Re: What causes water to become electrified or to conduct electricity?

Seth,
From your question, I am assuming that you know that pure water will not 
conduct electricty.  Electricity is defined as the flow of electrons.  
Getting water pure enough to not conduct electricity is very hard to do.  
There are lots of minerals and gases that readily dissolve in water.  
(Even if you have pure water, carbon dioxide from the air will immediately 
begin to disslove into the water). It is the presence of these minerals 
and gases that enable water to conduct electricity.  The impurities in the 
water is what is conducting electricity.  You should know by now that salt 
water is an excellent conductor of electricity.  Table salt, or sodium 
chloride, dissolves in water to form an "ionic" solution composed of 
sodium ions and chloride ions.  In an ionic solution such as this, the 
chloride ions have a greater affinity for electrons than the sodium ions, 
thus the flow of electrons between the sodium and chloride ions is easy, 
thus electricity can be conducted in salt water.  Pure water 
has "covalent" bonds between the hydrogen and oxygen molecules.  This 
means there is an equal sharing of the elecrons within the molecule itself 
and it does not have an affinity for electrons.  So pure water does not 
conduct electricity where as impure water will.