What Is an Electrolyte?

What Is an Electrolyte?The answer to the question of what is an electrolyte is not that easy to find. It is common knowledge that there are several substances that make up a water system. Those substances vary depending on the type of water system, which is usually different from person to person. To get an understanding of the basic answer of what is an electrolyte in chemistry is to understand the work of the many different compounds that constitute the water systems that we use every day.Water is such a common substance that we tend to think of it as one thing. The things that make up water are molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. An electrolyte is a compound that has a positive and negative charge. A chemical with a positive charge is called an ion and the opposite is called a zero or an empty ion. A liquid that has a zero or empty ion is called a gas.Water molecules that are positive have an excess of an electro-negative charge. In other words they are positively charged, while wat er molecules that are negative have a lack of a positive charge. A water molecule that is not positive has a zero or empty ion. In other words, a negative water molecule is not electrically charged and it cannot form an ion with a positive ion.As a result of the number of protons and electrons that make up an electrolyte, a water molecule has a neutral or the no-charge state. The atoms in a liquid have the same number of protons and electrons. However, each atom has a slightly different size and shape. Because of these differences, these atoms will need to be arranged in a different way to create an electrolyte.Because there are so many compounds that comprise an electrolyte, it can be very difficult to define what an electrolyte is. For example, Iwas in the chemistry lab and we were doing experiments with water and the electrolytes of different types. Some were easy to study and understand. The most common one is sodium chloride. This is a typical electrolyte because it is used in many things that you and I are familiar with.The biggest reason that sodium chloride is considered a useful electrolyte is because it is an inexpensive solution to create a working water system. However, the reason that sodium chloride is so popular is because it is very effective at removing certain organic molecules. It can remove organic chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as well as trichloroethylene (TCE). It can also reduce chlorine by eighty percent.Sodium chloride is an effective electrolyte because it is neutral to both sodium and chlorine. This makes it great for children's health care facilities. When you and I think of sodium chloride, we often think of table salt. This is not table salt. It is salt made by mixing sodium chloride with other chemicals and baking them together until they form a solid and then adding more baking soda to make it a more sticky solution.Other things that are classified as an electrolyte are aluminum hydroxide and potassium hydroxide. These are found in commercial cleaners as well as in various dishes and tableware. When heated and vaporized into a liquid, aluminum hydroxide is also classified as an electrolyte. The reason that it is used in these areas is because it is cheap. It can be used as a dishwasher and in a clothes dryer, which help to preserve the color of aluminum.