This USB bottle generates surface sanitiser from water and salt. 

It's kind of sad when you are surprised by the fact that the thing you bought not only looks like what was advertised but also actually works.

Yay! After years of watching this channel, I finally get to tell you something you don't know! The tiny hole at the bottom of any dry-measure scoop is there for a reason. This hole is especially important for the dry measure of fine-grain powders, especially those powders that tend to self-adhere. If the powder is packed into the dry-measure scoop even slightly too tightly, the powder forms a self-adhering plug that stays in the scoop. People tend to turn the scoop upside-down, then tap and bang a bit until a wee bit of air gets behind the lump, then PLOP! It all comes out at once, which is especially bad when you get one lump when you're trying to sprinkle the powder smoothly into a liquid. Messy splash! The hole should be large enough to allow air in but small enough to prevent the powder running through like an hour-glass.

Any kid that tried to make their electrolysis experiment work better by adding salt to make the water conductive quickly learned that it instead makes some nasty-smelling chlorine products. Source: my failed science fair project, age 10

"...and it works!" (Prices jump by 50% on eBay.)

Nice to see when a dubious-seeming product actually has real science and results behind it. I might pick one of these up myself!

The enlarged photos of the circuit board are top notch, man, don't stop using those. It's an extremely helpful visual aid for you to be able to point out things so clearly like that.

I have a pool chlorine generator, operates with the same principal. Love it. A bit of salt and no expense or trouble of messing with Chlorine. It has a pretty healthy power supply to run the unit. It measures water flow, salt level and you can control the output. You use a regular pool test kit to determine the chlorine level. It recommends descaling every 3 months using muratic acid. I find once a season is adequate. Plates appear to be some non ferrous metal. I worked with an old radio guy who spent time in Africa after ww2. He told me of load testing generators for their shortwave transmitters using a 55 gallon drum of water and attaching the power leads to an electrode pipe in the middle of the drum and to the barrel shell. He said you poured in salt till you got the amperage load you wanted. But to beware of the hydrogen and have the barrel outside.

Electrodes are carbon coated. Any metal would electrolyse away, resulting in the "foot treatment/water purifier" brown soup. Scratching that carbon surface layer has caused the metal electrode to start to dissolve. You also wouldn't want to use this as a surface cleaner, as it would leave a salt dust/scale after drying, seems only useful for stuff you will rinse after cleaning.

You need to put a balloon over the bottle and inflate it with hydrogen. The following steps should be obvious 😁

I use a scaled up version of this at the water treatment plant where I work to produce around 5 GPM of 3.2% Sodium HypoChlorite. The plates are stainless steel coated with Titanium Dioxide, to resist corrosion. We use Hydrochloric Acid to de-scale it but I imagine vinegar would work for your unit. I wonder if power consumption would be similar compared to size difference. Ours used roughly 62 volts at 3,200 amps after it's warmed up and running. 'Chlor-Tec' is the manufacturer that produces our unit.

10:15 it's not the hydrogen that changes the colour of the flame but rather the aerosolized particles of salt water. Sodium is notorious for colouring flames orange and hydrogen actually burns with a slightly blue color which is almost invisible. In order to get the hydrogen to burn better you could have added some soap to create hydrogen bubbles.

Chemist here! Great video as ever Clive, essentially its a dodgy bleach maker! A few points how it works from a chemical perspective.... The anode will generate the chlorine gas (Cl2) and at the cathode hydrogen AND hydroxide ions (OH-) are made. Its the reaction between the Cl2 and OH- that make hypochlorite "ClO-" (this reaction will give a much better yield at cold temps - but don't pop it in the fridge as a build up of toxic chlorine gas in a confined space isn't a great idea). Chlorine doesn't dissolve well in water so chlorinated water is not as effective a disinfectant at hypochlorite which is 1000 x more soluble. You're right about the circuitry too, its hardly needed! in fact you'd achieve the result by lobbing a 9V batter in a glass of salty water.

