Another cute definition of the term dielectric .. which in our case is supposed to be water, once again hinting on the fact that in order to comply, the electrodes MUST be isolated, it also hints that in this particular occasion, we indeed have to be working with a DC circuit in order to make proper use of the dielectric properties of water ... guys, do not condition your electrodes - isolate them, as of in 'entirely' ... here the definition as reference:

A dielectric is an electrical insulator that may be polarized by the action of an applied electric field. When a dielectric is placed in an electric field, electric charges do not flow through the material, as in a conductor, but only slightly shift from their average equilibrium positions causing dielectric polarization: positive charges are displaced along the field and negative charges shift in the opposite direction. This creates an internal electric field which partly compensates the external field inside the dielectric. If a dielectric is composed of weakly bonded molecules, those molecules not only become polarized, but also reorient so that their symmetry axis aligns to the field.

While the term "insulator" refers to a low degree of electrical conduction, the term "dielectric" is typically used to describe materials with a high polarizability. The latter is expressed by a number called the dielectric constant. A common, yet notable, example is that a dielectric is the electrically insulating material between the metallic plates of a capacitor. The polarization of the dielectric by the applied electric field increases the capacitor's capacitance.

The study of dielectric properties is concerned with the storage and dissipation of electric and magnetic energy in materials. It is important to explain various phenomena in electronics, optics, and solid-state physics.

The term "dielectric" was coined by William Whewell (from "dia-electric") in response to a request from Michael Faraday.

For any additional questions please reference the aricle in Wikipedia.

your post only states fact, nothing to comment on?!
probably distilled water is enough to do the isolation though?

I once built the Water Fracture apparatus from Chris Eccles, two plexiglass sheets were the walls of a container, cm in width, water in it.
Aluminum sheets were the electrodes, the high voltage pulses came from a timed flyback transformer.
Sometimes it would ark through the whole centimeter (so the voltage must have been > 10kV), but the water didn't change a bit. Since then i'm skeptic of the high voltage water fracturing thing.

here's the patent, i pulsed it exactly as that.
the only thing was the ocassional sparking which shouldn't have occured. and probably the gap was too large, but the voltage was high enough.

okay i guess it weren't 25kV on either side, how would one do that without sparking through...

Yeah i changed the voltage to a lower value so it wouldn't spark, but the water was still unimpressed.

Here is a picture of an analog 1kV PWM generator - custom built based on the schematics of Stan Meyer and Dave Lawton. Input :0 - 1000 Volt DC Output: Pulsed 0 - 1000 Volt DC (continuous or with gating)

how do you measure the capacitance of your cell?