Hydrogen generator?

[ukbandit]

hi guys, i have been tinkering with the idea of water for a fuel supplement
for the past couple of months.i have made good progress and hope to get all the parts this weekend for the build as i have only been useing glass jars so far and want plastic construction and fit it in my ute. have any of you tried this stuff out. once i get it right i want to make a small one for my bike, love to hear about your experiments and outcome.

[jrandom]

Presumably you're producing hydrogen gas via electrolysis?

What are you actually doing with it, though?



Quite apart from any issues surrounding burning hydrogen gas in an internal combustion engine, if you're running an electrolysis setup off your vehicle's electrical system, you'll only achieve a net waste of energy.

[ukbandit]

Presumably you're producing hydrogen gas via electrolysis?

What are you actually doing with it, though?



Quite apart from any issues surrounding burning hydrogen gas in an internal combustion engine, if you're running an electrolysis setup off your vehicle's electrical system, you'll only achieve a net waste of energy.

yeah at the moment got 5 small SS plates in distilled water and a tiny amount of baking soda. puts out quite a bit of gas but at the moment im drawing to much current. trying to bring down the current without losing to much production. the gas is fed through a bubbler and in to the air intake above the carb inlet. still got more to learn but it runs ok on test. have you tried any of this?

[Dave-]

Presumably you're producing hydrogen gas via electrolysis?

What are you actually doing with it, though?



Quite apart from any issues surrounding burning hydrogen gas in an internal combustion engine, if you're running an electrolysis setup off your vehicle's electrical system, you'll only achieve a net waste of energy.

go go perpetual motion!

oh and 3 litres of hydrogen-oxygen ought to make a good bang

[jrandom]

have you tried any of this?

Nah, only familiar with the theory.

I'd be interested to hear details about your setup for actually running the engine on hydrogen. I like the concept; I've always thought that fuel cells were a bit naff and overcomplicated - just burnin' the shit old school style is a far more likely solution for powering vehicles.

Have you made any measurements of precisely how much hydrogen you're producing, or calculations about how far you reckon you can push the energy efficiency of the system?

Obviously powering electrolysis by burning hydrocarbons and then burning the resultant hydrogen in an engine is a bit silly as an end goal, inasmuch as throwing away half your petrol and then just using the rest in the engine would give you the same result, energy output wise, but it's a good proof of concept for the day when we'll all have our own cold fusion reactor in the backyard sitting next to a liquid hydrogen tank.

[ukbandit]

pretty much on theses lines, no build up of pressure as it generates gas it is sucked into the carb and mixed with your fuel stops when you turn off the engine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5GnSVOuMy4

[ukbandit]

Nah, only familiar with the theory.

I'd be interested to hear details about your setup for actually running the engine on hydrogen. I like the concept; I've always thought that fuel cells were a bit naff and overcomplicated - just burnin' the shit old school style is a far more likely solution for powering vehicles.

Have you made any measurements of precisely how much hydrogen you're producing, or calculations about how far you reckon you can push the energy efficiency of the system?

Obviously powering electrolysis by burning hydrocarbons and then burning the resultant hydrogen in an engine is a bit silly as an end goal, inasmuch as throwing away half your petrol and then just using the rest in the engine would give you the same result, energy output wise, but it's a good proof of concept for the day when we'll all have our own cold fusion reactor in the backyard sitting next to a liquid hydrogen tank.

still learning alot but i would say im close to a litre a minute, but need to control the current as it rises as the unit gets hot. going to weaken the solution tonight and run it for a while see what happens. i will make a crude flow meter soon and let you know. this is only an additive not a replacement fuel just to "pep it up a bit"

[ManDownUnder]

Have looked into in in reasonable depth and jrandom's right to some degree. There are some out there saying you can crack water into H2 and O2 then fuel the car on it.

If that's the claim - then BS.

The aspect I find plausible is the claim that a certain portion of the fuel (Petrol, Diesel... whatever) goes through the engine unburned and adding Oxygen to the system help achieve a complete burn thereby boosting fuel economy. THAT sounds pausible and could be achieved by adding Oxygen ... to my ming there are 3 obvious ways to do it.

1) Cracking water to liberate it (which would product small quantities... and I strongly doubt it would be enough quantity)
2) Physical compression (aka a turbo or bloer unit)
3) Chilling the air which makes the air more dense adding about 10% power output if dropped from 25 degrees C to zero (observed first hand at a thermal power station, I'm sure the maths will back me up

Hope that helps.

There are other sources of Hydrogen if you want to look at them - an example is aluminium dunked in NaOH in solution - the hydrogen will POUR off (as the heat and... watch for the explosion of corrosive liquids... trust me on this one).

