Why Does Saltwater Conduct Electricity

Electricity and Conduction

Conductors, like copper wire, carry electrical current.

••• Comstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images

To empathize why common salt h2o conducts electricity, we have to first empathize what electricity is. Electricity is a steady flow of electrons or electrically charged particles through a substance. In some conductors, such equally copper, the electrons themselves are able to menstruum through the substance, carrying the current. In other conductors, such equally salt water, the current is moved by molecules called ions.

Dissolving Salt Water

When salt dissolves in water the water becomes more conductive.

••• Thinkstock/Comstock/Getty Images

Pure water is not very conductive, and only a tiny fleck of current tin motion through the water. When salt or sodium chloride (NaCl) is dissolved in it, all the same, the salt molecules split into two pieces, a sodium ion and a chlorine ion. The sodium ion is missing an electron, which gives information technology a positive charge. The chlorine ion has an extra electron, giving it a negative charge.

Creating a Current

When an electric source sends a current through water it will have two terminals.

••• Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty Images

An electric source sending a current through water will have two terminals: a negative one that conducts electrons into the water, and a positive one that removes them. Opposite charges attract, and then the sodium ions are attracted to the negative concluding, and the chlorine to the positive. The ions grade a bridge, the sodium ions absorbing electrons from the negative terminal, passing them to chlorine ions and then the positive terminal.