Exploring Faraday's Law of Electrolysis Using Zinc–Air Batteries with Current Regulative Diodes

Masahiro Kamata and Miei Paku
Department of Science Education, Faculty of Education, Tokyo Gakugei University, Tokyo 184-8501, Japan
J. Chem. Educ., 2007, 84 (4), p 674
DOI: 10.1021/ed084p674
Publication Date (Web): April 1, 2007

Abstract

Although electrolysis of an aqueous solution is often used to demonstrate Faraday's law, not only chemicals such as CuSO4 but also several elaborate devices such as an analytical balance, a dc power supply, and a dc ammeter are needed. In addition, a long time is required for students to obtain quantitative data. From such a viewpoint, we have developed a new educational experiment using zinc–air batteries (PR2330) and current regulative diode (CRD) arrays. Since a zinc–air battery uses the oxygen in the atmosphere as the cathode material, students were able to confirm Faraday's law of electrolysis by measuring the volume of oxygen absorbed and reacting in the battery. In addition, the combination of zinc–air batteries and CRDs made constant-current discharging possible without any dc power supply or ammeter to monitor it, which means the cost of the experiment is low and can be conducted in a classroom instead of a laboratory. Furthermore, the measurement can be accomplished in a short time (5 minutes) and the data is quantitative enough for educational purposes.

Keywords (Audience):

First-Year Undergraduate / General

Keywords (Domain):

Physical Chemistry

Keywords (Pedagogy):

Hands-On Learning / Manipulatives

Keywords (Subject):

Electrochemistry
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  • Received: August 03, 2009

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