1Engineer can you comment on this technology?

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I remember these being popular about 5 years ago or so and I've always wrote them off as snake oil because friends of mine that used products similar to this noticed zero improvement. I'll admit I've never done any research on it before just speaking from second hand experience.

Also [MENTION=66316]1engineer[/MENTION]
 
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So wait, these kits use electricity the engine (ok, alternator) generates, makes hydrogen from water, burns it in the same engine, and ends up with more energy?

Uuuuh...

Conservation of energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Your engine is 20% efficient (as in energy potential of gasoline), your alternator about 50%, and the hydrogen electrolysis about 50%. So for 100% energy input, you get .2 * .5 * .5 = 0.05 return. As in 5%.
 
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I wasn't going to be the first with the Mr. Fusion comment, since 1eng would remind me that water to hydrogen electrolysis, per my grade 8 science class, is not nucular.
 
Any energy fuel production depends on economy of scale. [MENTION=63951]homeyclaus[/MENTION] is correct as usual lol. Think about it this way: We use refined gasoline in our vehicles instead of putting tar sand into a container on top of the engine and getting gasoline out. We flip a switch in our home and get electricity from a grid instead of putting a lump of coal in the furnace, heating up water to steam, driving a turbine that drives a generator that makes electricity for our lightbulb. I have been to a hydrogen production facility and they are massive and require lots of tech. Again, the only way to be efficient with this is economy of scale.
 
The only way to be efficient with this is with economy of scale-- not sure I understood.. Sorry if that sounds dumb, but I did not. Could you explain what you mean? Does the actual principle of this technology make sense?
 
chetJ said:
The only way to be efficient with this is with economy of scale-- not sure I understood.. Sorry if that sounds dumb, but I did not. Could you explain what you mean? Does the actual principle of this technology make sense?
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That your engine is not an efficient way to produce hydrogen. You will actually burn through more fuel using energy to produce the hydrogen, that what you will get back from its combustion.

Big scale production then using hydrogen to fuel your engine would be the efficient way.

And just looking at the website design, this is snake oil. Typical scam layout.
 
homeyclaus said:
i wasn't going to be the first with the mr. Fusion comment, since 1eng would remind me that water to hydrogen electrolysis, per my grade 8 science class, is not nucular.
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diverscale said:
That your engine is not an efficient way to produce hydrogen. You will actually burn through more fuel using energy to produce the hydrogen, that what you will get back from its combustion.

Big scale production then using hydrogen to fuel your engine would be the efficient way.

And just looking at the website design, this is snake oil. Typical scam layout.
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Yep. Think of it this way from Homeyclaus' post: I would be spending five bucks to make twnety five cents of fuel. Economy of scale means you have to make large amounts to make it an efficient process.
 
rebelbowtie said:
I remember these being popular about 5 years ago or so and I've always wrote them off as snake oil because friends of mine that used products similar to this noticed zero improvement. I'll admit I've never done any research on it before just speaking from second hand experience.

Also [MENTION=66316]1engineer[/MENTION]
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1engineer said:
Any energy fuel production depends on economy of scale. [MENTION=63951]homeyclaus[/MENTION] is correct as usual lol. Think about it this way: We use refined gasoline in our vehicles instead of putting tar sand into a container on top of the engine and getting gasoline out. We flip a switch in our home and get electricity from a grid instead of putting a lump of coal in the furnace, heating up water to steam, driving a turbine that drives a generator that makes electricity for our lightbulb. I have been to a hydrogen production facility and they are massive and require lots of tech. Again, the only way to be efficient with this is economy of scale.
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Something else to note about these kits, many of them have a very subpar hydrogen containment system. Keep in mind hydrogen is very VERY flammable, ever heard of exploding car batteries? Its caused by "off-gassing" in which the hydrogen out of the chemicals used in the battery are released from the battery and in an enclosed space such as a battery case or engine compartment it will make a nice boom!

I've heard a few horror stories of simple pvc pipe with glued caps used to contain the hydrogen under pressure as well as glass mayonaise jars and such. Its just asking for trouble.

As 1Engineer said, hydrogen plants require imense amount of technology to create, maintain, store, and properly handle the large quanities of hydrogen they work with. The net benefit from the hydrogen generator is also not that great as you would not be able to efficently produce a quantity that would be sufficiant for real gas mileage gains. It would also mess with the air/fuel metering system in the vehicle. Keep in mind an engine is designed for gasoline (I want to say the flame temp when burning is something like 471°-560°C? Correct me if I am wrong there...) while Hydrogen flames in our normal atmosphere can reach above something like 700°C?(again, this is just off the top of my head, I could be absolutely wrong on the temps) all the components from the injectors, spark plugs, combustion chamber design, volumetric efficiency, ect are geared towards gasoline and not hydrogen.

Point being... when someone mentions hydrogen generators for cars, I suddenly have this image of them smoldering like Wily Coyote after an ACME product blows up in his face... :flame:
 
I'm not sure this will even work with the computer monitoring fuel mixture. Might even damage some of the sensors in the loop. Same with the water mist injection systems from several years back. That kind of worked, but was done on non fuel injection non computer controlled engines.
 
flyrv9 said:
I'm not sure this will even work with the computer monitoring fuel mixture. Might even damage some of the sensors in the loop. Same with the water mist injection systems from several years back. That kind of worked, but was done on non fuel injection non computer controlled engines.
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The computers don't monitor mixture, they monitor oxygen output after the engine burns the fuel. Then the computers adjust the pulse width of the injectors to change the mixture. From the computer's perspective, it's allow more or less oxygen into the exhaust stream.

Which is where mixing in hydrogen in gets even more stupid.

  • There will be less O2 in the exhaust, which will cause the engine to lean out the mix. This will increase combustion temperatures.
  • Combustion temperature of H2 is significantly higher than hydrocarbons.
  • This will generate more Nitrogen dioxide, a major pollutant.
  • Wanna talk about what this does to the catalytic converters over time?
 
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