Hydrogen on Demand-the pitfalls
70Water as Fuel?
The HOD supplemental fuel system is a viable proposition, and relatively easy to achieve. Some persist with the argument that you can't get more out than you put in, as far as energy goes. They insist that the added load on an alternator to supply the power for electrolysis will outweigh the benefits of adding HHO gas to the combustion chamber. Many have proved this incorrect, by building simple DIY devices and achieving sizeable gains in fuel economy and performance.
There are also many who have not achieved the desired result. There are many factors that can affect the outcome. One major hurdle most amateur experimenters will encounter is the dreaded O2 sensor, part of a modern vehicles' anti-pollution control. This device maintains an air/fuel ratio of 14.7-1. Adding HHO gas increases the oxygen supply to the combustion chamber, and as a consequence the vehicles' computer will react by allowing more fuel through, thus decreasing economy! There is a quite simple fix to this problem, but if you are not mechanically minded, it may be a job for your mechanic or auto electrician.
The Water4Gas manual contains over 300 pages of useful information, as well as detailed instructions for anyone inclined to DIY. It also covers most of the common problems experimenters have been encountering, and provides a useful forum for user feedback. I don't feel that the design presented here is the best as far as gas production goes, but it is a good starting point for anybody wishing to explore the technology further.
With the price of gas continuing to escalate, what have you got to lose, apart from a few late nights tinkering in the back shed!
DIY hydrogen generator producing gas
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The simple fatc is that you can not get more energy out of a system than you put into it. In this case, you are using electricty generated by the car's alternator to electrolyse water - split it into its constituents of hydrogen and oxygen. The alternator takes energy from the engine: putting an extra load on it will increase the fuel consumption. Worse than that, the alternator is far from 100% efficient - in producign more electricity to drive the electolysis it will also waste yet more engine power as heat. Then, not all the electricity you put into the water will be used to electrolyse the water: some of that will be turned into heat as well.
OK, so now we have some hydrogen and oxygen. You can extratc energy from them by burning the hydrogen, either with the oxygen generated at the same time or by injecting it into the inlet manifold of a petrol engine, venting the "waste" oxygen to the atmosphere. You could inject both of them into the inlet manifold but in large enough quantities to make a difference this would be very dangerous as the slightest blowback would cause an explosion.
The energy carried by the hydrogen - that we're injecting into the engine inlet - is a result of the electricity splitting the water - H2O into Nydrogen and oxygen:
2.H2O => 2.H2 + O2
To do this, it increase the energy of the electrons that bind the hydrogen to the oxygen. Afterwards, when the hydrogen burns, precisely the same amount of energy is released.
To sum up:
* Only a part of the fuel used to power the electrolysis is actually used for that - some is wasted in friction, as heat, etc.
* Only the remaining part provides energy stored in the hydrogen.
* Only that remaining part is released when the hydrogen is burnt.
So the whole process is less than 100% efficient and therefore must increase the fuel consumption of the vehicle. There's no wiggle room here: if anyone thinks they have improved their vehicle's consumption using this method then they have made a mistake. They can't and didn't. If what they say *were* to be true, then we would have a perpetual motion machine and we all know how realistic they are :)
Now if we're talking water injection, that's a different matter. Some engines do benefit from this but as a DIY affair it's very hit and miss.
Great explainin aussiegold, I have been trying to convince people to just try this simple technology before they say it does'nt work. Guys like the last comment do not understand just how simple it works as a SUPPLEMENT.
P.S check outmy hubs, I am not as good with words as you, but I think I get the point across. hho2u
Actually, there is something else going on besides electrolysis, which most people do not realize: When electrolysis occurs, there is heat generated. When this happens, it causes some of the water to vaporize, which is also taken into the engine along with the Hydrogen and oxygen mix. Water, when it is heated has enormous expansion capabilities, and THIS is really what gives more work than merely the hydrolysis. If you had merely hydrolysis, and no evaporation of water, the efficiencies would be much lower.
Basically, you are scrubbing off some of the heat in the engine from burning the hydrocarbon to expand the water vapor into high-pressure steam (along with combusting the Hydrogen and Oxygen that is formed by hydrolysis), and the combination of the two increases the fuel economy. It is debatable whether it increases it the amount claimed, but it should increase it some. If you had a way to inject water into the cylinders, it would do the same thing.
There is no HHO formed, it is merely elemental hydrogen, and elemental oxygen. In addition, due to the sparge effect of the bubbling of the gasses, and the heating during hydrolysis, water vapor goes into the engine as well. That is the reason for the effect and increased efficiencies. It should also give a bit more power.
WeClick2Travel says:
2 years ago
This is a good explanation of the technology as claimed. Thank you for your hub. However, I'm interested in someone who says it won't work explaining why. I'm trying to figure out what is the fault in the science.