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We have seen in our chapter on Electrolysis how a metal may be deposited from a solution of its salt and how this process could be used for deriving a pure metal or for plating or coating with the desired metal the surface of another metal or one covered with graphite.
Let us therefore recognise with J.J. Thomson and the many physicists who, in his wake, have taken up and developed the idea of Giese, that, under the influence of the X rays, for reasons which will have to be determined later, certain gaseous molecules have become divided into two portions, the one positively and the other negatively electrified, which we will call, by analogy with the kindred phenomenon in electrolysis, by the name of ions.
It said that their wires registered last night as though some one was tampering with the safe. But by the time they got around, in less than five minutes, there was no one here, nothing seemed to be disturbed. So they set it down to induction or electrolysis, or something the matter with the wires. I got the report the first thing when I arrived here with my assistant, Muller."
The burst of power which had filled the four preceding years with an amount of experimental work unparalleled in the history of science partially subsided in 1835, and the only scientific paper contributed by Faraday in that year was a comparatively unimportant one, 'On an improved Form of the Voltaic Battery. He brooded for a time: his experiments on electrolysis had long filled his mind; he looked, as already stated, into the very heart of the electrolyte, endeavouring to render the play of its atoms visible to his mental eye.
By taking advantage of differences in discharge-potentials, it is possible to effect separations of a number of the metallic ions by electrolysis, and at the same time to deposit the metals in forms which admit of direct weighing. In this way the slower procedures of precipitation and filtration may frequently be avoided.
The electrolytic processes are not the mere experiments a brief description of them would indicate, but are among the important processes for the mechanical products of modern times. The extensive nickel-plating that became a permanent fad in this country on the discovery of a special process some years ago, is all done by electrolysis.
But as the very slightest expenditure of energy is sufficient to produce the commencement of electrolysis, it is necessary to suppose that these two ions are not united by any force. Thus the two ions are, in a way, dissociated.
Thus when calcium carbide is heated and brought into contact with nitrogen one atom of carbon is given up and two atoms of nitrogen take its place, resulting in the production of cyanamide. Other important electro-chemical processes are involved in the electrolysis of the various alkaline salts to obtain metallic sodium and such products as chlorates.
Large articles of iron, such as the parts of ordnance, are sometimes copper-plated to preserve them from the action of the atmosphere. Seamless copper pipes for conveying steam, and wires of pure copper for conducting electricity, are also deposited, and it is not unlikely that the kettle of the future will be made by electrolysis.
In some processes the electrolysis affords directly an alkaline hypochlorite or a chlorate, the former being of wide commercial use as a bleaching agent in textile works and in the paper industry. The same process employed in the electrolysis of sodium salts is used in the case of magnesium and calcium.
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