Hydrogen generator help

[flip]

Ok, so a guy on my Ford dealer message board was talking about a hydrogen generator he has on his truck. I am looking to experiment to see if it does increase my MPG slightly.  Of course it's just a supplement to the main fuel so I'm not expecting much. Sos I get curious and do a little research on the net to find out about these little jems :P These things are easy to build and install on the vehicle (here comes the but).  I need to supply DC voltage to the unit to start the reaction and supply a regulated amperage to it.  I need to make sure the thing draws 20amps to supply the amount of H volume to the fuel system to make any difference.  Any of you guys know of a device I can regulate the amperage between 10-40 amps dc that is somewhat cheap?  Some guys are using DC motor controllers which for that amperage range are $$.  I also saw a guy that sells these on Ebay with little plug in capsules which leads me to believe it is some type of resistor ???  This is my only hang up right now on this, and I know there are some electrical guys here.

[Captain]

Need a little more information - how many watts is this hydrogen generator.  Simple Ohm's law calculation at 14 Volts solves to .7 ohm resistance for 20 Amps.  This calculation is going to change dynamically when the other load is added.

Captain

[flip]

I havn't built yet, that is the next step.  Instructions are all over the web but I don't think they really say how to calculate until after you build. Plan on using stainless steel in a tube 6"X15".  If you use straight tap with no conductor like potassium hydroxide you get less production which I guess all relates to how many watts it will draw :-\  Hmmmmm.

[Dale Hatfield]

wonder how it would work in a Diesel?
Could it be set up like a boost cooleror would it be better to run all they way through throttle travel?

[flip]

They sell the units for diesel only they are about about 50%l larger. 

[Stump Jumper]

i have been playing with this idia also you can change the electrode size to get the amp draw you need untill your soulition gets lower than the electrode ,so make more resevore above the electrodes

[Don P]

This seems to break one of those rules of thermodynamics. You're burning fuel to turn an engine which in turn spins an alternator which then takes extra current to generate hydrogen. The higher the draw on an alternator the more effort it takes to turn it, it doesn't make power for free. A resistor is taking that effort and turning it into heat, whatever goes on from there is being used to split water? Every step has losses, I dunno  ???

[Dale Hatfield]

Buy  I done some searching One place had plans for like a 100 another for 29. Complete kit was anywhere from a 1000 to a few hundred bucks. Mind you that both products looked very much the same. Kinda odd
Dale

[flip]

None of the places or any searching did I find an optimal surface area for the electrodes or amperage.  If you have huge plates you make a bunch of hydro but it draws a lot of juice.  If plates are too small you get no production so it's really not worth doing, looking for the sweet spot.

As far as being perpetual, that will never happen.  What does make sense about the thing though, since your engine is running anyway, you are turning your alternator.  An increase of 10-20 amps will not draw more power than what the hydro machine will put off in fuel, it will supplement your fuel requirements but never fully replace with this system. 

Since I have scan tools here at work to monitor fuel trims, oxygen sensor readings and such I'll be able to tell if these things really do work.  What I expect is that the computer system will recognize excess fuel in the system and try to lean the engine out.  It does this by running shorter fuel injector pulse times.  So as long as the generator puts out a steady supply of H it should be a benefit on longer drives.  I say this because the vehicle runs in a open loop when it is cold and does not take into account for sensor readings until you hit operating temp.  Once it is in closed loop fuel delivery is controlled by readings it gets from multiple sensors.  If you have a slight vacuum leak the computer will try to compensate by slowly adding fuel (maybe over a 30 minute? time period) until it sees the stoichometric ratio of 14:1.  If you hop in your car and take off to the grocery store 2 miles down the road I don't think having a generator would do one bit of good.  You may get into closed loop by the time you get there but again, the computer would not be able to compensate for the excess fuel.
This all goes out the window if you use the fuel injectors to deliver the H.  The system is more complex and you have to use valving, shutoffs, pressure regulators, and other stuff to make it run 100% all the time.  Mucho $$. 

