Hydrogen assistance

This was recently published in the Gainesville, FL paper. Is there any truth to this?

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080814/NEWS/151332105

Yes, and NO.

This has been discussed to death here. In summary:

You can easily make a device that will split water into its constituent hydrogen and and oxygen atoms. These gases can be stored or injected back into the combustion chamber of the car.

Because of basic laws of thermodynamics, it will take more energy to split the water than you will get by combusting the H2 and O2. Usually these are powered by the alternator, so you'll see a slight drop in fuel economy because you're working the engine harder.

It can be done, but it is counterproductive.

Kind of funny actually. Their "secret" system creates hydrogen by extracting it from water using an electrical current. I think that pretty much explains the "secret" right there.

I really wonder how they got the mileage gains though. I suspect they have couple of extra batteries in the van to power the hydrolysis and charge them when then get done testing they charge those. Wait until they hook those up to the cars electrical system...

aircooled wrote: I really wonder how they got the mileage gains though. I suspect they have couple of extra batteries in the van to power the hydrolysis and charge them when then get done testing they charge those. Wait until they hook those up to the cars electrical system...

It could also be like the "butt dyno." You're expecting it to improve, so you think it does improve. Like those "fuel saver" magnets - people install them, drive slowly and pay attention to their mileage, then think their MPG is better because of the magnet rather than because they've been going 65 instead of 80.

Plus, if it's anything like my wife's scooter, at 70mpg already it's not too hard for rounding error (ie, an inaccurate pump or under/overfill of tank) to make it seem like you've made a huge difference.

Salanis wrote: Yes, and NO. This has been discussed to death here. In summary: You can easily make a device that will split water into its constituent hydrogen and and oxygen atoms. These gases can be stored or injected back into the combustion chamber of the car. Because of basic laws of thermodynamics, it will take more energy to split the water than you will get by combusting the H2 and O2. Usually these are powered by the alternator, so you'll see a slight drop in fuel economy because you're working the engine harder. It can be done, but it is counterproductive.

While the systems advertised are mostly crap, the "basic thermodynamics" argument that is always used against them is flawed. The basic thermo argument only works if you are in a system that has no added power provider.

Example-I cant pump water uphill with electricity, then use the water running downhill to turn a generator to make the same or larger amount of electricity as used to pump it uphill.

On the other hand, you can use one power source to extract a fuel, which you then consume in a reaction, to produce more power than you started with. I assume the hydrogen is consumed during combustion and is therefore a fuel that adds energy to the whole process. Unfortunately I don't think its enough to be a net gain in power in the system, but the flaw is inefficiencies in all of the processes, not trying to violate the laws of thermodynamics.

If the laws of thermodynamics worked the way they are being used to discredit these systems, theres no way we could pump oil out of the ground, refine it, distribute it, then put it in our cars to power them. In fact, the way thermodynamics are being argued no energy could be extracted from anything because even lighting a match would take more energy than you can extract from fire.

The reason these hydrogen units violate the 1st and 2nd laws is that they use energy from the car's engine to produce a reaction (separating water into H2 and O2) and then reverse the exact same reaction to get energy back for the car's engine. In a perfect world you can get no more energy out than you put in (that's the 1st law). In an imperfect world (like the one we live in) you get less (that's the 2nd law). Thus you're consuming X units of energy from the alternator to separate H2 from water. Oxidizing the H2 produces <X energy.

The key is that the oxidation of H2 is the exact reverse of the separation. You can't run the exact same reaction forwards and backwards and come up with more energy. In other words, you can't go from X to X plus energy.

The reason this doesn't apply in the case of refining oil or lighting a match is that you start with matter in one form and end up with matter in a different form. You're not just running the same reaction forwards and backwards. You start with X and end up with Y + energy.

Of course the placebo effect is very strong.

Gotcha. I stand corrected. My incorrect assumption was that the reaction in the combustion chamber was different and similar to other fuel sources, not just reversing the original reaction.

Yep. It goes like this: Separation: 2H2O -> 2H2 + O2.
Oxidation (Combustion): 2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O

Some of the snake oil guys will claim that the boost in MPG doesn't come from combusting the H2, but rather from making the gasoline combustion "work better." I've never seen any of them explain how in any more detail than the first sentence of this paragraph. I can't think of a way that it would improve combustion in a properly running engine. That said, I'm not a chemist or a mechanical engineer.

Local experiments had a home solar setup produce enough hydrogen to power his car about 190 miles one one trip. Took about 2 weeks of production and the pressurized storage on the car was a bit bulky.

