Im trying to make a home made electrolysis rig that I can use to split water into H2 and O2, and then direct the two gases into separate balloons for storage. The whole rig will be a closed system, thus allowing it to pressurize itself enough to inflate the balloons. I already have a pretty good idea of the design and how Im going to build it, with one exception. I cannot for the life of me figure out what to use for the electrodes. From past experience, I have determined that it must be both conductive (obviously) and also completely non-reactive. If copper, aluminum, steel, etc is used, it corrodes like crazy on the O2 end, and ends up creating some kind of weird oxide sludge that fouls up the whole reaction fairly quickly. I have tried using graphite pencil leads from mechanical pencils, and while these dont foul the reaction, they do break apart and become useless (probably because they are actually a graphite powder that is suspended in some kind of clay matrix or something, not solid graphite) The only thing that comes to mind that would work is gold and platinum, and while expense is one issue, scarcity is another, so even if I got something cheap that was only gold plated, I still cant think of what I could hack apart to get this.


>>TLDR: What can I use as an electrode that meets the following requirements.

1) conductive
2) non-reactive
3) easily available to your average college student (I dont want to buy any scientific instruments or anything)
4) reasonably priced (I dont want to buy a solid platinum electrode)


>>inb4 hydrogen is dangerous!
its only dangerous if it blows up, otherwise its totally safe. I have no intention of allowing it to explode.


>>inb4 hydrogen will escape from the balloons!
I know, Im not storing it for long enough for this to matter that much
I have thought of using the ends of a cat5 cable, but I dont know if that is coated with real gold. Does /diy/ think that might work?