Ba ha ha ha ha!
Christopher, everything you’re saying is correct, but Hydrogen Fuel Injection has two things going for it that you haven’t addressed:
(1) Splitting the water uses electricity from the alternator that would otherwise be turned into waste heat. This assumes your alternator isn’t already running at capacity, which is generally true.
(2) Adding hydrogen to the fuel+air mixture in the cylinder may bring the temperature up, or change the shape of the combustion-over-time curve to deliver more of the reaction’s total energy to the piston while reducing the fuel-air ratio required to create a normal amount of horsepower.
So HFI claims to get its electricity as a byproduct of work that’s already being done (not quite the same as “for free”) and uses the hydrogen to accomplish work that is not equivalent to recombining it with oxygen to make water. Does that result in a real increase in fuel economy? I’m still not convinced, but the Wikipedia page has enough evidence that I am not willing to dismiss it out of hand yet.
This is not true. The alternator requires energy input that is a direct function of electricity demand. Another way of saying this is that the generator is harder to turn when there is a bigger load. If you add splitting the water to the alternator load, you WILL use more gasoline.
:smack:
You’re right of course. I was forgetting the “friction” that comes from adding an electrical load.
Sorry, but it is absolutely NOT nonsense. The company I’m helping build right now is doing exactly this. We make a generator that produces .5L of Brown’s Gas (HHO) per minute verified with a single generator. The system is capped at 30 amps, but the generator usually pulls around 15-20 amps under normal usage with the correct Ph electrolytic solution. We have another design which is undergoing testing for a larger unit to increase fuel economy in large semi trucks–we’re trying for up to 40L/min with those units. As long as the HHO:fuel mixture remains 80:20 or less the risk of hydrogen embrittlement to the engine and oxidization of the engine is minimal, and our current unit is only producing about 5-10% of the total fuel usage of a normal passenger vehicle.
The hydrogen is combustible in and of itself, and the oxygen produces a more thorough burn of the fuel in the cylinders. Fuel economy increases (we have one vehicle that’s turning out a consistent 40% improvement in mileage over the EPA combined estimate, and normal improvement runs 20-30% in most vehicles,) horsepower goes up and emissions are cleaned up considerably. It’s mostly a way to supplement existing fuel usage and also to make the fuel you use more efficient–a sizable percentage of the gas you buy goes out the tailpipe as emissions. A serendipitous side effect we’ve noticed is that diesel engines also experience a distinct reduction in carbon particulates in the oil–that dipstick stays clean a lot longer than on diesel alone.
There are a lot of people trying to bring this technology to market, but we’re concentrating on durability, reliability, redundant systems to prevent solution dump into the engine and eco-friendly electrolytic solution. We want ours hands-free, trouble free and as invisible as possible.
Best results are achieved on 1996-newer OBD-II vehicles due to the better fuel mixture control by the ECM. OBD-II vehicles benefit as well, but they poll less often so the results aren’t always as dramatic. We’re also working on a unit specifically for carbureted vehicles which introduces the HHO directly into the combustion chamber via the vacuum advance system.
So, to the OP–true, there’s no such thing as a “water powered car.” There absolutely are systems available that use water to supplement your fossil fuel powered engine, however, and they work very nicely. It might be possible to get there in future using all on-demand systems but it’s going to depend on what we can do to prevent hydrogen embrittlement, which is a big issue. There are some manufacturers of synthetic motor oils that are experimenting with lubricants to protect existing engines from the consequences of too-high hydrogen enrichment but it’s a while out.
Personally, I think the completely hydrogen powered cars are crazy as they’re being tested now, due to the fuel cells. Hydrogen under pressure in a tiny car on a freeway with big rigs strikes me as a very bad idea–YMMV!
Sorry, but your wrong. It is nonsense.
“Brown’s gas” is the scam artists wording for a simple 2 to 1 molar mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. 0.5 L of “Brown’s gas” is the equivalent of 1/3 a liter of hydrogen. Since the energy of hydrogen by volume is roughly 6% that of gasoline (cite for Hydrogen, cite for gasoline, notice that assumes you are compressing your hydrogen to 200 atmospheres so you had better have one hell of a compressor on the system to even produce that energy.) you have successfully produced the equivalent of about 20 milliliters of gasoline in 1 minute. I’d love to see the load requirements of your “Brown’s gas” generator, then I could tell you exactly how much energy you were generating.
