Is water a good conductor of electrical current?

Question

Is is true that water is indeed a conductor, but when compared to others, it is actually not a good conductor?

Answer 1

Technically, pure water, or an amount of nothing but H2O molecules will not in any way conduct electric current. Free or valance electrons are what flow in a current. Well, the balanced molecule of water has no free electrons, they're all used in forming the molecule. A tub or glass or container of water conducts electric current since normally the water is not pure. It has minerals, dirt, or other particles of other atoms or molecules in it. If you were to take two perfectly sterilized leads and place them into a solution of absolutely pure, distilled water, there would be no conductivity until contaminants from atmosphere started to get into the water giving something for the current to flow across from one lead to the other.

Answer 2

Is Water A Conductor

Answer 3

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RE:
Is water a good conductor of electrical current?
Is is true that water is indeed a conductor, but when compared to others, it is actually not a good conductor?

Answer 4

Pure water is a very bad conductor, but add a minute amount of impurities to it at the molecular level and it becomes a very good conductor.

Pure water has a very high resistance to electrical conductivity.

Answer 5

Here are the units of measurement of electrical conductivity of some material from Wikipedia.
Pure water is terrible. You have to add some salt of iodine to get it to conduct electricity.

Silver 63.01 × 106 20 Highest electrical conductivity of any metal

Copper 59.6 × 106 20

Annealed Copper 58.0 × 106 20

Aluminum 37.8 × 106 20

Sea water 5

Drinking water 0.0005 to 0.05

Deionized water 5.5 × 10-6 changes to 1.2 × 10-4 in degassed water;

Answer 6

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This is not about the Theory of Relativity. The electromagnetic field will move very quickly through the water - at a substantial fraction of the speed of light - at about 250 million meters per second - and because of that, the effect of the much Much MUCH slower movement of water will not give any measurable distortion of the path of the current. In effect the field will be moving, at each instant, the electrons in the shortest path across the water, so it would not actually be the same electrons that would move across the gap. This might take some thinking about. But it is important to remember that while the electromagnetic field moves that fast, the electrons themselves often move at a few centimeters a second.

Answer 7

Yes. You have it exactly right. Metal is a much better conductor of electricity, especially copper.

Answer 8

Theoretically, pure water doesn't conduct at all. Really though, water has impurities and conducts. How well depends on the amounts of ions in the water. wires work better

Answer 9

It is a good conductor, but salt water is much better. That is why people are electrocuted so often..we are basically walking bags of salt water.

As an aside, did you know that it's not the tires that protect us from lightning in a car? Actually, the frame serves as ground.

Answer 10

your right, compared to others its not. Gatorade is actually better gecause it has more free valence electrons to allow the current to travel