Interesting how they labeled the component values including the tolerances on the important sense resistors.

Yep, my aunt has something similar (but bigger) that does this for her salt-water swimming pool in California. Works great!

Caught a BBC program about the crisis and how the food industry is coping with the demand. One segment was a brewery in Wales. besides saying about brewing, it had a machine that churns out gallons of this sanitiser for cleaning out their pipes, tanks etc.. looks like the same principle but bigger. Salt, water and electrolysis. They gave the excess gallons and gallons of the sanitiser to local hospital/police etc.. So yes, I might be interested in a sanitiser machine of this sort. Much thanks for your videos. Very informative.

Back when I was a kid and discovering things I did exactly this: Putting two electrodes in water but since nothing happened I did put salt into it and sure enough: It smelt like the swimming pool !

Oddly enough, I was just looking at salt water pools almost immediately before watching this. Clive, you are a psychotic... I mean , psychic.

It’s so heart warming of him printing the paper instead of screen recording 😊

Legendary Seattle outdoor makers "MSR" (Mountain Safety Research) have long made a "pen" that uses batteries and salt to produce small amounts of sodium hypochlorite as a drinking water purifier. Look into how commercial bleach is made. The Lectrosan marine heads use the same process to sterilize waste. Clever gadget.

I really like the thoughtful way you looked at this! You made it interesting, but also gave me ideas for things to try myself!

Electrodes are probably something like titanium coated with "MMO", mixed metal oxides. NurdRage talks about them in his potassium chlorate cell video. One of the few material options for electrolytic cells that deal with extremely corrosive solutions (others being platinum and graphite; graphite degrades fairly rapidly).

I think this is one of those "oneshot" micro controllers, means you can't re-flash it. They are dirt cheap and pretty awesome for what they are. Getting a hold of them can be tricky but worth it if you have a project where you don't want to waste some valuable components. Some times you even get a option to buy them programmed with your firmware, if you have a couple of hundreds this can be a real time saver.

Glad to see you came out today , Guernsey is coming out Saturday, great videos, thanks

Something that does what it says. Thanks for the teardown and explanation.

I remember messing around with a similar process when I was a kid. I had no idea what I was doing and I bleached the heck out of my clothes. My mom was no to happy to say the least lol

I you haven't already, you should do an audio book because good golly your voice is soothing. And you videos are great btw!

also the effort you put into these videos are insane thanks!

I stumbled on this video whilst contemplating purchasing the thane direct h2o e3 water system (£70+). I have also purchased hypochlorus acid from a beauty supply store as a natural face sanitiser for £15 for a 300ml bottle. Now I have just found this device for £9.96 on ebay thanks to this video. I hated physics in school but this vid had me captivated. Thank you.

Big Clive's porridge jug makes a cameo appearance? Nice! Your porridge recipe is a huge hit with my hunnie and I here on our planet. Thank you Clive!

6:25 Something from e-bay is working- "its very, very odd"

What a cool idea! Buying two now!! Thanks BL 👍

Thanks for inspecting this hydrogen generator I've seen simular advertised on TV

Did you know that the best way to mix the liquid content of bottle is not to agitate by shaking but to slowly turn the bottle upside down, then downside up, and repeat (slowly). That's how chemists do in their labs. Best mixing, no bubbles.

I love these videos... and this man's voice. ;-)

one of those swimming pool salt/chlorine generators built into a spray bottle? Brilliant!

Very interesting -- never heard of that method before! Thanks for sharing this!

"Neat device, and it works." High praise.

YES! a Clive video to save me from my current drought of entertainment.

AWESOME Content! Using your videos to help sterilize and operate so that my small business can operate self-contained during the pandemic and beyond...

Thanks for this one. Was waiting to see the results.

