"How Efficiently Does Alcohol Conduct Electricity..."?

Question

"Alcohol, Water, or... Copper?"

Answer 1

Just to throw in an answer that is both correct and actually explained. Alcohol sucks at conducting electricity, as does water. Really really pure water is actually very bad at conducting electricity, and chemists and biologist actually use the resistance as a measure of the purity (ask any practicing chemist or biologist about 18 megaohm pure water and they'll tell you that's the good stuff).

What you need to conduct electricity is free moving charged particles. In solutions that translates to salts. The actual dissociation constant of water and alcohols (e.g. H2O -> H+ + OH-) does generate charges species, but is very small, resulting in very low concentrations, and is barely enough to conduct anything. Although pure alcohol would be even worse than pure water to conduct electricity.

Copper, as any other metal, can basically be thought of as a bunch of ions (Cu2+ in copper's case) sitting in a sea of electrons. All the electrons of all the atoms are shared between all of them, and can move around very fast. Because of that, electrical conduction by all metals is very high, and much higher than even that of a high salt water solution. Copper is used because it's not reactive, not toxic, cheap, and can be easily shaped into wires.

Answer 2

Having just carried out an experiment in my sitting room, I can confirm that alcohol is a good source of conductivity. Evidence? My husband is lying in a vegetitative state and there is now red wine all over the carpet.

I would imagine water would have the same affect however I will have to wait until the paramedics have finished resuscitating him before we 'have another go.'

In the mean time, I would think copper is the best as that is what is used in plugs.

Answer 3

Alchohol does not readily lose a proton, and so it is what we would call a weak electrolyte. That is, it is not going to conduct electricity very well. The same goes for water.

Copper on the other hand will (Cu2+)

Answer 4

not much