FARADAY'S LAWS OF ELECTROLYSIS

in chemistry, quantitative laws used to express magnitudes of electrolytic effects, first described by the English scientist Michael Faraday in 1833. The laws state that (1) the amount of chemical change produced by current at an electrode-electrolyte boundary is proportional to the quantity of electricity used, and (2) the amounts of chemical changes produced by the same quantity of electricity in different substances are proportional to their equivalent weights. In electrolytic reactions, the equivalent weight of a substance is the gram formula weight associated with a unit gain or loss of electron. The quantity of electricity that will cause a chemical change of one equivalent weight unit has been designated a faraday. It is equivalent to 9.6485309 104 coulombs of electricity. Thus, in the electrolysis of fused magnesium chloride, MgCl2, one faraday of electricity will deposit 24.312/2 grams of magnesium at the negative electrode and liberate 35.453 grams of chlorine at the positive electrode.