Definitely an interesting thing! - Oddly enough enough, I was watching an historic video which showed the water purification plant at a military installation. It would appear that it used a very similar electrolytic system to purify borehole water. The big difference was that they processed about 10'000 gallons at a time! But, I also remember when our school got its swimming pool installed (late 1960s) we, the entire school, were given a bit of a guided tour of all the "behind the scenes" paraphernalia, including what I now assume to have been the chlorination vessel. I do remember it having two electrodes (candles, we were told) which streamed bubbles into the water inside the vessel. I guess it's what comes around, goes around?

Managed to get one for 17.72 GBP on EBAY, will be useful in the Van to save carrying other cleaner sprays. Thanks for the video

Very nice to see a product that actually works and has science behind it very neet I might pick one of these up to test as well

Thank you for this video! I have type 1 diabetes, and my wife and I have been worried about cleaning supplies always being out of supply. We just got ours from the same seller, and are going to start using it this weekend!

Yeah I saw this and I remembered I used to clean pools that have salt cells on them. You add salt to the pool and the cell uses electricity to convert salt to chlorine cool tech nice to see it in a practical use

Very interesting product! I wonder if the electrodes are mixed metal oxide (MMO) coated titanium, as is the case in many electrochemical cells intended for producing hypochlorites and chlorates. Any chance you could spark test the electrodes to see if the substrate is titanium? Great video as always 👍 if those are mmo electrodes that little gadget is worth every penny!

In addition to the production of sodium hypochlorite, the product advertised on TV emphasises the production of sodium hydroxide in solution as a degreaser and general cleaning product. I too recall there being a small chlorination plant at the schools swimming pool, which had been decomissioned. There was also a still in the chemistry lab used long before ion exchange resins to produce distilled water and this was checked by customs and excise to ensure we weren't producing our own vodka! Always wondered why the kitchen supplied potato peelings to the lab! Thanks clive for another informative video.

Very nice simple Chip design 👌

Use it for my pool and it works great however it converts back quickly to salt from sun exposure if there isn't a conditioner in the pool. Would be interesting to see how long the chlorination lasts in the bottle before the chlorine turns back into salt. What is the percentage of chlorine in the water?

Just please don’t scratch it 😳 Those seem to be MMO electrodes, titanium base coated with manganese dioxide, lead dioxide or iridium dioxide

Salt based pool systems have all but replaced chlorine pools in the residential market here in central Florida. Neat to see another implementation of this effective, successful technology.

I love how effortlessly you can read the ebay listing

The electrodes are almost certainly Lead Dioxide coated Titanium. They possibly added an intermediate compatability layer (commonly in the form of non-stoichiometric Tin oxides) to reduce flaking, but given the price point and the amount of visible flakes coming off during your test, I'd guess it's just a mixture of alpha/beta Lead Dioxide on some bare titanium for both the Anode and the Cathode. (Ps. For those that are interested, some further, more practical reasons why I think PbO2 is the best fit based on the limited information available: Manufacturing only one component for both electrodes substantially reduces the BOM cost of a unit like this. Furthermore, PbO2 is pretty much the only cheap and easily accessible electrode surface that can survive both cathodic and anodic conditions, especially in a cell where Chlorine evolution is a distinct possibility, while also making a good low-resistance connection between the electrode surface and a cheaper base metal. Lastly, PbO2's higher Oxygen evolution overpotential than other common anode materials is a further significant advantage in this kind of setup, where you only have a maximum of 5V and 500mA available, but still need to generate a suitable number of excited intermediaries in a reasonably short time. I really do hope I'm wrong about them simply going with PbO2, without even warning their potential customers that the "electrolyzed water" produced therewith has the potential to slowly cover those very surfaces, that they are striving to keep clean, in an invisible heavy metal. Yes, I know BigClive doesn't think Lead buildup on surfaces is a problem and I'm also very weary of unnecessarily adding to the current "safety-first" insanity, implemented by our neurotic nanny-state -overlords- , uh, 'protectors'; however we should all at least be able to agree that the long-term, ignorant "cleaning" of a baby/toddler's eating surfaces and chew-toys with lead particulate, is really bad.)

Meanwhile, in a dark boardroom in America, Big Bleach is fuming over this product.

