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Comments on Why is the resistance of water so high and still so dangerous?

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Why is the resistance of water so high and still so dangerous?

+7
−2

Image alt textMeasuring the resistance of water from my tap I got 500kOhm. Adding considerable amount of salt brought it down to 20kOhm:

The question I have is why water is such a danger for short circuits if the resistance is so high?

Is there an issue with the measurement technique, or are there other reasons?

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General comments (7 comments)
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+3
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I think your measurement instrument is fine. What is not is your understanding of resistance: there is nothing like this "resistance of water". In your case, the measured resistance depends on the distance between the immersed probes. The relevant concept is "electrical resistivity" or "volume resistivity" of materials (see Wikipedia). For example, if a 1m x 1m x 1m solid cube of material has sheet contacts on two opposite faces, and the resistance between these contacts is 1 Ω, then a right 1m x 1m x 2m parallelotop will have a resistance of 2 Ω.

Now, usually, the resistivity of water is high, and depends, as you know, upon the concentration of minerals it contains (or more precisely and generally, upon the concentration of ions). Pure water is a relatively good dielectric, but still far from being as good as plastics because there is always a small percentage of ions inside water (google "ph of water").

So, often, water will not cause short circuit in A4 battery powered instruments or so. Still, as electronic components are often very sensitive, even very small amount of currents may cause important failures (think about op-amps that have usually input current in the nA or pA ranges). Furthermore, since we usually ignore the concentration of minerals, it is evident that these instruments shouldn't be immersed inside water. Furthermore, water causes other problems like oxidation etc.

Now, for high voltage powered circuit, working, e.g., on the 220V main, even 20 kΩ gives about 10 mA of current, at which the heart begins to fibrillate.

In conclusion, water is really undesirable in electrical circuits.

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General comments (7 comments)
General comments
Kranulis‭ wrote over 3 years ago

I am sorry, but this does not answer my question

coquelicot‭ wrote over 3 years ago

Your question is "why water is such a danger for short circuits", and I have given at least 3 reasons.

coquelicot‭ wrote over 3 years ago

I gave you a -1 (my first one since I know this site) because if you estimate that my answer does not answer to your question, it is evident for me that your question is not correctly asked.

Mu3‭ wrote over 3 years ago

@coquelicot: if you give an answer that does not go in line to what was asked, it is hardly the fault of the one who asks.

coquelicot‭ wrote over 3 years ago

@Kranulis. Unfortunately, my answer exactly answer to your question. So, if that not what you expected, you have not correctly asked the question. Also, you haven't pinpointed in what it does not go in line to what was asked, despite my answer is essentially similar to that of manassehKatz. This and the fact that it got -2 points at exactly the same time makes things very very strange.

Olin Lathrop‭ wrote over 3 years ago

You need to check your math. 110 V across 500 kΩ causes much much less than 200 mA.

coquelicot‭ wrote over 3 years ago

@Olin Lathrop. Thx for having pointing out this calculation mistake. What imported to me was the general idea, so I have not been careful.