Well... My wind tower is damn near paid for after 9 years and I haven't had an electric bill in 9 years, so... (not me, my best friend who had the money to invest in a 50k tower).
I am really looking at solor collectors for heat and maybe solor panels to help my energy use. YES I KNOW... we are talking about cars but it is only a matter of time. I hope.

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Chris'
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The hydrogen generator is a Mason jar with two studs that go down through a plastic cap that seals the top of the Mason jar. . You can buy a very fancy version of this made of stainless steel, but it does nothing that this does not do. These studs have 2 fender washers near the bottom of each stud that are drilled off center and bolted to each stud in a way that the fender washers overlap each other, but do not touch. Again, there are two on each side, and the total area producing hydrogen is about 24 square inches. The washers are nearly as wide as the jar. The jar is filled with tap water, and a small amount of baking soda is added as an electrolyte. Four volts of DC power is applied to the studs at the top of the jar, with the lid on, via a wall wart battary charger. When you plug in the charger you can see the hydrogen bubbling off the washers.

There is a tube which enters the top of the jar, which goes to the bottom of the jar where it ends under water. This outside end of the tube is hooked to a small fish tank air pump. Air is pumped through the water where it bubbles out of the tube into the water. At the top of the jar is another tube which is open to the air at the top of the jar. This upper tube exits the jar, and enters a second bottle of tap water. When you start the air pump, the air is pumped through the water that is producing hydrogen, and the pressure inside the jar forces the atmosphere at the top of the bottle into and through the second bottle of water, where the hydrogen is trapped in an ionized state.

This is the water I drink every day. Although most of the hydrogen produced is trapped in the water, you can still smell the hydrogen when you first enter the room It is hard to describe the smell. You can also taste it a bit. I have very clean well water, with very little taste or odor. AFter it is hydrolized it tastes and smells more like city water. After you have digested this information, I will tell you how I have used it in the car. It is simple to the max.

Sam

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I think this is only true if your gasoline engine is currently 100% efficient with no waste whatsoever. If you can improve the efficiency of the basic combustion, then you would have a net gain. We know that a gasoline engine is only about 20% efficient. There is alot of room for improvement here. And, if these guys are going to spend their time and money exploring, who am I to tell them they can't possibly succeed? That would be bad science. That doesn't mean I believe every exagerated, and optimistic claim either. You wait and see what shakes down, with an open mind, intelligently assessing what you see happening.

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No, it's true regardless of any and all other factors. The water-hydrolysis process has no way of knowing anything about engine efficiency, and since energy cannot be created, the net-negative energy balance of any water hydrolysis process is immutable.
Yes, but not by water hydrolysis. The moment you add hydrogen into the mix of factors, you have to account for the energy used to produce the hydrogen, and since that's always going to be more than the energy available from the hydrogen, you cannot improve efficiency this way.
No, it would be realistic, if what they want to "explore" violates immutable physical laws. Can we please not have a repeat of the square-wheels kerfuffle touched off by mpgmike's unscientific (and unsupportable) claims? I don't mean to put you on the defensive, and I am not trying to attack you or your ideas. It's just that science has a nasty habit of poking ugly holes in beautiful ideas.


Yes, but not so wide open that all the common sense and scientific rationality leak out. The laws of physics are, whether we like them or not.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Interesting-sounding device. I would like to see it next time I'm in your vicinity (though I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around taking clean well water and making it taste like city water! ). How have you made use of it in your car?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Even in the above example the energy produced is a net negative. The wind energy used to power the generator is greater then the energy extracted from it. Friction losses and conversion losses turn a significant portion into heat which is dissipated. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is that you are using energy that would otherwise be wasted. The conversion process is a net negative in terms of energy conversion. The exact same will be true of your solar panels. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing; in fact I applaud you for it. If I had the money and space I would do it myself. The point though, is that the laws of physics are such that the energy output from any conversion technique will ALWAYS be less than the energy input. This true of any energy conversion process whether it is chemical, mechanical, thermal, or even nuclear. There is ALWAYS waste and loss.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment. In fact, if the conversion process for the hydrogen happens to be more efficient than that of the engine, the net efficiency could be improved. However, having said that, I don't believe there's enough hydrogen being produced to make a significant contribution to the output of the engine or to influence it's efficiency one way or the other. We're talking about tiny amounts here, micro or milligrams at most. I don't recall the molecular weights of the Hydrogen and Oxygen, but as a wild guess I'd say that hydrogen makes up at most 1/4 the weight of the water and the water is being held and hydrolyzed in a container the size of a mason jar which is at most a pint. If every atom of hygrogen were extracted and reburned it would propel the vehicle maybe a few yards.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

How did I miss this?

water injection has nothing to do with H. It's all about the added O2 too.

