What's new
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

hydrogen generators: boosters and improve MPG?

Status
Not open for further replies.
shelbyfordgt said:
and reread what i typed.
Click to expand...

Huh? Are you telling me to reread what you typed? Cause I'm not seeing it. I posted up about Oxygen burning hotter because we are talking about gasoline combustion with this hydrogen/oxygen thing as a supplement to it. If you want to talk Hydrogen/Oxygen ONLY combustion, thats another matter all together. Thats not what this thread was originally about and not what I have been talking about.
 
Someone posted about this some time back. It might have worked years ago when the ignition systems sucked. The hydrogen made the fuel mixture easier to ignite so the engine misfired less and therefore produced more power from a given amount of fuel.
 
The only place where I've heard this done effectively is Iceland, where they have an abundance of geothermal energy to provide the electricity for the hydrogen generating service stations.

But that is still a far cry from onboard generation.
 
sled_dog said:
Huh? Are you telling me to reread what you typed? Cause I'm not seeing it. I posted up about Oxygen burning hotter because we are talking about gasoline combustion with this hydrogen/oxygen thing as a supplement to it. If you want to talk Hydrogen/Oxygen ONLY combustion, thats another matter all together. Thats not what this thread was originally about and not what I have been talking about.
Click to expand...


And that is what i am talking about. Now once again. Reread what i typed.
 
Try more to understand the point rather than show off your knowledge. Indeed the air is denser in Death Valley. As I said... more oxygen. If you wanted to point out faults in my logic and terminology, pick something relevant. I realize there's more of other gases as well, but the solution I am speaking of potentially improves the ratio of oxygen in the air mixture. If you could bring the average ~16% O2 content up slightly, you will improve combustability with the increased availability of oxygen. I don't think it would be so much more to cause heat problems, however. I doubt it would much more than a percent or two if that to the mixture. Besides, your real benefit would be derived from the hydrogen.

G
 
I'm not trying to show off my knowledge, I'm just trying to tell you what I see wrong with the idea. I am just recently learning about emissions and all of this stuff in school and thoroughly enjoy it, I'm loving researching the little bit I am to discuss this. I've only been talking about the increased temperature due to the O2, now that I actually look some more, Hydrogen also burns pretty hot. In fact this site directly notes an increase of NOx production when hydrogen is in standard combustion.
2.3.2.1. Combustion technology
Because of hydrogen’s high burning temperature, large amounts of NOx will be released under standard combustion methods.
Click to expand...
I'm trying to show why its not done from the factory and why I know I personally wouldn't consider it. Increased pollution for a few(at max) mpg?

shelbyfordgt- you are gonna have to explain what you want me to read cause I must be totally missing it. Reread each of your posts and don't see what I possibly missed.

I just reread some of the posts and found something I didn't notice before.

79k20350- you talked about switching to propane fuel. Two big issues with that, One Propane gets WORSE gas mileage then gasoline. Do your research and you will learn that. LPG is a common enough fuel setup in offroading, less power, less mileage. And Two LPG is still a petroleum product so we are still dependent on oil with it. And yes I realize we export our oil, same for our steel. Its one of the reasons both are so pricey these days, IMO.
 
Geep said:
...but the solution I am speaking of potentially improves the ratio of oxygen in the air mixture. If you could bring the average ~16% O2 content up slightly, you will improve combustability with the increased availability of oxygen. I don't think it would be so much more to cause heat problems, however. I doubt it would much more than a percent or two if that to the mixture. Besides, your real benefit would be derived from the hydrogen.

G
Click to expand...

