[NewCandle] Stretching (and hiding) nanosquiddies

[Nick Reiter]

Heyyo, K

Hmmmm.  I'm chewing on this.  Maybe I'm getting a little lost in the terminology and model.  What constitutes the cathode and anode in a purely chemical system?  All of the six rolls of foil are the same alloy and size, stacked in a plastic bucket, into which I pour a consistent volume of a moderate to weak salt solution.  I'm not applying any potentials either externally or galvanically.

Again, if we are talking currents evolved from potential gradients at the reaction surfaces, then would this not be a value expressed in uA / micron^2 or some such - in other words a current density from the number of ions present and the working distance at the surface oxide payer?

Thats why this is a puzzler for me.  Are you saying that the total current or energy present in the bucket plays a role in a distributed way?  How does this jibe with other chemical reactions?  My perhaps overly simplistic notion is that for a reaction proceeding from a surface inward, the rate of that reaction and the products are determined by chemical energy locally, as well as temperature.

n


> Nick writes,
> >Temperature, lighting, and locale are all the same.  So
> what is the missing
> X factor?
> 
> Current density, probably. Don't try to scale down
> these experiments unless
> you
> intend on supplying the current externally from a power
> supply. Then you
> would
> be working with an aluminum anode/cathode and can dial in
> the large current
> density
> that your big rolls are achieving on a small piece of
> metal. You can see
> what
> a difference there is from the experiment I just posted.