[BC] Google, today Hertz

[Rob Landry]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012, RichardBJohnson at comcast.net wrote:

> Correct. A negative conductor exposed to moist soil will have "junk" 
> plated onto it, rather than off from it. If the polarity was reversed, 
> the conductor would slowly disappear as it plated out to the soil. In 
> plating tanks, the anode (+) contains the metal to be plated and the 
> cathode (-) is the metal to receive plating.

That reminds me of some experiments I used to do as a kid. I ran DC 
through salt water and observed that hydrogen gas could be collected from 
the cathode while the anode slowly disintegrated. If it was copper, copper 
choride would pecipitate out; if it was aluminum, aluminum chloride; and 
so on.

So I tried using a pencil lead for an anode, reasoning that I'd never 
heard of carbon chloride, so it shouldn't disintegrate... and it didn't. 
Instead, I got chlorine gas.

Rob