come to any conclusion. 

Mr. Carlisle observed a disengagement of gas where a drop of water upon the upper plate completed a circuit/ This was the first observed electrolysis, the decomposition of materials by electricity. The journal immediately became the forum for new investigations of electricity. Ultimately the journal was a commercial failure, Nicholson spent time in debtor s prison, and died in poverty after a lingering illness. But he set the stage for a spectacle of discovery, and onto this stage stepped Berzelius in the summer of 1800. 

For his doctoral dissertation Berzelius built a voltaic pile and studied the effects of galvanic current on patients. He found no effects (and gained no new patients), but this started a chain of thought that culminated 11 years later in a dualistic theory of chemical affinity. Berzelius followed up the experiments of Nicholson and Carlisle to find that not only did electricity split water, but it also split salts. Simultaneously with Davy, who we encounter shortly, he used electrolysis to isolate such alkaline earth metals as calcium and barium. He then proposed a dualistic theory of chemical affinity based on electrical attraction ... 

The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) have been the focus of numerous scientific studies indeed, they probably represent the most studied reactions in electrochemistry. The demonstration of the electrolysis of water dates back to 1800, when the chemist and inventor William Nicholson teamed up with the surgeon Anthony Carlisle to decompose water into its constituent gases with a voltaic pile [2]. Today, the HER and HOR have become exemplary reactions for understanding and developing... 

Nicholson, William (1753-1815) English chemist who showed that water could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen by inserting two wires into it that were connected to an electric battery. This was the first demonstration of electrolysis. Nicholson, who had had the benefit of publishing his own scientific journal, was able to report some findings with the voltaic pile even before Alessandro Volta. 

In 1799 he established a school in London, where he taught natural philosophy and chemistry. In 1800 he and Carlisle constructed a voltaic pile by using half-crown as silver discs (they also used platinum, gold and copper wires) pieces of zinc, pasteboard soaked in salt water, and noticed that gas bubbles were evolved from a drop of water which they used to improve the electrical contact of the leads. They proved that the gases were hydrogen and oxygen, therefore water was decomposed by electrolysis. Nicholson immediately announced the results in his journal, the paper [i] appearing in July, 1800, in advance of Volta s paper. 

The first decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen, by electrolysis, was done in 1800 by an English chemist William Nicholson. In 1805, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Alexander von Humboldt showed that water is composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. 

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