Caution:  Wear safety goggles
Materials:

Peg board   
2 sm. clamps
graduated cylinder
stirring rod
paper towels
sodium carbonate solution   

2 no. 2 stoppers 
electrodes and leads battery
Matches
pencil   
wood splints 

2 sm. test tubes
beaker 
water
goggles
rubber band

Procedure:

  1. Set up the apparatus shown in figure 6.1. 
  1. Connect the wires to the battery and see if anything happens.
  1. Since this reaction is very slow when pure water is used, something must be added to speed up the process.
  1. Add from 10 to 30 cm3 of sodium carbonate solution to the water.
  1. Disconnect the battery when one of the test tubes is nearly full of gas.
  1. Mark the volume of gas in each tube with a rubber band.
  1. Be careful not to lose any gases when you remove them from the water.
  1. Test the gases to see if you think they might be hydrogen and oxygen using burning and glowing splints.
  1. Measure the volumes of the gases in the test tubes. 
  1. To compare these two volumes, divide the volume of the hydrogen by the volume of the oxygen. This gives you the ration of the volume of hydrogen to the volume of oxygen.
  1. Compare your ration with the ratios obtained by students who used different amounts of sodium carbonate solution mixed with the water.

  • Does the amount of the solution added to the water affect the volume ratio?

  • What is the mass ratio of hydrogen to oxygen?