>The rate of electrolytic breakdown is limited by diffusion at the
>electrode/electrolyte interface. It's speeded up by a high electric
>field to be sure, but if you planned to use a BIG current, like from a
>200A welder, you'd need a humungous electrode surface area. Welders
>use a pretty low voltage, so the effective resistance at the
>electrode/electrolyte interface would limit the amount of current you
>could pull and hence the rate of H2 production. So you'd have to wait
>a helluvalong time before you got enough to use in, say, a home
>heating application.

I suspect the biggest problem whatever current you use will be the collection of
bubbles on the electrodes before they float to the top of the liquid. I do
remember doing the experiment at school using the fancy 2 column apparatus so
you could see that there was twice the volume of hydrogen as there was oxygen,
but cannot recollect if bubbles collected on the electrodes. It may have been a
case of using a low enough current that this was not a problem anyway.

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