Why does tap water conduct electricity?

Answer 1

simpletap water has many dirty chemicals. while fresh water does not. so if u use something electric, put it in the fresh water, then put your finger in it. if you do it with tap water you will get a shock, why? there is many dirty particles, which is why you should not swim at a beach when there is a storm.By Peter Thiviergedark-sora-666@hotmail.comfor any more questions-----------------------------------------------------------The above answer, predictably, is urban legend.First of all, there must be a complete CIRCUIT for anything to happen anyway. Sticking your finger to a "hot" WIRE won't do anything UNLESS you are somehow completing a circuit, like standing barefoot on concrete or grabbing a grounded metal object.Secondly, tap water does NOT have "many dirty chemicals". Ordinary tap water will NOT conduct electricity at normal, household voltages. I have demonstrated this many, many times. This is an urban legend that even local news programs perpetuate to "err on the side of safety".The water at a BEACH, on the other hand, is usually SALT WATER! Ocean water, river water, heck, even mud puddles are CONDUCTIVE at normal voltages.The Hollywood image of throwing a radio or something into a bathtub to fry someone in the bath is pure movie crap. That is, unless the target had a toe stuck to a grounded, iron drainpipe. In that case, the bath water makes no difference anyway._______________________________________________________
Normal water, tap, fresh, lake, pond, etc. will not conduct electricity at household voltages (120V A/C). The water requires a medium of transfer known as an electrolyte. Some water is contaminated with lead or iron or a similar substance. If the contamination is high enough it can conduct electricity. Another reason for conduction would be with an electrolyte like salt or baking soda. This is why the ocean conducts electricity.
If the voltage is raised through the use of a transformer, it could go through the water. Many household objects do this like CRT monitors. At these raised voltages, it can conduct electricity.
If you are extremely unlucky even the smallest voltages like 5V from a USB port will show the crap out of you. This is why i have to wear shoes at all times. (im in basement) I came across this article while searching for why concrete is a conductor despite the fact that it looks like an insulator. As for this, i am still unsure, but i do know that water requires much higher levels than standard 120 or even 240V a/c to conduct.

Answer 2

While distilled water will conduct electricity, it is usually not nearly as good a conductor as tap water, well water, lake water, river water, stream water, rain water, melted snow, or even normal bottled water. The feature of water that makes it usually a good conductor is that it is such a good solvent for ionic compounds; if it comes in contact with something that can be dissolved - some of it WILL be dissolved, adding ions to the water. Distilled water usually has a lot less residual salts and other ionic compounds than the other previously mentioned types of water. When water is distilled, it is first vaporized - leaving behind pretty much all those dissolved ionic solutes - and then condensed again and collected. It can still pick up small amounts of ionic solutes from some of the surfaces it may come into contact with. It also still has the ability to dissolve gasses that it comes into contact with. Some of those gasses will also form ionic compounds. If it comes into contact with air, some carbon dioxide will dissolve into it - rendering it slightly acidic and providing ions to promote conduction of electricity. Likewise - air usually contains other gasses that will readily dissolve into distilled water to enhance conductivity such as SOx and NOx, two classes of gasses that are associated with "acid rain". Any ammonia in the air can also disolve into the distilled water to create ions capable of enhancing the conductivity of the water.

Water that has been subjected to distillation under carefully controlled conditions where it doesn't come into contact with air and where it doesn't come into contact with materials that will dissolve into it in any appreciable ammounts will have very low conductivity. If it is further subjected to reverse osmosis, the conductivity of the water can be reduced to a level so low that it is considered an electical insulator rather than conductor. Some reverse osmosis equipment will use the conductivity of the water to indicate its purity - the lower the conductivity, the more pure the water is, i.e. the fewer solutes it contains other than straight H2O. Note that even pure water will still conduct SOME electricity since the dissociation constant for water [H+][OH-]/[H2O]

(or [H3O+][OH-]/[H2O])is 10-14 which is low, but not zero.