Hydrogen = Increased MPG

[redhat-z]

This weekend I plan on starting my investigation into creating hydrogen for use as an inline additive to the intake. I'm just doing some small scale experiments first to freshen up on my high school chemistry. The ultimate plan is to use some high conductance electrodes, maybe graphite, submerged in a solution of purified water with one of several variables like noniodized salt, baking soda, etc.. Then run a low amperage current to the electrodes, anode and cathode, and watch the bubbles. The ones coming from the anode should be hydrogen and the ones from the cathode should be oxygen. Then, pull the vapor into the intake via engine vacuum and pray it doesn't blow the head gaskets out.

I'll update on my progress.

 

[bparker]

Holy shizat!

Let us know how it goes.

 

[treepete]

dude... I'm no chemist, but cant hydrogen explode? Like in those old-skool blimp photos?
If it works, cool, just dont blow up

 

[Mike97]

dude... I'm no chemist, but cant hydrogen explode? Like in those old-skool blimp photos?
If it works, cool, just dont blow up

Think about what you just asked. Of course hydrogen can explode. But so can gasoline vapors.

 

[treepete]

sure, im sorry about that. what I guess i was after was the tank that the anode/cathode are in.
sorry about that.

 

[Mike97]

No need to apologize. I was merely pointing that out. Hydrogen is no more dangerous than gasoline as a fuel source as long as the system is properly designed. Most people associate hydrogen with the Hindenburg accident, and that gives them negative attitudes towards hydrogen.

 

[T-Bagg]

If you get it working, don't forget the copyrights and patents! $$$

 

[redhat-z]

Progress

I put some filtered water and iodized salt in a clear plastic container. I hooked up my 3amp converter to 2 carbon electrodes and turned it on. Instantly the anode turned white with hydrogen bubbles. I started getting some green clumps in the water so I will use distilled water next time. I couldn't find a balloon and match to have some fun with but that will come soon enough. I'll try and get a video posted soon to show what I'm doing. I know there are some on youtube already.

I'll post with more progress as I get it.

 

[loulblades]

There is alot of interesting stuff on the internet regarding using hydrogen.

Here's one example (I am not selling this, just find it interesting because I am doing research in this area).

http://www.runyourcarwithwater.com/?hop=cyprusmete

 

[pRoFiT]

I've built the controlling circuit for a hydrogen generator. but i have yet to get the rods to test it out. I found the circuit some inventor designed. I forget the guys name but aparently the guy colapsed outside a resturant screaming poisen and died. who knows how true that story is.

Anyways, The problems with adding hydrogen to the mix is, 1 the engine timing and also the H2O2 mix that gets generated adds air to the intake and your ox sensors will think to much air is getting into the system, could cause the engine to choke.

Mythbusters did a special on getting 100 MPG using special carbs with no luck and they also did a hydrogen generator. They could not get it to run off the generator. but did get the engine to slightly stutter with strait hydrogen from a bottle.

I think the best case with this now would be to add the hydrogen to the gas mix and somehow adjust the ox sensors to bypass the extra air intake from the mix.

I'm rambling a little. RedHat, Let us know what you get with this, im very intrested.

 

[TangibleGhost]

just some thoughts

Ok, I just found this forum and this is my first post. Anyway....

I'm planning on putting a 6 cell hydroxy generator(electrolyzer) on my 95 Yukon. From what I've read online it's perfectly safe, with the right precautions. 1 of those is you must run the gas that you produce through a bubbler before it goes into the engine. The reason for this is that the gas is (obviously) highly explosive. In the event of a backfire the explosion would go all the way back into the electrolizer and wreak havoc. A bubbler minimizes these headaches by limiting the amount of the gas that can be ignited. For the O2 sensor you pretty much have to switch over to a wideband and install a resister circuit between it and the ECU. The gas will make the motor run very lean and the ECU will dump extra fuel to bring it back. Your fuel mileage will actualy drop if you don't fux with the O2. So you have to fool the computer into thinking that its running at around 14/1 when its probably running closer to 20/1. That A/F ratio shouldn't be a problem though since the hydroxy burns cooler and theres alot more moisture in the intake charge thanks to the bubbler and the hydroxy itself. Timing shouldn't be an issue unless you try to run it off of pure hydroxy, and that's a major undertaking in itself. There's alot of info online about this stuff. Pretty much either google "Smacks booster" or oupower.com has a cool electrolyzer that a crazy guy has been tinkering with. (realy cool looking)

Anyway, that's it for my first post. Have fun and don't smoke around this stuff unless you want a Darwin Award.

