Why does water amplify electricity

Water and Electricity: Is it a Dangerous Combination? The Science of Water In its purest form, water is an electrical insulator. Safety Tips to Avoid Water-Electricity Contact Make sure to implement these safety precautions to prevent any potential contact between moisture and your home electrical system: Keep hands dry when handling electrical wires and plugs. Unplug electrical appliances when not in use.

This is especially critical in moisture-prone areas — say, a hair dryer inside your bathroom or an induction cooker beside the kitchen sink. Keep electrical devices and extension cords away from water puddles or running water sources.

Hire a professional electrical contractor to install electrical connections in swimming pools or bathrooms. Use battery-operated appliances instead of electricity-driven devices for areas near water sources. Final Word If you want to be absolutely sure about the electrical safety in your home, give us a call at Wire Craft Electric. Water that would be considered "pure" would be distilled water water condensed from steam and deionized water used in laboratories , although even water of this purity can contain ions.

But in our real lives, we normally do not come across any pure water. If you read our article about water being the " universal solvent " you know that water can dissolve more things than just about any other liquid. Water is a most excellent solvent.

It doesn't matter if the water comes out of your kitchen faucet, is in a swimming pool or dog dish, comes out of the ground or falls from the sky, the water will contain significant amounts of dissolved substances, minerals, and chemicals. These things are the solutes dissolved in water. Don't worry, though—if you swallow a snowflake, it won't hurt you; it may even contain some nice minerals your body needs to stay healthy.

Water stops being an excellent insulator once it starts dissolving substances around it. Salts , such as common table salt sodium chloride NaCl is the one we know best. In chemical terms, salts are ionic compounds composed of cations positively charged ions and anions negatively charged ions. In solution, these ions essentially cancel each other out so that the solution is electrically neutral without a net charge. Even a small amount of ions in a water solution makes it able to conduct electricity so definitely don't add salt to your "lightning-storm" bathwater.

When water contains these ions it will conduct electricity, such as from a lightning bolt or a wire from the wall socket, as the electricity from the source will seek out oppositely-charged ions in the water.

Too bad if there is a human body in the way. Interestingly, if the water contains very large amounts of solutes and ions, then the water becomes such an efficient conductor of electricity that an electrical current may essentially ignore a human body in the water and stick to the better pathway to conduct itself—the masses of ions in the water.

That is why the danger of electrocution in sea water is less than it would be in bathwater. Lucky for hydrologists here at the USGS, water flowing in streams contains extensive amounts of dissolved salts. Otherwise, these two USGS hydrologists might be out of a job.

Many water studies include investigating the fish that live in streams, and one way to collect fish for scientific study is to shoot an electrical current through the water to shock the fish "zap 'em and bag 'em". Want to know more about conductivity and water? Well, not traditional spectroscopy anyway. Scientists at Yale University have been working to adapt spectroscopy so that they can observe the molecules handing off the protons to the next in line.

They made some progress by figuring out how to freeze the chemical process, slowing it down to give them time to visualize the molecules at work. But their early attempts at this, which relied on infrared scanning, produced snapshots that were still too blurry, as a result of the vibrating chemical bonds.

So the team changed their approach and began trying to observe the proton exchange in what's known as "heavy water," which was chilled to almost absolute zero. The difference between this and regular water is that hydrogen atoms are switched with a heavier isotope called deuterium, the upshot of which is that bonds vibrate less.

And it was through this technique that the researchers were able to create much sharper images of the protons in motion, revealing how they temporarily change their structure when receiving a proton, and again when they are passing it off.

Such a discovery might not have immediate applications, after all the scientists didn't manipulate the process they simply watched it play out. But with this new insight into how water conducts electricity, it could lead to better understanding of the chemical processes that occur on the surface of water, of which there is some scientific debate.

Further down the track, it could lead to improved energy technologies and new kinds of pharmaceuticals. The research was published in the journal Science. Source: University of Washington , Yale. LOG IN. Menu HOME. Search Query Submit Search. By Nick Lavars. Facebook Twitter Flipboard LinkedIn. Scientists have gained a new insight into how water conducts electricity.