I liked your info on fire alarms.

Excellent channel Clive. Its nice that you also remind me of Ivor Cutler too.

If you go through the calculation it should take 18h to completely hydrolyze 10g of salt with 0.5A so maybe you could do with less. On the other hand less salt means the solution is less conductive so the machine could have a hard time getting the right current to flow

Great video, as always. Quick question. Do you keep all these PCB enlargement prints on file or do you chuck them? Cheers from down under. 👍🇦🇺😁

Just got one of these (well a couple of weeks ago) after viewing your video! It works perfectly but only if I ignore the instruction manual! I followed it to the letter, filled up to the water line, added the salt and shook it up with the spray head on and turned to 'off'. Then, again following the instructions I connected it to the cable, switched on the adapter and pressed the button. Bubbles started to flow up inside, 'great' I thought and then water began leaking out from the seal between the bottle and the base! Thinking I had a defective one which would have to go back I suddenly realized - the thing is generating a load of gas and the instructions said 'switch the spray to off' - where's the gas pressure going to go? So the next batch went as before but I just loosened off the spray head attachment - brilliant! No leaks and cheap sanitiser for the worktop! So far I haven't noticed any salt residue left behind as one comment below suggested, I don't use the supplied spray head but transfer the liquid into an empty Dettol disinfectant sprayer. So far I haven't seen any residue at the bottom of the bottle but I was wondering if you can tell me if the made up bleach has a shelf life or not? My instruction sheet stated "We recommend that you use the disinfectant ....." And that was it, the rest of the sentence was never printed on the sheet! Just wondered if the bleach will in fact recombine into a brine solution after so many days or so or does it remain usable until used up?

Hey Clive another great teardown but this time it has merits and im considering buying

When Clive approves then I must buy it!

This is essentially how salt water pools work

thank god for ppl like you clive, i thought i was going to get stung. waiting for mine....

I actually have one of these, but writ large! In the US, "salt water pools" are very popular, advertised as being better for you with less harsh chemicals than a traditional chlorine pool; of course, they don't mention in the ads that you've got a giant salt cell converting the salt you pour into the water to chlorine. It is cheaper to operate per season, however, which is why I installed mine: salt is much cheaper than chlorine tablets. It also generates sodium hydroxide in operation, which negates having to add base to address acid rain. The unit I have uses a power supply that generates 35VDC at up to 10 amps; based on my testing (when I wired it in properly, "pool guys" don't know electricity) in operation it pulls about 300w.

My folks have a pool that uses this as the chlorine source. They dump 40lbs of salt in once a year and it bubbles all year long. Never had an algae problem!

Very interesting, I like it because it makes me think of how you can get something like bleach while living off-grid... But bleach is practically the same cost as water, so maybe this is just a novelty.

Interesting vid Clive, I Did this with a 9V battery ,2 wires with graphite (pencil lead) electrodes, worked great complete with a clip round the ear off the missus for stinking the kitchen out with chlorine gas. the commercial spray bottle version would be great for homebrew sanitizing. Job Well Done. Barnie.

Nice to see my GCSE chemistry helped with this lol, I just didn't expect it to work so well at low voltages

Seems like a lot of fuss when sodium hypochlorite (aka thin bleach) costs 20P for 2 litres at my local supermarket.

I'm always expecting to hear that initial 'hum' at the very beginning of your videos caused by the microphone. If you ever change it I would surely miss it xD

I'm not surprised that this device worked as advertised. During my university days, I took a tour of a chemical plant that used an industrial version of this technology to produce hydrogen and bleach. The major difference between the industrial process and this device is that the electrodes were separated in the industrial version so that the gaseous products could be collected without contaminating each other. Hydrogen is produced on one electrode and chlorine and oxygen are produced on the other electrode. In the chemical plant, the bleach was made in a separate process.

