Laser Light to Ionize Distilled Water?

Add salt.

... or some Fe₂O_3.

Or drop some common steel nails into your water, and make your own Fe₂O₃.

What makes "non-distilled" water conduct electricity are the minerals and salts and metals in it... so he's right just add salt - or better yet, don't use the more expensive distilled water for your experiment, use your tap water .

Two questions for you:

1. What's the title mean?

2. Do you mean conduct 5 amps or 5milliamps. Oh yes, distance matters too. You must define the level of conductivity you desire.

And on, and on.

Finally, since you're new, I'll tell you that one sentence questions are scorned by those here who can best help you.

In this case it seems that you've gotten lucky with some good answers so far.

Welcome to CR4.

Just use a big honking voltage source. Crank it up until it makes it's own path through the water.

Yup Rule #75 definitely applies here.

If you "Ionize" distilled water it is no longer distilled water.

Your question requires more qualifying information to provide the quality responses you seek.

What is the volume of water?

What materiel is the tank?

Is the tank enclosed?

Is it a pressure vessel?

What are the conductors made from?

Are you applying DC or AC?

What level of current do you want to conduct and at what voltage?

What other processes do you want to allow while the current is flowing?

last but not least ,

Why do you want to do this thing?

What is distilled water? I'm guessing that there may be definitive standards for the purity of distilled water; but they probably don't apply for what you buy in the market to put in your steam iron or battery. This is the kind of thing you'd expect to see in some engineering spec.

This may sound trite; but water is "distilled" by virtue of a process that it has gone through to remove dissolved substances that have negligible vapor pressure at the boiling temperature of the distillation process. Anything you add to distilled water that ionizes when you dissolve it in the water will make it conductive to some extent. But it will still be "distilled". You cannot change history.

If you expose pure water to a high energy source like a laser beam you will likely vaporize some of it. Then it will condense back into water at a slightly higher temperature leaving behind an amount of vapor that is determined by the surrounding air.

Now, water will dissolve gasses like oxygen (that fish can breath), nitrogen and other gasses that make up our atmosphere. Most will not dissociate when dissolved. But a few will. The most common of these is carbon dioxide. When carbon dioxide dissolves in water some of it forms carbonic acid ions. In fairly pure water this is the main source of ions that can make the water conductive. (that's why morning dew does such a job of rusting bare steel).

At one point in my engineering work I was working on cooling systems that used deionized water. I learned that the quality of it was determined by resistivity, 18 megohm being the highest possible at room temperature. 4-5 megohm DI water was reasonably available; but if you let it sit in a container with any air it would level out at about 1 megohm after several weeks. I'm guessing that this was due to the fairly low CO2 levels in the air we breath and the fact that most of the air what dissolved in it was nitrogen, oxygen and argon that dissolved as molecules and just a little CO2 and common air pollutants in the ppm range that would create dissolved ions.

There ends my subjective knowledge of the subject.

But what occurs to me is that if you bubbled CO2 through distilled water, especially if it didn't already have a bunch of air dissolved in it you could make it slightly acid and slightly conductive without adding any unusual contaminants. If the water you are dealing with is already in contact with the air it probably already has some CO2 in it. I'm suggesting to increase it and see what you get.

OK, you guys who know more about this correct me. You won't hurt my feelings.

Ed Weldon

Your question makes sense.

You are looking for laser or other nor chemical means to ionize distilled water.

I can not help, because I am looking for that as well.

When you find it, please tell me.

Adelante ¡

Arturo

apr@arrakis.es

Sorry! First time to post. I am trying to enable electrolysis of water without contaminants. I need to make the process safer for use around aluminum and other materials that are reactive with KOH or NaOH. I am currently using 316L SS plates spaced at 0.135 inches arranged -NNNNN+ in a 20% KOH bath. This works well but has some danger in the handling process.

Lee -- Now we know where you are coming from. Later today (during siesta time; we've got a real heat wave going here) I'll dig out my corrosion data handbook and look for a likely electrolyte that may be less corrosive but still able to concentrate to the point of having low resistivity for maximum power transfer (I^2*R).

Ed Weldon

I would prefer to use no electrolyte at all. Is it possible to excite the water molecules sufficiently using light?

Lee -- How much energy do you think you can put into the water beyond that which will simply vaporize it at 212F? And how long do you think any disassociated state of the water that will lower it's resistivity will persist? Be practical, my friend. Your idea may look good on Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica; but there is no scientific reason to believe it has any practicality. Or perhaps can someone else offer something?

Glad I haven't wasted any time digging through my library as yet. ........Ed Weldon

Sorry! I thought this was a "new technology" discussion board.

When you chart a course whether it be to a fixed or unknown destination it helps to know where the rocks and shoals are, especially the hidden ones. Hopefully some of these obstacles are now visible to you.

Ed Weldon