Faraday's law


Faraday's law,

physical law stating that the number of molesmole,
in chemistry, a quantity of particles of any type equal to Avogadro's number, or 6.02×1023 particles. One gram-molecular weight of any molecular substance contains exactly one mole of molecules.
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 of substance produced at an electrode during electrolysiselectrolysis
, passage of an electric current through a conducting solution or molten salt that is decomposed in the process. The Electrolytic Process

The electrolytic process requires that an electrolyte, an ionized solution or molten metallic salt, complete an
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 is directly proportional to the number of moles of electrons transferred at that electrode; the law is named for Michael Faraday, who formulated it in 1834. The amount of electric chargecharge,
property of matter that gives rise to all electrical phenomena (see electricity). The basic unit of charge, usually denoted by e, is that on the proton or the electron; that on the proton is designated as positive (+e
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 carried by one mole of electrons (6.02 x 1023 electrons) is called the faraday and is equal to 96,500 coulombscoulomb
[for C. A. de Coulomb], abbr. coul or C, unit of electric charge. The absolute coulomb, the current U.S. legal standard, is the amount of charge transferred in 1 second by a current of 1 ampere; i.e., it is 1 ampere-second.
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. The number of faradays required to produce one mole of substance at an electrode depends upon the way in which the substance is oxidized or reduced (see oxidation and reductionoxidation and reduction,
complementary chemical reactions characterized by the loss or gain, respectively, of one or more electrons by an atom or molecule. Originally the term oxidation
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). For example, in the electrolysis of molten sodium chloride, NaCl, one faraday, or one mole, of electrons is transferred at the cathode to one mole of sodium ions, Na+, to form one mole of sodium atoms, Na, while in the electrolysis of molten magnesium chloride, MgCl2, two faradays of electrons must be transferred at the cathode to reduce one mole of magnesium ions, Mg+2, to one mole of magnesium atoms, Mg.