But since, as you say, you have produced this “Browns gas” by electrolysis, you have actually produced a perfect molar equivalent of oxygen to combust all of that hydrogen and none of the gas or some of the gas and less of the hydrogen. You certainly have not provided any extra oxygen as you claim. Worse yet, since you are attaching this to an existing system, you are either replacing the fuel or the air with this system resulting in actually depleting the combustible system that was already available.
Show me a cite that isn’t run by these shills. Nobody that has a tiny understanding of the hydrogen economy would buy this crud.
Guy, I’ll be building several of these units tomorrow myself, having done the ordering and prep work for our next production run last week. It does work, it doesn’t require compression, it’s an on-demand system. We have over fifty cars running these prototypes in a test environment right now and I’m compiling test data. We have taken a new pickup on a 1200 mile test run from Portland to California and back, 3/4 of the time on the generator and the remaining 1/4 (a leg from north of Sacramento to Medford) without the generator and had a consistent result of 28% increase in mileage during the legs with the generator running. At this point, you insisting that it doesn’t work bears a remarkable similarity to someone insisting bumblebees cannot fly. But hey, dont let empirical evidence sway you in any way.
The only evidence you have provided so far is that you say it works. It doesn’t take too much intelligence to figure out why this “research” is being published through an internet campaign rather than through standard scientific routes.
Ha! As soon as I read “Brown’s gas”, I knew exactly what we were dealing with here.
“someone insisting bumblebees cannot fly”
FYI it is a complete myth that anyone ever said that bumblebees are not able to fly.
(I’m building a new unicorn next weekend - I expect it will get 100 mpg)
Any improvements in gas mileage can be traced to the fact that you’re directly adding steam (which is the end result, along with NOx, of burning hydrogen) into the engine. Water injection is an old technique to improve the performance of an engine. It tends, however, to shorten the life of the engine rather dramatically.
Exactly right, Tuckerfan.
(I believe that you know more than a little bit about cars, yes?)
It’s fairly common for people to believe that water injection has something to do with hydrogen power - ie, they think the water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burned in the engine. This is, of course, completely wrong.
You sound like these guys:
Orbo is based upon the principle of time variant magneto-mechanical interactions. The core output from our Orbo technology is mechanical. This mechanical energy can be converted into electrical energy using standard generator technology either by integrating such technology directly with Orbo or by connecting the mechanical output from Orbo to the generation technology. The efficiency of such mechanical/electrical conversions is highly dependent on the components used and is also a function of size.
Orbo technology is subject to continuous development. This development is focused on improving the manufacturability of the technology, production costs and power density. Orbo was initially developed as using stop-start mechanisms (with a power density of 0.5 Watts per cm3), Steorn is currently finalizing the development of constant motion systems and a significant improvement in power density is anticipated.
SmartAleq, some advice.
Firstly, lose the name “Brown’s Gas” and dissociate yourself from anything to do with it. Brown’s gas has too many dubious claims associated with it, including the production of stable monoatomic hydrogen and over-unity energy production. Despite seeming to offer a relatively simple route to two Nobel prizes, peer-reviewed research in the area is scant.
Secondly, don’t compare your results with an “EPA combined estimate”, compare them with the fuel consumption under the same conditions, before your device was fitted.
Thirdly, check your results, and recheck! Get a technically competent skeptic to critique your testing and poke holes, and fix them, shore them up! I’ll give you a start:
Your generator is capped at 30A. That’s 30 coulombs of electricity per second, or 1800 coulombs per minute.
There’s 96,485 coulombs per mole of electrons. So you have 0.0187 moles of electrons flow through your generator per minute at 30A.
From 2H[sup]+[/sup] + 2e ------> H[sub]2[/sub], you get one mole of hydrogen gas for every two moles of electrons. That’s 0.00935 moles of hydrogen per minute.
A mole of any gas at 1 bar and room temperature occupies 24 litres volume, near enough. That’s 0.22 litres of hydrogen at best, running at 30 amps, and a corresponding 0.11 litre of oxygen. That’s the maximum possible, at 100% efficiency. So your half litre/minute at 15-20A is either Nobel prize material, or your measurements are off. How hot does your electrolyte get? Are you measuring by filling a known volume, or using a flow meter?
I’m not entirely skeptical about hydrogen injection, as it happens. In a current gasoline engine, combustion takes place over 25-30 degrees of crank angle travel, so slow we fire the spark before TDC to give it time to get going. If hydrogen injection made for better flame dynamics, it would certainly increase efficiency. Or maybe the oxygen is the magic ingredient! But the figures you’ve given us don’t inspire confidence in your measurements.
