hydrogen generators: boosters and improve MPG?

[Geep]

Anybody know anything about them?

It's basically high current electrolysis within a small, water filled chanber, to produce sufficent amounts of Hydrogen and Oxy. to improve mpg as much as 20-30% (feeding this into the fuel/aur mix). Conceptually this makes sense, and with a big alternator and a couple of red tops or a nice yellow top battery, you might could really produce some H and O2 from the electrolysis devices to potentially get even better gas output and therefore more 'boost' or power/mpg performance improvement.

Anybody or know anything about these things?

G

 

[ntsqd]

You never, ever get something for nothing. Where does the energy to drive the electrolysis come from?

 

[Geep]

not expecting something for nothing...

Electrolysis is an old process (remember 8th science class...) where electricity provides a catalyst for a chemical reaction, or separation in this case. The old lab trick was to take a 6v lantern battery, and put the leads (+ and -) one in each its own test tube. Upside down, in a glass/beaker of water. Current traveling through the water causes the H2O to break down to it's basic elements of Hydrogen and Oxygen. The two test tube thing was so you could have the two gases separated (one would see bubbles forming around the electrical leads, which were the respective elements breaking out of compound). Etc etc.

In this case, no need to seperate the gases, so its just a container with both power leads submerged in water. Power comes from the battery which is in turn charged by the alternator. The gas (hydrogen and oxygen) that is captured from the electrolysis reaction bleeds into the intake at whatever rate it is created. As you pointed out, the energy comes from somewhere, so you can't put more power into the unit than you battery/alternator can keep up with. Conversley, the more power you add, the faster the water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen being quite flamable (like Hindenberg) and oxygen is always good for burning (being essential element for combustion), theoretically the air/fuel mixture has more flamability with the same volume of intake. Similar to Nitrous, without the delicate volatility of the system, and without having to refill anything but water.

BUT. As I mentioned, never heard much first hand experience (other than sales pitches), but conceptually the theory is sound as far as I can see.

G

 

[google]

Holy hell..... Lock your doors. The oil companies are already on their way to whack you!!!

 

[sled_dog]

How is this to improve gas mileage so much? O2 burns very hot, I could see skyrocketing combustion temperatures. When you add air you have to had fuel. Stoich can't be changed without changing fuels. Unless you run something besides gasoline stoich is 14.7:1 and thats that. The only way to keep the cylinder temperatures in check would be the increased use of an EGR and increased fuel. Not to mention the higher temperature burn of the combustion would have one large side effect, NOx production. NOx happens when the cylinders are burning hot. So you'd be increasing emissions as well.

You'd have to stop and refill the water constantly. The voltage of the electricity would be used up so its not a catalyst. A catalyst promotes a reaction but does not get used up in the process.

Let me know if you guys feel I'm off base in my thought processes here.

 

[Triaged]

I have a better idea!

Why don't you get rid of the petrol all together? You could use the battery to make enough H2 and O2 to start the truck. Then the alt (a very big one!) would be used to make enough H2 and O2 to drive the truck with. Because the exhaust would be pure water you could connect the exhaust back to the water tank and never have to even fill up the water in the tank. You would be able to drive as far as you wanted and never have to stop to fill up!!! This is the technology that the gas companies have been suppressing for the last 150 years!!!

I hope everyone sees the error in this type of thinking. Taking an idea to its logical conclusion can often tell you if it is possible or not.

 

[dremu]

LOL. I am reminded of a really bad movie called "Slap Stick", in which the cars of the future (because the oil is all gone) run on chicken sh!t. Everybody has a coop on top of their car.

Pat Morita stars as a Chinese gent; his country apparently had such overpopulation, in this future, that they shrunk themselves to 6" high.

Like I said, a really bad movie. But funny as he!!.

-- A

 

[HarryH3]

I just recently read an article about the future of hydrogen powered engines. The problem is that creating hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis consumes more energy than it creates. The amount of electricity that it takes to break the covalent bond of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms is greater than the energy created when the atoms explosively recombine.

 

[Triaged]

I just recently read an article about the future of hydrogen powered engines. The problem is that creating hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis consumes more energy than it creates. The amount of electricity that it takes to break the covalent bond of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms is greater than the energy created when the atoms explosively recombine.

Which is why right now they get H2 by 'cracking' it off of hydrocarbons (aka crude oil). So much for dependence on foreign oil

 

[sled_dog]

So much for dependence on foreign oil

whats worse, that we depend on foreign oil? Or that we have our own we can't touch cause of tree huggers and the like?

