To facilitate electrolysis, sodium sulfate is added to water i.e., to increase water conductivity.
The process in which ionic substances are decomposed into simpler substances when current is passed through them is electrolysis. The compounds must contain ion for the process to work. This process is used for extraction of metals from their ores.
Pure water's conductivity is limited since it has only [tex]H^{+}[/tex] and [tex]OH^{-}[/tex] ions in low concentration [tex]10^{-7}[/tex] M at pH of 7. Thus, adding more salt to the solution would lead to more ions in the solution and thus current will flow more steady to complete the circuit. Hence, electrolysis would be much faster.
Thus from the above conclusion we can say that to increase water conductivity, [tex]Na_{2}SO_{4}[/tex] is added to facilitate the electrolysis.
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