Well, in the simplest terms that I can understand, which means you have to dumb down to my level, Sunshine, is that;
‘Water is made of two hydrogen atoms attached to an oxygen atom. This seems like pretty basic chemistry, so why don’t we just smash them together and solve the world’s water ills? Theoretically, this is possible, but it would be an extremely dangerous process, too.
To create water, oxygen and hydrogen atoms must be present. Mixing them together doesn’t help; you’re still left with just separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The orbits of each atom’s electrons must become linked, and to do that we must have a sudden burst of energy to get these shy things to hook up.
Since hydrogen is extremely flammable and oxygen supports combustion, it wouldn’t take much to create this force. Pretty much all we need is a spark – not even a flame – and boom! we have water. The hydrogen and oxygen atoms’ electrons’ orbits have been conjoined.
But we also have an explosion and – if our experiment was big enough, a deadly one.
The ill-fated blimp, the Hindenburg, was filled with hydrogen to keep it afloat. As it approached New Jersey on May 6, 1937, to land after a trans-Atlantic voyage, static electricity (or an act of sabotage, according to some) caused the hydrogen to spark. When mixed with the ambient oxygen in the air, the hydrogen exploded, enveloping the Hindenburg in a ball of fire that completely destroyed the ship within half a minute.
There was, however, also a lot of water created by this explosion.’
This example, I think, would be enough to give anyone pause about trying to get oxygen and hydrogen to do the nasty to produce water. But fear not, fellow homo sapien, there are some wonder workers out there that have come up with some interesting and feasible ideas on how to create water – more about that next wee.
For now, and in the foreseeable future, should you require drinking water that doesn’t go boom when you drink it, have a look at our rather nifty range of water coolers; water boilers; water fountains … (the list goes on). You’re welcome to drop us an e-mail and we’ll be happy to take you through the best water cooler for your requirements.
Rather unfortunately, our water coolers are not cut out for scientific water experiments. Just in case you were wondering.
Hey Fern Shaw, I just read this really swell article you wrote nearly 10 yrs ago. You answered a question in an interesting and informative manner without sounding condescending or irritated at the person who asked the question! I hope you are still writing/answering questions today. Thanks!
A clear & very satisfied explanation I’ve heard from the time I started to think why can’t we make are own water ( Its just a timespan of 10 days or somethin’….. ) & in the above comment as Ms.Dorothy said it is easy to understand and I, myself very much enjoyed to read this short article…..
So is it economically feasible to combine oxygen and hydrogen using the energy proced to power an Internal combustion engine that emits water from the exhaust
So if there s plenty of water in reservoirs to the East, why not just move around resources and share the goods as one big happy country? A candidate in California s gubernatorial recall election recently suggested building a pipeline from the Mississippi River to the Golden State. We asked two drought experts. It turns out it would be stupidly complicated.
I’ve been toiling w that ?myself. Theories like origin of H2O on earth came from ‘water logged’ asteroids do not answer, as where did that H2O come from! That Hydrogen + Oxygen would cause explosion when combined explains why man can’t just make H2O to cure droughts. I guess only answer is God made it