For gasoline, the stoichiometric air/fuel ratio is 14.7-1. In case anyone's confused, this means that for 1 unit of gasoline to be combusted with 100% efficiency, there MUST BE 14.7 units of oxygen present.
So in order to stay at stoich, you MUST ADD ONE IF YOU ADD THE OTHER! If it were as simple as injecting some gaseous oxygen into the air intake of the engine, people would have been mounting oxy tanks to their cars long ago.
Adding hydrogen into the intake throws a few more monkey wrenches into the works, because now you've got a fuel that needs a different air/fuel ratio to combust stoichiometrically. Not to mention that hydrogen gas is highly explosive - the ignition timing needed for gasoline/oxygen (air) combustion to be complete right around TDC will certainly be different (earlier) than hydrogen/oxygen combustion.
 
jarheadk5 said:
For gasoline, the stoichiometric air/fuel ratio is 14.7-1. In case anyone's confused, this means that for 1 unit of gasoline to be combusted with 100% efficiency, there MUST BE 14.7 units of oxygen present.
So in order to stay at stoich, you MUST ADD ONE IF YOU ADD THE OTHER! If it were as simple as injecting some gaseous oxygen into the air intake of the engine, people would have been mounting oxy tanks to their cars long ago.
Click to expand...
14.7 is really air, and not oxygen. Even todays cars dont run at 14.7 100% of the time, so running at the most efficient ratio isn't that important.

People have been mounting a type of gas to their engines for a long time, they call it "nawz" nitrous oxide.
 
Yeah and they don't use it constantly or for fuel economy, or for emissions. Modern cars RARELY stay at stoich. Stoich is 14.7:1 but modern cars fluctuate often. If you hook up a scan tool(a GOOD one), you can watch the Short Term Fuel trim and watch the computer change from lean to rich and back again. The proper reading from an O2 sensor on a fuel inject vehicle is bouncing back and forth between lean and rich. Thats the computer compensating back and forth trying to stay at Stoich while adjusting for conditions.
 
Yes, but then you get into "highway mode" which GM tried to slip past the government. Intentionally running 15:1+ under certain circumstances.

Part of the discussion I would think has to center on whether or not increasing efficiency at the expense of increased emissions would be worthwhile. Of course assuming that in the scenario's being discussed you believe that emission of NOx will increase. In other words, justt for arguments sake, if power production/efficiency went up 10%, but so did NOx, (corresponding 10%) is there really anything wrong with that?

On the topic of nitrous, unless I'm mistaken, you have to be VERY careful with your fuel trim with nitrous. If you run it lean, you will destroy the motor pretty much instantaneously due to excessive heat. I would assume that paying attention to fuel trim and not going lean indicates a corresponding increase of fuel delivered. Just like a turbo/supercharger, you are cramming more air (denser) into the same space, but fuel also MUST be increased to keep from going lean.
 
sled_dog said:
Yeah and they don't use it constantly or for fuel economy, or for emissions. Modern cars RARELY stay at stoich. Stoich is 14.7:1 but modern cars fluctuate often. If you hook up a scan tool(a GOOD one), you can watch the Short Term Fuel trim and watch the computer change from lean to rich and back again. The proper reading from an O2 sensor on a fuel inject vehicle is bouncing back and forth between lean and rich. Thats the computer compensating back and forth trying to stay at Stoich while adjusting for conditions.
Click to expand...

you should wait till you get done with school first before posting about emission topics.

As dyeager stated, automotive companies run their cars leaner. Just like i said, it isn't running at 14.7 100% of the time. And even with a cheap scantool, you can see if it is jumping rich and lean, it isn't really at 14.7, now is it?
 
shelbyfordgt said:
you should wait till you get done with school first before posting about emission topics.

As dyeager stated, automotive companies run their cars leaner. Just like i said, it isn't running at 14.7 100% of the time. And even with a cheap scantool, you can see if it is jumping rich and lean, it isn't really at 14.7, now is it?
Click to expand...

I explained that it jumps back and forth just like you did. 14.7 is stoich, that doesn't change. I've already completed the emissions/engine control course, so you saying I should wait till I learn how to rebuild an automatic transmission to talk about stoich and fuel trims?

The PCM tries to maintain Stoich(sometimes of course its tuned to something other then 14.7:1) and it has to bounce back and forth trying to maintain it. What works one cylinder fire won't neccessarily work the next one so it is constantly adjusting. Thats what the Short Term Fuel Trim and Long Term Fuel Trim are. PCM adjustment for conditions, trying to make max power and maintain stoich.

Remember, lean is hot. So adding more heat to the combustion chamber will do what? I think I've beaten the horse 6 feet under by now so I'm done.
 