Nice Video Clive ! :) its basically a water hydrolysis device,using stainless steel electrodes so they are non reactive,So iif you add salt water in it,,it breaks down salt which is sodium chloride,hense you get the chlorine bleach smell .Very neat and compact device though. I made a similar device for my aquarium,to generate hydrogen and oxygen bubbles long back.

£18.50 buys a hell of a lot of household bleach, maybe about 40 litres of concentrated stuff. (yes, I know this device still might have use cases for travel etc)

I have a home made one of these (super handy when the initial pandemic panic struck and everywhere ran out of sterilizers) and i use platinum electrodes in mine. Would explain why you only have to worry about descaling them and not replacing them or worrying about corrosion or wear..

Cheers Clive, really interesting. 👍

I've made a few chloralkali reactors but it never occurred to me to think in usb/spray bottle scale. That's awesome.

Take care: We were doing the same(electrolysis of water) in larger quantities to get the perfect combustion ratio of Hydrogen to Oxygen. In our youth we didn't realise that using salt (NaCl) as our catalyst would result in the byproduct of Chlorine gas. Shit hurts the eyes and lounges.

Well, this time it's a real hypo product.

We have one of these - looks like the exact same thing - and one from a "name brand" which I won't name because I don't want to be interpreted as a shill. I'd read the anodes will eventually wear away, and faster in cheaper units, and that's held true in our case. After several months of usage (a couple of liters every other weekend), this one takes three cycles to produce the same chlorine concentration as it used to, while the "name brand" unit still just takes a single cycle. For what it's worth, we also add about half as much distilled white vinegar as the salt to make hypochlorous acid.

Very tempted to get a couple and use as a more environmentally friendly alternative to washing up liquids and cleaning solutions.

Actually the reaction goes as follows: Red.: 2 H2O + 2e⁻ ---> H2 + 2 OH⁻ Ox.: 2Cl⁻ ---> Cl2 + 2e⁻ ---------------------------------------------------------- Sum.: 2 H2O + 2 NaCl --> 2 NaOH + Cl2 Part of that Cl2 goes into the air, the other part dissolves into the freshly created Sodium Hydroxide solution and disproportionates: NaOH + Cl2 --> NaCl + HOCl Therefore don't poison yourself with gaseous Chlorine and don't cause an explosion with the Hydrogen. Also, avoid skin and eye contact with Hypochlorites; this stuff causes cancer and blindness.

Hey, so what is the pH of the water before and after you use the device?

I bought one and it works great!

Brilliant video.

Would a dab of fingernail polish on the scratch help fix any issue damage done by the scratching?

Interesting gadget. I wonder about the safety of Sodium Hypochlorite in various concentrations.

Really nice product

Electrode is probably MMO - Mixed metal oxide. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_metal_oxide_electrode It's commonly used in chlorite cells due to its corrosion resistance. The brown discoloration which showed up after you scratched the coating off would be iron or something, though it's usually applied to a titanium base.

Make your own Kangen water. Go into the quack medicine business.

Something tells me the extremely clumsy childlike wording of that wiki article means it was possibly written by the sellers of this thing themselves.

such a cool device!

Interesting, I'm here in the USA and when I search for anything even similar to this on Amazon I can't find anything, yet there's tons of companies selling their own spray in a bottle. Almost like they don't want people to be able to purchase something like this.

No schematics? You usually draw out the schematic? I look forward to that. :(

"Lets destroy this in the name of science"

The small hole in scoops is to help whatever has been scooped to release itself from the scoop when it’s upended. Depending on what it is (like fine powders) it could stick due to suction, the hole relieves that, crystalline stuff won’t need as much help.

Very informative thank you

Honestly during the peak of COVID-19 this would've made table salt even harder to find 😂

BigClive I was going to send you a link to a similar product. It was advertised on TV the other day. One of the many infomercials first thing in the morning.

If you ever do audiobook readings, let me know. I can listen to your voice for hours :)

Very interesting and cool. Thanks Big Clive. On further reading, apparently time under a given power is a factor in determining the resulting concentration. Pricey little buggers though.