FWIW a pressurized water injection system would add some serious power and be a lot more enviromental friendly than a regular motor producing that very same amount of power.

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Juan Ignacio Caino

Please use e-mail button istead of PM'ing. I do log in sometimes but I'll be answering quicker thru e-mail.

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This thread did indeed get off topic.

I can remain open to the possibility that the energy it takes to produce the hydrogen is less than a POSSIBLE increase in efficiency when added to gasoline in the mix. This is not hoping square wheels will roll.

Isn't it possible that a little hydrogen in the mix will change the combustion in a positive way?

I have two conflicting reactions here:

1. If this were possible, why has no one made it work so far, and why has the auto industry not jumped on it?

2. If this is not possible, why are so many guys out there convinced that it is? Maybe all of them are idiots with no scientific basis for what they are doing, but it seems hard to believe that all of them would fall into this catagory. And most of them right now are not selling anything. They are just playing around with an idea and sharing it on the internet. That takes away the snake oil salesman motivation.

So, I just want to play around with this simple process myself, and find out what I can about it. I am open to whatever. Dan, I am not arguing with you. You have taken a position, and I have taken none. I promise I will let you know one way or the other if this does anything at all. So let's not debate whether the immutable laws of physics can be broken. Anything that works must fall within these laws. Agreed. No Argument. But there can be surprising results sometimes, from unexpected interactions.

Sam

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Let me step back and put a broader perspective on this. I think the over riding motivation behind the current fascination with hydrogen in particulalr, and alternative fuels in general is not to save money, or be more efficient. It is to find an alternative to oil, which is politically un-viable, if one of your political goals is world peace. And, to find a clean fuel that does not fill the air with smoke, CO2 or ozone. So all the discussions of good and bad science might be missing the more important point. Oil is pretty cheap power right now. Unfortunately it carries with it many undesirable consequences for the rest of the world.

In my "playing around" with the hydrogen idea, I am not trying to prove anything. I am just seeing for myself how this stuff behaves when used in certain ways. If I wanted to save money, I would drive my Toyota all the time, and keep my Dart parked.

As far as viable uses of hydrogen commercially, it seems as if it might be possible to use it for automotive fuel if we could find a way to make it without using fossile fuel in the process, which is of course the not-to- hidden folly behind the Ethenol campaign.

It seems if there were a way to use wind power, or solar power, or even surf power, which is enormous, to produce hydrogen, then it might become a viable commercial fuel for automobiles. If you have to burn fossile fuel to produce hydrogen, then it probably is a net loss, and certainly not a step forward politically.

Sam

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BINGO

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Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

OK this seems more up my alley, so Ill dive in with both feet.

!. Sam and Cars are looking at using a off car generation system to generate the H then use it in the car.( This is the way I read it at least )
Cars can generate it for "FREE" using wind power. Sam uses "house current" to generate his.
I think the question should be not is it Efficient. But what would the benefits of running the Browns gas through our cars. I would love to "see" if there would be any improvements at the track. Methanol Inj vs Browns gas, etc.

A futher note Cars didnt say he was going to produce it I used Him as a sugested way to make it for FREE (SORRY CARS ).

I run Geothermal here as the sun is HOT most of the year.
I have looked into wind generation but the initial outlay is still too much.


Frank

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Scrapple: Because a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
73 Duster - Race Car
66 Dart Wagon - DD
178" FED
82 D150
All Slant powered

Sam,

I think what you are smelling is most likely ozone? I will have to look at this device sometime. Hydrogen (H2) or H3O+ will have no smell.

I would be shaken to my very scientific core if you could make a net energy benefit by any of these methods.

Hydrolysis of water consumes more energy than you can recover from the H2 you produce, no matter how you do it.

There are plenty of complex concepts here, but probably the most important one is "conservation of energy," which some of the people here have invoked. This is the most relevant one to ponder. Hard numbers are the only way to discuss these things.

Coincidentally, another chemist told me yesterday that a bunch of yahoos are driving around in Toyota Priuses with hopped up lithium batteries claiming they get 150 MPG. This is outright bogus, since they are apparently charging the batteries with wall power and not including that in their energy balance. This will do nothing but give them a bad name when people figure this out. According to recent calculations I made, if you had a 100% efficient engine (read that again!), you could only hope to get about 150 MPG driving at a steady 50 MPH or less in a car that shape and size.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

A less controversial view of water injection might argue that injecting water into a cylinder where there is excess heat both reduces chamber temps and creates more cylinder pressure. Turning injected water into steam would add considerably to cylinder pressure. ......

Entropy.... wherefore art thou?

i used top work as an engine room oiler on a reciprocating steam ship called the Wiliiam J Stewart (built in Scotland in 1903) .Piston Steam is an amazing thing......

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....