This was neither easy or simple to do!! Hydrogen production was not on-board and it needed gasoline on several occasions.

Snake oil like claims are everywhere...but there is fire behind this smoke!

Bruce

For hydrogen fuel to really work out you need nuclear power to get the cracking done cost effectively. It will take a lot of electrical power.

Technically,like oil you are cracking out the fuel from water. Unlike oil your combustion residual is water.

My opinion on this is and has been to have a home based hydrogen generator running off of your house 120V, store it and then use that in your car. it could have potential, just not enough to make it worth while

Some people who are trying this are resorting to using chemicals, Baking soda and vinegar which produces its own gas.

How do these home brew guys pressurize their homebrewed Hydrogen into their tanks?

Ignoring that, how could it possibly be any cheaper than going down the the local welding supply store and picking up a bottle?

iceracer wrote: Some people who are trying this are resorting to using chemicals, Baking soda and vinegar which produces its own gas.

??? I thought that made CO2, not hydrogen. CO2 would not help; anything inert enough to work as a shielding gas for MIG welding makes a lousy fuel.

Varkwso wrote: For hydrogen fuel to really work out you need nuclear power to get the cracking done cost effectively. It will take a lot of electrical power.

I agree, although wind generated electricity is also a reasonable technical approach, because you don't really care about the variability. You just make more when it's windy and less when it isn't. Assuming you've got sufficient storage capacity, the market never knows the difference.

Although nuclear power is cheaper (probably around 1/3 the cost per kWh), the startup costs and regulatory hurdles are huge. Wind power would reduce the initial investment and let the infrastructure fund its own expansion.

I don't have the raw data to estimate whether it's financially viable. My guess is that neither approach is cost-competitive with cracking the H2 off of natural gas. Of course that doesn't solve the greenhouse gas problem (depending on whether you believe that's a problem or not).

JoeyM wrote:

iceracer wrote: Some people who are trying this are resorting to using chemicals, Baking soda and vinegar which produces its own gas.

??? I thought that made CO2, not hydrogen. CO2 would not help; anything inert enough to work as a shielding gas for MIG welding makes a lousy fuel.

Small point: CO2 is considered a reactive gas in MIG welding.(They call it GMAW now because of this.) Argon is inert.

I HAVE THE ANSWER!!!!

I'm sending a request to mythbusters to take this one on

editit has been aperantly posted to death,

neon4891 wrote: I HAVE THE ANSWER!!!! I'm sending a request to mythbusters to take this one on *edit*it has been aperantly posted to death,

You're a genious! I'll be watching!

I think everybody is forgetting something when they all talk about splitting the Hydrogen, and then storing it, blah blah blah. The key is that all of our processes use electricity. Produce electricity to do this, strip off excess electricity to do that, etc.

OK, so, let's just use all that excess electricity to power the car. Why even bother with Hydrogen to boost economy? Well, we can do this. Two words: Toyota Prius.

Maybe they aren't mixing the vinegar & baking soda.I don't really know. I have a friend who is experimenting with a homemade system. Claims some gains.

jamscal wrote: How do these home brew guys pressurize their homebrewed Hydrogen into their tanks? Ignoring that, how could it possibly be any cheaper than going down the the local welding supply store and picking up a bottle?

Very grassroots method...has 2 concrete septic tanks upside down in a Wally world swimming pool. Bubbles fill the tank and gas gathers at the top. Tank actually floats until gas is tapped for high compression. This yields about 40 pounds of pressure and is further compressed with a 2 stage pump of unknown origin. I get a bit lost on the details as some of these kids just blow me away with their explainations. I usually get to help with finding stuff and keep them from reinventing the wheel on a lot of small things.

Bruce

neon4891 wrote: I HAVE THE ANSWER!!!! I'm sending a request to mythbusters to take this one on

I hope that was sarcastic. Mythbusters tested this and found a net decrease in fuel efficiency.

confuZion3 wrote: ... let's just use all that excess electricity to power the car. Why even bother with Hydrogen to boost economy? Well, we can do this. Two words: Toyota Prius.

Because battery technology to power a car that can put down 1000 miles in a day isn't there yet, and we've got a bazillion cars with internal combustion engines that can relatively easily be converted to H2, among other reasons.

Or we could pour money into developing efficient artificial photosynthetic systems, or efficient fermentation/processing of waste vegetable matter that contains carbohydrates that aren't being used for anything.

billy3esq, you sound like an engineer dude :) In fact all of your sentiments I agree with spot on, I swore I had written your responses on this thread, Cheers!