TG

 

[radimus]

Gasoline is actually more dangerous than hydrogen. Gasoline vapors are heavier than air and will pool on the ground. Hydrogen is lighter than air and will easily dissipate.

 

[TangibleGhost]

In certain instances I would agree. The problem with hydrogen is where you are messing with it. If say you are experimenting with a test setup in your garage you can easily have a ceiling full of a perfect stoic mix waiting for the smallest spark so it can blow the roof off (not as cool as some rap songs make it seem :au: ) Mainly, weather you are working with gas vaporizers or electrolyzers to increase your mileage, use your head. This isn't the coolest way to end up in a 6ft hole.

 

[T-Bagg]

This isn't the coolest way to end up in a 6ft hole.

But it's still a pretty cool way to end up in a six foot hole.

 

[TangibleGhost]

yeah, it does rank on my top 10 ways to die. But think I would still rather jump out of a 747 a cruising altitude w/o a parachute. That would be a fun one.

 

[Hardwarz]

Creating the hydrogen is fine and all, but are you trying to generate enough hydrogen in the vehicle to run it? Or are you trying to generate it, compress it and then put it in to the intake?

The 2nd is more likely than the first because to generate enough hydrogen while running is going to be impossible with the amount of hydrogen gas you'd need to run a V8.

Why not run your tests with compressed hydrogen first? (As one poster suggested, use a bubbler due to backfires.) Once you have it running on compressed hydrogen, figure out the flow rate you'd need. Once you figure that out, you'll know how much you need to generate to run your engine.

Why not run really low compression and put air + hydrogen + oxygen into your intake instead of just air + hydrogen? You're generating the oxygen anyway.... plus if you generate O3 at ground level, it's called pollution. Generate O3 in the upper atomsphere and it's called Ozone.

Hardwarz

 

[TangibleGhost]

There's lots of reasons it's impossible to run a V8 on straight hydrogen in this case. First, Brute Force electrolysis (DC) finds it very hard to produce enough hydroxy gas (aka Brown's Gas, or HHO)to even run that large of an engine at idle. Secondly, you cant produce more gas on demand to accelerate. This is simply an adative to the normal operation of the engine. Kinda like nitrous, but for a different purpose. In this case you aren't using it for more power, you are using it to save fuel, cut emissions, and pretty much to say you did it. Normally the gas that's produced by the electrolyzer isn't seperated into HH and O. They stay together and stay stoic. That gas, after its put through a bubbler to clean the electrolyte out of it and keep the hood on the car in the event of a backfire, is not compressed but instead vented directly into the intake charge. If you put a pressure valve into the line to compress it you would lower your efficiency at producing the gas by essentialy raising the boiling point of the water. Of course if you put an air pump into the line the opposite would be true. A single cell though doesn't produce near enough gas to show much effect on a 350ci V8, so for that you go with 6 cells in series. The efficiency of the cell is determined by Amps, not by volts. If you run 6 cells in series you are putting 2 volts per cell but still running the same amount of amps through each. This pretty much means that 6 cells is 5-6x more efficient than a single cell. And 6 cells can produce enough volume of gas to show a significant improvement over straight gasoline. Like I said this is just an adative. And like any adative you have to tune the vehicle for it to get the most out of it (hense the O2 sensor tinkering I spoke of in a previous post). Anyway, sorry for the book but I'm bored at work and have nothing better to do....

 

[T-Bagg]

Still fascinating.

 

[downeys]

There are several kits available online to do the same thing. When you get it dialed in, I am interested inknowing performance and efficiency gains.

 

[TangibleGhost]

Most of the kits that I've seen online are little more than a masson jar and a couple butter knives. Something that small woudn't make much difference on a go cart, much less a 350ci. I'm planning to put a 6 cell single chamber version together inside of a battery box to put in the second batt location under the hood. The main problem I'm having in planning it is how to keep it full of water. The simplest way I can think of is a gravity feed from a sealed container but the second battery location is as high as you can get under the hood. There seems to also be some room under the rear of the truck that I can use (another thread about batteries in that location) wich I could put the water container inside the side paneling to keep it full. But running the gas line all the way to the front and the power/control to the back might be an issue. Anyway, I'm gonna keep playing with this is my head and post any progress I have. I should have some hands on planning when I put in the new sound system and 2nd batt. Hell, might do it all at once. who knows?