Last edited:
dyeager535 said:
Yes, but then you get into "highway mode" which GM tried to slip past the government. Intentionally running 15:1+ under certain circumstances.

Part of the discussion I would think has to center on whether or not increasing efficiency at the expense of increased emissions would be worthwhile. Of course assuming that in the scenario's being discussed you believe that emission of NOx will increase. In other words, justt for arguments sake, if power production/efficiency went up 10%, but so did NOx, (corresponding 10%) is there really anything wrong with that?
Click to expand...

Have any information on this "highway mode"? I'd like to read about it. Can't quite see why GM would want to run rich at cruise speeds, I'd like to learn a bit about it.

I know for my area, and for ever more stringent Federal standards, a 10% increase in NOx production would raise some eyebrows and not pass emissions testing. Personally like I said, I don't like to know I'm driving around polluting the hell out of our world. I have to live here, same as you, I'll do my part to keep it nice. Not trying to start an argument about that stuff, just saying for my part of my state's emission testing, I would fail if my NOx jumped 10%, we actually test for NOx.
 
There's a bunch over at thirdgen on highway mode. Never spent time googling it since there was enough info over there. You've got it backwards, 15:1 is lean, they ran it lean in certain conditions. Fairly complex process for the time period, but it has to be, easy to ruin a motor by running it overly lean obviously.

I'm probably going to try playing with it once I get my "around town" tune taken care of. Just something additional to play with. :)
 
I was an idiot as I look back. I messed up and read 15:1 as rich, its lean(duh). I did that at school today too. Reading a gas analyzer and read it the wrong way.
 
sled_dog said:
I was an idiot as I look back. I messed up and read 15:1 as rich, its lean(duh). I did that at school today too. Reading a gas analyzer and read it the wrong way.
Click to expand...

Fine, i change my statement. Dont finish school, but get atleast 2 years experience. Why are you so hung up with NOx? Majority of states dont test for it. If an engine runs hot, put a bigger radiator in it.

can you say 1/3 of the time the car is running at 14.7? Because the other 3rds is at rich or lean. Then the numbers change in highway mode and cold starts.
 
It is a good contributor to smog.
http://www.epa.gov/air/urbanair/nox/what.html

It is also a large contributing factor in acid rain.
http://www.policyalmanac.org/environment/archive/acid_rain.shtml

And Bucks County Pennsylvania test for NOx emissions(where I was born and raised and will return after school).

Also, the temperature thing isn't engine temperature as much as combustion temperature. Yes a larger radiator will help reduce this, but enough to reduce emissions? I don't believe that would be the case, especially if you add in the higher temperature burn factors.
 
sled_dog said:
It is a good contributor to smog.
http://www.epa.gov/air/urbanair/nox/what.html

It is also a large contributing factor in acid rain.
http://www.policyalmanac.org/environment/archive/acid_rain.shtml

And Bucks County Pennsylvania test for NOx emissions(where I was born and raised and will return after school).

Also, the temperature thing isn't engine temperature as much as combustion temperature. Yes a larger radiator will help reduce this, but enough to reduce emissions? I don't believe that would be the case, especially if you add in the higher temperature burn factors.
Click to expand...

you need to do a lot more reading. What causes the engine to get hot in the first place?

still hung up on Nox? If you had any experience you would know theres ways to reduce nox, but your only concern is how hot the engine gets.
 
Coming full circle...

Clearly emissions is an issue, but I still wonder if the booster really makes a difference. Some earlier posts mentioned 'not getting something for nothing.' Regarding this, does an alternator require more HP to turn if it needs to generate more power (like for the electrodes?). If so is this a wash? If not, what other factors (other than emmisions) are to consider? Would today's engines be able to appropriately compensate for the new ratios of fuel/fuel/air (gas/hyd/air)? Long term use and heat buildup, are these problems? How about particulate deposited from moisture created when hydrogen and oxygen combust? By this I mean minerals, salts, and other impurities in the water that would be necessary for it the conduct electricity anyway...

I'm soaking it up guys... Ya'll know your stuff.

G
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest Posts

Top Bottom