# Salt water and electricity

It's well known that if you place 2 electrodes connected to a battery in salt water, Positive ions will get attracted to the negative electrode, and negative ions to the positive electrode.

But what if in respect to salt water's potential both electrodes are at a (let's say 9008V and 9000V potential.) won't the positive ions get repelled by both electrodes and the negative ions attracted to both electrodes ?

EDIT #1 : The first awnser said that only potential difference matters but wouldn't positive charges going into positive charges get repelled (coulomb's law)

You may say it's because the other one has even more positive charges, but then this will mean it get's repelled to the other positive electrode and dosen't mean attracted to lower potential electrode. And why wouldn't a positive ion just get repelled by both (coloumb's law) and stay in a corner of the container.

• I think you might be confused about what a voltage is. Volts do not inherently mean a positive charge. The voltage would be across both electrodes, each electrode would not have its own voltage. – CuriousOne Oct 31 '19 at 16:09
• Each electrode will have it's own potential relative to salt water – mohamed azaiez Oct 31 '19 at 16:37

Assigning an arbitrary 9000V to your lowest potential will not stop negative ions drifting to the positive $$\Delta V$$ and vice versa for positive ions.