 

[shelbyfordgt]

How is this to improve gas mileage so much? O2 burns very hot, I could see skyrocketing combustion temperatures. When you add air you have to had fuel. Stoich can't be changed without changing fuels. Unless you run something besides gasoline stoich is 14.7:1 and thats that. The only way to keep the cylinder temperatures in check would be the increased use of an EGR and increased fuel. Not to mention the higher temperature burn of the combustion would have one large side effect, NOx production. NOx happens when the cylinders are burning hot. So you'd be increasing emissions as well.

You'd have to stop and refill the water constantly. The voltage of the electricity would be used up so its not a catalyst. A catalyst promotes a reaction but does not get used up in the process.

Let me know if you guys feel I'm off base in my thought processes here.

It is going to improve fuel mileage by using another form of fuel besides gasoline. Same idea as propane injection.

There are ways to combat heat besides EGR function. And even if the combustion chamber gets hot. You can be supplying pure oxygen into the engine and not use outside air. That will eliminate the worries of NOx.




In england, there are a few scientists running hydrogen vehicles. A few cars are running of water but i dont recall how efficient the process is currently. But the size of the devices to convert water to hydrogen is getting smaller.

 

[79k20350]

whats worse, that we depend on foreign oil? Or that we have our own we can't touch cause of tree huggers and the like?

Do you realize that the U.S exports more oil than it imports? Weather we have tree huggers or not we manufacure more than our needs in oil, it just doesnt stay in the US. The oil companys make more money exporting our oil and importing stuff from the middle east. these are the things our government needs to get under control. we have oil, we need to use it! Also there are alternative fuels readily available for public use. Propane is a perfect example. www.technocarb.com . for around 1500 bucks you convert to propane, im not sure of the mileage increase, prolly around 75% so you figure you now get 17.5 mpgs compared to ten. but now your paying $2.80 a gallon (In CT) So with gas now at $2.15 here thats $0.215 a mile compared to propane which is only $0.16 per mile, thats 5 1/2 cents cheaper every mile, that adds up pretty quick!

 

[darkshadow]

there IS a system that use water injection, to "suposidly" increase hp and tourque search the forum it came up a little while ago.



you can also read THIS the water ONLY moter, the 6 generation of this was showen at an auto show this year, and the 7th gen will go for sale to the public next year i think

 

[sled_dog]

Kennedy also points out that pure O2 burns at a high temperature, so a good deal of care must be taken that heat transfer doesn't create hot spots that could burn through walls. "And they're using injector technology with very fine passages, so clogging could be an issue," he says.

Taken from an article about a Pure Oxygen burning setup for power production. Here

How does adding pure O2 help if it burns hot? That was my original point in all this. Why would it possibly stop the production of NOx if you just added 2 of the key elements to NOx(O2 and Heat).

 

[Geep]

Guys

Let's try to be practical here... We are talking about a small, relatively low power system that merely supplements fuel/air mix with more oxy (air, think of it as running in death valley, with higher oxy concentrations) and hydro as more fuel (like propane inj.). Also bear in mind that a system like this would would add small quanities of H and O at whatever rate it is produced, not needing starage facilities.

Catalyst: a poor word choice. The only word to describe this is electrolysis. I am simply trying paint a clear picture of a concept.

As for power consumption... If an alternator is already being run to recharge a battery, it can be the source for extra power needed to run the unit.

I'm not much on cooking oil cars, spending 'special' time with trees, or other happy hippy hempy crap. But I would like to get my gas bill from $1000 to 800 a month whenever possible.

Here's a link to a guy that sells these. He seems a little wierd, but within this there are links for other sources of int.

savefuel.ca

G

 

[sled_dog]

I found how to increase my 8MPG on my Suburban to 37.5MPG. its called a $700 Saturn

Oh and when you are running in Death Valley, yes O2 increases but so does Nitrogen and the other things in the air. Remember, its just air density. No doubt its the ideal conditions for an engine.

 

[jhellwig]

A few years ago I read in popular science about a car that ran on air. Just air. It ran like a regular desil engin except insted of injecting desil, very very high presure air was injected thus creating so much heat that the air actualy combusted.

 

[shelbyfordgt]

Taken from an article about a Pure Oxygen burning setup for power production. Here

How does adding pure O2 help if it burns hot? That was my original point in all this. Why would it possibly stop the production of NOx if you just added 2 of the key elements to NOx(O2 and Heat).

Ignoring the part of heat. Where does NOx come from? If you are burning oxygen and hydrogen, where are you getting the nitrogen atom from?

 

[sled_dog]

Woah woah woah. We are talking using this as a supplement to normal gasoline combustion. You would still have normal air intake and hydrocarbon fuel. Air as surrounds us everyday is about 80% Nitrogen.

 

[shelbyfordgt]

and reread what i typed.