hi,

Are you directly irradiating the water sample with the available light sources? If it is so, the process is not going to give you any hydrated electrons. The generation of hydrated electrons require an exact electron energy match/transfer from the excitation energy source to the matter (fluid) under study. In case of water, i guess it is in the range of 2-3eV per electron. The lifetimes of these electrons are extremely short of the order of picoseconds. So unless you have some substrate material submerged in the fluid or very high electric fields (pulsed laser sources), you will barely see any practically cognizable results. The power of the source will be useful when the excitation energy is available to form the hydrated electrons. The power (intensity) of the source will decide the amount of hydrated electrons to be generated.

For the case of using Xenon lamp only, use (this does not guarantee the generation) some kind of nanoparticle suspension in the water which can absorb the incident radiation and provide the hydrated electrons. To visually confirm the formation has taken place, use some sort of organic dye which will undergo degradation (changing its colour) over a certain period of exposure to the incident light. Try to use minimum volume of the fluid and expose its maximum area/volume to the incident radiation,. All these parameters are to be optimised (Trial and error approach) as you go along with the experiments if you have to stick with the available infrastructure. Make sure you know the specs of the lamp or laser and are someway compatible to be use in this experiment!!!

Regards

Article Absorption Spectrum of the Hydrated Electron in Water and in...