[Bill]

This seems to break one of those rules of thermodynamics. You're burning fuel to turn an engine which in turn spins an alternator which then takes extra current to generate hydrogen. The higher the draw on an alternator the more effort it takes to turn it, it doesn't make power for free. A resistor is taking that effort and turning it into heat, whatever goes on from there is being used to split water? Every step has losses, I dunno  ???

FWIW - I'm also interested in seeing that you save fuel. I remember someone back in school ( shoulda been paying more attention I suppose ) saying that when you transfer energy from one form to another it loses anywhere from 10-40% ( or more ) of the original energy. So what that could mean is that you'd be spending more fuel to turn the alternator than if you weren't trying to run the hydrogen generator. Maybe if you could use a "free" water wheel to generate the electricity and saved the hydrogen in a bottle and then added the bottle with a regulator into the truck fuel system ? ? ?  Don't know .

Would be good to know how it works out . . .

[flip]

You can easily tune the generator to put out more than you need, it's a matter of getting the right combination.  Obviously not perpetual, but if you increase MPG by supplementing H in place of dino juice it would save some $$, maybe not a huge amount, but on long trips it would help.

[Ron Wenrich]

I've thought about this thermodynamic thing, and I'm not sure that really applies.  The only energy you're using is to break the bond between hydrogen and oxygen in the water.  You're not transferring the energy to the hydrogen.

The use of hydrogen in the engine is that of a fuel.  That's a chemical reaction, not a physical one.  Given the high energy content of hydrogen, it seems to me that you should be able to extract more energy from the hydrogen than what was put in to break the bond.

Or am I looking at this wrong?

[Fla._Deadheader]

I've got info that says Hydrogen burns 3 times hotter than gasoline. THAT should give you some idea on how much assistance you get in the engine.

[Don P]

I think the change back, is to water, when you burn (oxidize) it. I think that the energy to break the bond is the energy you release when you burn it, less the losses. I might be wrong... make that, I'm probably wrong, I slept through chemistry, several times  ???.

I do remember that hydrogen bonds were the weakest ones in nature, they are what holds us together  .

[Ron Wenrich]

I didn't sleep through chem classes, but I certainly didn't do all that well.   :D  I don't think that the energy to break the bond has anything to do with the amount of energy you get from the hydrogen.  I don't think that its a 1 to 1 ratio.  When you get beyond that thinking, things fall into place, at least for me.

[JimMartin9999]

When you burn hydrogen, you ozidize it, i.e. you combine it with ozygen (is this the right  spelling?). the product is water, H2O.    As someone said above ,there should be equal amounts of energy in both directions, minus the usual loss.

[Kcwoodbutcher]

The whole thing smacks of the perpetual energy machine. It takes much more energy to break the H2O bond than to recombine them. If this was such a great process with a 110% output energy over input energy it would solve the energy crisis. The sales pitch of this device seems to be-well your running the engine anyway so what's the difference? The alternator is working harder and the engine is using more fuel to compensate.
From another viewpoint it would seem that the amount of hydrogen these units could produce would be insignificant verses the volumes of air/fuel digested by the typical internal combustion engine.The output of the devices would have to be several cubic feet per minute.

[Bill]

FWIW

Over on some of the VW Diesel web sites they talk about the alternatives ( and why they don't get implemented ? ? ?  ) . The logic I seem to recall about hydrogen fueled vehicles was twofold I think. The one was that there was/is no distribution system in place ( like for gas or diesel ) that could handle ( the highly volatile ) hydrogen gas/liquid . The other that seemed to kill it was that they couldn't produce hydrogen because it cost more to make it than they could get to sell it ( including govt subsidies ? ) . That's what makes this seem like it  ~ may ~ just be too good to be true . So sure would like to hear more about it - either way.

Good Luck

[Ron Wenrich]

If the energy is a minus, then how can they distill other liquids into products without it being a net energy loss?   Doesn't the heat break bonds to reform other chemicals?

Here's an overview of where industry is taking this technology.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/how-a-hydrogen-boosted-gasoline-engine-works.htm  If it was pie in the sky stuff, they wouldn't be investing in it.

