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Q:
Does electricity travel through saltwater?
- mike
south dakota
A:
Yes. Salts are chemicals which fall apart into ions when they dissolve
in solution. Ions have positive or negative electrical charge. Salts
obviously form both positive and negative ions, since the total
electrical charge doesn't change, and is almost exactly zero. When
there's an electric field on the solution, the positive ions flow one
way and the negative ions flow the other way, giving an electrical
current.
Mike W.
(published on 10/22/2007)
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