Testing the waters on High Pike

 When we came down off High Pike this afternoon, we found a mine pool with water that looked unnaturally blue. Perhaps it might contain copper ions because copper sulfate is blue. Mrs B bravely got me a sample. We set up an electrolysis experiment at home using nails as electrodes.

 Initially there were bubbles of gas appearing round the negative electrode. No copper ions appeared as hoped. I suspect they were bubbles of hydrogen and that we were merely separating water by electrolysis. There was a small current of 2.3mA. I was using a 9V battery.

 This is what happened when it was left for over an hour. I think that what has happened is that iron ions have been pulled into the solution from the positive electrode and that this is what has given the distinctive colour to the solution. The current peaked at 4.0mA which suggest that the extra ions had improved the conductivity. There is as yet no clear evidence of fresh iron being deposited on the cathode. If that happened, then this experiment would be like the one we tried in class where we used electrolysis to purify smelted copper.