In that event though, the energy liberated in the form of combustible H2 as well as heat, is merely the same energy added to the system at the time the Al was refined from it's ore at the smelter. It's not a gain in energy... just a transfer of it... so you're actually not saving the planet... unless (yet another line of argument) you consider..

Al is smelted using hydro power in NZ, so using it to produce H2 to run your vehidle on is arguably running your vehicle on Hydro power... accepting the losses along the way is guilt free because it was all just rain/gravtiy/solar powered anyway... right?... unless you consider... (here we go again...)

The power used to smelt the Al COULD have been used for other uses, but wasn't which required fossil fuels to be burned... meaning running your car on coke cans is destroying the environment.

Hope that helps? (Sorry - not trying to be a smart arse, just present all the arguments that I see, and they way they relate)

[bungbung]

meaning running your car on coke cans is destroying the environment.

Of course, since the cans have already been made, it'll be a waste of the environment not to run your car/bike on them

[ManDownUnder]

Of course, since the cans have already been made, it'll be a waste of the environment not to run your car/bike on them

LOL good point... unless you compare that to recycling them... (trying not to take it seriously - but it's a "take it seriously" kind of day for me - sorry dude)

[Fooman]

Nah, only familiar with the theory.

I'd be interested to hear details about your setup for actually running the engine on hydrogen. I like the concept; I've always thought that fuel cells were a bit naff and overcomplicated - just burnin' the shit old school style is a far more likely solution for powering vehicles.

At uni (Canterbury), there was a research project into looking at burning gaseous hydrogen for automotive use - they ended up using a wankel engine, as its combustion characteristics (long, narrow combustion chamber) was better suited to hydrogen - burnt very quickly with a fast flame front, which made it prone to pre-ignition in the inlet of a conventional motor.

As for generation by electrolysis, I think one of the nordic countries (sweden or norway?) uses off peak hydro to generate hydrogen via high temperature electrolysis - this sorta makes sense, as it is storing hydro energy in a more useful/adaptable form.

Cheers,
FM

[ukbandit]

Have looked into in in reasonable depth and jrandom's right to some degree. There are some out there saying you can crack water into H2 and O2 then fuel the car on it.

If that's the claim - then BS.

i totally agree at the about the wild claims. i look at it this way if i can
get 10% better milage a litre and that wont be much, it means i am paying
at todays price 21 cents a litre less /ltr so aim low to start and try and improve, i am aiming if possible for 30% i might be a dreamer but im having fun with all the experiments and blowing up rubber gloves and then blowing up the rubber glove good bang!

[Biggles2000]

The theroy goes that the hydrogen-oxygen gas mixture acts like a fuel scavanger just like the old lead used to in leaded fuel. This promotes better or more complete combustion and hence higher fuel efficiency. It goes without saying that the electrical energy used to crack water is the same released when the gasses are burnt, when you take into account the overall efficiency of a petrol motor running a 12v generator is likely to be less than 20%, well you can see that its not going to work for long.
There may some merit in the suggestion that the gasses promote better fossil fuel to energy conversion.
I too are thinking about building a jar and trying it out on my old trusty V8 landrover. It would be nice to try this out in a vehicle with a fuel flow sensor so you could turn the power to the jar off and on to see what the actual instantaneous reduction in l/km is.

[Mental Trousers]

Adding a bit of free hydrogen at the intake gives a much more efficient burn in a petrol engine.

The fuel/air mixture burns as you'd expect. It raises the heat and pressure in the cylinder, igniting the hydrogen which burns even hotter. The hotter burn consumes a lot of the stuff that doesn't completely burn in the initial fuel/air mix.

Extracting hydrogen/oxygen from water and running a car purely on whats extracted can't happen. In this case the fuel/air burnt provides the energy to split water into hydrogen/oxygen and also to raise the temperature/pressure to burn the hydrogen/oxygen. The pay off is a big reduction in the amount of fuel used for the same amount of energy to move the car.

[ukbandit]

Adding a bit of free hydrogen at the intake gives a much more efficient burn in a petrol engine.

The fuel/air mixture burns as you'd expect. It raises the heat and pressure in the cylinder, igniting the hydrogen which burns even hotter. The hotter burn consumes a lot of the stuff that doesn't completely burn in the initial fuel/air mix.

Extracting hydrogen/oxygen from water and running a car purely on whats extracted can't happen. In this case the fuel/air burnt provides the energy to split water into hydrogen/oxygen and also to raise the temperature/pressure to burn the hydrogen/oxygen. The pay off is a big reduction in the amount of fuel used for the same amount of energy to move the car.

the last line of this is exactly what im after! i dont expect miracles just some improvement. any one know where i can get inline check valve for this to stop flash back to the generator? plastic, cheap ,10mm or so fitting