[Ianab]

When you break down complex molecules into simpler ones you usually loose potential energy. So when you ferment sugar into ethanol the reaction gives off energy, but only a percentage of the total. Meanwhile you change sugar, (tasty but useless as a vehicle fuel) into ethanol. Also tasty, but can be burnt in a 'normal' engine. You have a loss in the process, but if you turn 100lb of lumpy sugar into 50lb of ethanol fuel it's acceptable.

There is a lot of hype around fuel conditioners and hydrogen injectors, but do any of them actually help? The link refers to MIT research. But when you search on that it shows they are using a serious electrical discharge on the fuel to partially break it down before it enters the engine. They make no claims about increased power or fuel economy, just the the 'pre-digested' fuel burns with less emissions. OK, thats believable, but they dont actually claim to get more power.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/discover.html

Lots of people want investors to help them develop their patented ideas.. that doesn't mean they actually work.

Cheers

Ian

[Don P]

I've been hauling home some free logs on the way from work. I have to cross Iron Ridge in 4low 1st and 2nd gears. On the climb today as I watched the temp guage it occured to me that the engine was below boiling point for water but above the boiling point of alcohol.

Soo, if I run filtered sour mash as a coolant and have another radiator and a barrel of fresh mash in the bed to replinish from I'm thinking I can make fuel as I go. And if there's a break down, it ain't the end of the world waiting on the rescue party.

Seriously though, there is alot of low grade waste heat going out the exhaust if there was a way to tap into that.

I think the only "free" way to split water would be if you had regenerative braking wired to the electrodes in the water.

[Warbird]

The only way hydrogen is a viable fuel source for a vehicle, IMO, is via the fuel cell.  The only way to generate enough hydrogen is by consuming a *lot* of electricity, stripping the hydrogen, storing it, then transporting it to fuel stations across the nation.

How to do this?  Well, I came up with a plan but no one likes to listen to it.  It involves nuclear energy....

We can build much better plants today.  Believe it or not, technology has advanced a lot since the last nuclear plant was built in the US. We can build them such that they are safer, easier to manage, and less wasteful.

Besides just generating electricity, there are other benefits to nuclear energy.  One is that we can put a hydrogen plant right beside the nuclear plant and while generating electricity, strip off hydrogen to power our cars.

We can also desalinate sea water so everyone has plenty of drinking water, just like us Alaskans do!

"What about all that icky nuclear waste??"

'Less wasteful' in the above statement means we generate a lot less of that icky byproduct called nuclear waste.  Let me clarify this.  We can 're-burn' the nuclear waste from one plant in a different and special nuclear power plant.  It takes nuclear waste that would have to be stored for about 10,000 years and makes it so that it only has to be stored for about 300 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power

My proposal?  Each state in the United States picks areas where they build the following:  1 large nuclear power plant, 1 plant with "fast spectrum reactors" (to burn the reprocessed fuel), a hydrogen generation plant, and for those states bordering an ocean, a desalination plant.  Each state should have enough of these "areas" to sustain their own population.  If this idea is unpopular, then the US should pick a few very large areas, move people out of them, and build many of these plants in those areas.  If you really want, I can show you how this would pay for itself in the long run but mainly, it all boils down (forgive the pun) to cleaning up our act.

We have plenty of energy available that would have very little negative impact on our planet.  Hydrogen generated in the method talked about in this thread and used as a fuel additive is not one of those energies.  Neither is ethanol but that's another whole topic.  ;D

Oh, and burning wood in the right way is less pollutive than running your oil burning boiler.

[Don P]

While cruising on dead dinosaurs again today I was wondering about the waste heat going out the tailpipe. If the exhaust heat were piped through a barrel of sawdust or scrap, would it get hot enough to make woodgas that could be blended back into the intake air?

[pineywoods]

Don P   now there's a thought that might be worth looking into.  How hot does wood need to be to prodice gas ????

[Don P]

I don't know and I'm not sure its good enough gas. When I was making charcoal in the woodstove I sat a cookie tin packed with wood scrap in the woodstove with a hole punched in the lid. It made an impressive gas flare as the wood turned to charcoal. I've been wondering if the catalytic converter was inside the barrel (the exhaust gas never goes through the wood just the piping), if the heat off of it would do the trick. A vent pipe off the barrel could go back to the intake,  I've got no idea just pondering  ???.