page_title: Electrolysis of water
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Electrolysis of water / History
caption_attribution_description: Erste quantitative Wasserelektrolyse durch Johann Wilhelm Ritter, zuerst veröffentlicht in "Voigts Magazin für den neuesten Zustand der Naturkunde", Bd.2 (1800) S.356-400. Die Zeichnung wurde von Ritter selbst angefertigt und illustrierte den Artikel. Die Messbecher fangen das entweichende Gas auf und Ritter bestimmte erstmalig das Verhältnis von Wasserstoffgas (dort: Hydrogen) und Sauerstoffgas richtig mit 2:1.
context_page_description: Electrolysis of water is the decomposition of water into oxygen and hydrogen gas due to the passage of an electric current.
  This technique can be used to make hydrogen gas, a main component of hydrogen fuel, and breathable oxygen gas, or can mix the two into oxyhydrogen, which is also usable as fuel, though more volatile and dangerous.
  It is also called water splitting. It requires a minimum potential difference of 1.23 volts to split water.
context_section_description: Jan Rudolph Deiman and Adriaan Paets van Troostwijk used, in 1789, an electrostatic machine to make electricity which was discharged on gold electrodes in a Leyden jar with water. In 1800 Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, and a few weeks later the English scientists William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle used it for the electrolysis of water. In 1806 Humphry Davy reported the results of extensive distilled water electrolysis experiments concluding that nitric acid was produced at the anode from dissolved atmospheric nitrogen gas.  He used a high voltage battery and non-reactive electrodes and vessels such as gold electrode cones that doubled as vessels bridged by damp asbestos. When Zénobe Gramme invented the Gramme machine in 1869 electrolysis of water became a cheap method for the production of hydrogen. A method of industrial synthesis of hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis was developed by Dmitry Lachinov in 1888.
caption: Device invented by Johann Wilhelm Ritter to develop the electrolysis of water
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