I think we need to change the quote “Never bullshit a bullshitter” to “Never try to scam a doper.”
You guys make my head hurt. But SmartAleq’s hurts more I’m think’n.
1/2L of HHO is 1/3L of hydrogen, Since you later say it’s uncompressed, that means we’re talking about 0.015 grams of H per minute. That means your system is producing 0.88g of hydrogen per hour. At highway speeds, my car uses over 2 gallons of gas in an hour, which is roughly 5kg. Granted hydrogen holds more energy by mass (by a factor of three or so), but your unit is producing nowhere near “5-10% of the total fuel usage of a normal passenger vehicle.”
In a broad sense, I’m certainly willing to believe that injecting hydrogen will alter the combustion characteristics of the engine, and even increase efficiency somewhat. However, 40% is a substantial increase, and I’m pretty skeptical about anything near that good.
And here’s where you lose me. No, “a sizeable percentage of the gas you buy” does not go “out the tailpipe as emissions,” unless you mean “after it’s burned.” Relying on this as an explanation doesn’t, shall we say, decrease my skepticism.
I’ve yet to see actual empirical evidence. Some (correct) theoretical explanation of why this works would be nice, too.
I’m not so sure about that. I believe (and I’m willing to be wrong here) that the biggest impact from water injection is the cooling from changing water to steam. Since the water from 2H + O combustion is already gaseous, seems like it would have little effect.
Scamming a doper on the actual Dope boards is a tall order, I agree! But I doubt SmartAleq is trying to scam anyone. The history of IC engines is littered with the corpses of attempts to improve it, often by very sincere, hardworking inventors and entrepreneurs. Some of their ideas even make a lot of sense.
Take crowther’s “six stroke”, linked to by UncleFred upthread. There’s a neat idea! Kick out your cooling system and have a “steam stroke” after the exhaust stroke, using the heat that would otherwise be lost to the cylinder walls. A beautiful idea. The problem is, heat transfer from the walls to the water droplets is far too slow to make much steam in the time it takes for an IC piston to cycle. They’d be like droplets on a hot skillet. I’m not sure if his “steam stroke” actually extracts net work from the steam, or if more work has to be done against a partial vacuum formed in the cylinder. I’m betting on the latter.
If you like funky engines, there’s these two. Both make a lot of sense, even the last one, and both can be built without any radical new engine technology. Will they overcome their practical difficulties? Only time will tell.
http://www.scuderigroup.com/technology/animations/split_sideview.html
http://www.new4stroke.com/
I can’t see any real reason why the addition of a trace of hydrogen and oxygen to the intake of an IC engine will boost efficiency and power. But if it does, I want someone to DEMONSTRATE IT properly, and then we’ll let the flame physicists work out why afterwards! So I will root for SmartAleq, but I won’t hold my breath.
I suppose it is possible that addition of an external source of hydrogen and oxygen to an IC engine would boost efficiency. The problem I have is when the IC engine itself is expected to run a generator, which then produces the hydrogen, which is then fed back into the engine to increase efficiency of that very same IC engine… I just have difficulty seeing how that is going to work.
I agree. I think he is just some engineer that didn’t pay enough attention in physical chemistry to realize how bad an idea this is. In fact, I think most engineers don’t take physical chemistry.
Not without violating the first law of thermodynamics it isn’t. Since the oxygen/hydrogen is generated in a stoichiometric quantity, there is no extra oxygen or extra hydrogen. Every bit that is there, took more energy to generate than you can get out of it by burning it.
Worse yet, since you are dealing with a system that is supposed to hook up to existing fuel systems, you are relying on the volume energy density of the mixture. Without a massive compressor this energy density is extremely low, yet you are either replacing the air or the fuel with it. If I had to guess, any positive measurments of gas mileage they get result from the fact that their system messes with the sensors on the car.
If you actually measured miles per gallon under controlled conditions on this system, the cars with this system would come out with lower fuel efficiency. But people that sell these systems never let independent testers evaluate them. That is why there are zero patents for them. All they can do is market them to the stupid on the internet. That is why the only place you hear about them is on the internet.
Yes, totally agree. A combustion engine that drives a generator that produces hydrogen that is then fed back into that same combustion engine makes absolutely no sense. Useful energy is lost at every step of the way.
If true (mine doesn’t seem so cheap), it would be expected to remain true up to but not much beyond the point where large number of people began conducting large-scale electrolysis from their wall sockets.