Thread: hydrogen fuel

IT WORKS brilliantly in a diesel and to a lesser effect in petrol

All fuels are hydrocarbons, hydrogen is just the purest form of normal fuel.
If used like Dgas or diesel fumigation it’s brilliant. But since LPG has a few other atoms stuck to the H it makes the H denser ( taking up less space) as a result you will be using a lot more H and LPG ( given similar storage) ( as it is with every other hydrocarbon)

There are 2 ways to make H
Electrolysis, commonly called Browns Gas ( which its not) sucks a lot of electricity to produce little. it is out of the range of usefulness in a normal car. to run similar to my LPG fumigation in a 3.9 110 i would need to produce about 400 watts.
Browns Gas uses a different electrolyte this brings electricity consumption down to about 240 watts, still a bit to much. besides it implodes and not explodes, IE when it burns it gets smaller, the resulting heat then has to turn the water into steam etc, thus lowering its efficacy in a mechanical motor.

chemically produced hydrogen, easy to do but hard to control.

There is the south African developed generator that uses aluminum wire being fed against a cathode at 12V 110 Amps in a bath of water, this seems to work and is compact. But I notice the Guys who were using this equipment have reverted to bottles for there balloons, don’t know why.

Snake oil? it is not. Usable it is not.

But it’s a hell of a lot of fun playing around with the stuff.

All the plans on the internet are rubbish, just some ones way of making money out of you

Originally Posted by rod baker

having read all this with great interest with water injection would the combustion process itself provide enough heat and force to cause humble old h20 to break down into its component form in doing so cooling the charge

NO

Originally Posted by rod baker

and adding a fuel and an accelerant to the mix IE hydrogen and oxygen and would adding alcohol would alter the air fuel mixture of the process to make it fully beneficial.

Alcohol is added to stop the water from freezing in the tanks of aircraft. water or methanol injection is of great benifit in a turbine with a comprestion ratio of about 38:1

Originally Posted by rod baker

dam my head hurts now
rod

Originally Posted by 85 county

There are 2 ways to make H
Electrolysis, commonly called Browns Gas

chemically produced hydrogen, easy to do but hard to control.

There is the south African developed generator that uses aluminum wire being fed against a cathode at 12V 110 Amps in a bath of water, this seems to work and is compact. But I notice the Guys who were using this equipment have reverted to bottles for there balloons, don’t know why.

Of course there is the way that Hydrogen was first generated when it was identified in the late 1700s.

Heat a ferrous pipe over hot fire until it is red hot with one end higher than the other - leave the higher end open and connect a small pipe to the other end. Slowly pour in water at the through the open end and if done at the right rate - hydrogen comes out the small pipe. It works by the iron in the hot metal rusting using up the oxygen in the water - the hydrogen that is left comes out the other end.

This is how Henry Cavandish did it when he discovered hydrogen.

Garry

Originally Posted by garrycol

Of course there is the way that Hydrogen was first generated when it was identified in the late 1700s.

Heat a ferrous pipe over hot fire until it is red hot with one end higher than the other - leave the higher end open and connect a small pipe to the other end. Slowly pour in water at the through the open end and if done at the right rate - hydrogen comes out the small pipe. It works by the iron in the hot metal rusting using up the oxygen in the water - the hydrogen that is left comes out the other end.

This is how Henry Cavandish did it when he discovered hydrogen.

Garry

correct BUT, the ferrous oxide created is in powder form and get carried out with the steam witch is also produced. separating the hydrogen from the ferrous oxide and water vapor is the trick.

aluminum just returns to is natural state holding the oxygen atoms that way

I knew a guy who ran his car on only 20% peterol, rest Hydrogen for three months. He removed his unit after a backfire realising he could blow up the whole town where he lived if it hackfired into his Hydrogen tank. Internal combustion motors that run on Hydrogen have been made.

Originally Posted by 85 county

correct BUT, the ferrous oxide created is in powder form and get carried out with the steam witch is also produced. separating the hydrogen from the ferrous oxide and water vapor is the trick.

aluminum just returns to is natural state holding the oxygen atoms that way

Cavandish just bubbled the gas through water which takes up the water vapour and steam and any other crude - the hydrogen is already free from the other components and just bubbles out of the cooling water.

I am not saying this is a good way to make hydrogen but it another way in addition the two you mentioned.

Garry

Hydrogen is fairly easy to make using a variety of methods, and in many respects is an ideal fuel for an internal combustion engine - the problem using it for a vehicle fuel is that it is very difficult to store and handle, and the amount of energy required to produce it is roughly four times the amount of mechanical energy you get from burning it in a typical internal combustion engine, even ignoring the efficiency of the method used for producing it.

John

I think it was posted once before but it's all in the maths.

How much power does it take to produce 1 ltr of H2, the "short" answer would be 286 kj.

Meaning 1 ltr of pure hydrogen would take 333 minutes or 5.56 hours and require 5.56 watthours of energy.

To just equal the power output of just 1ltr of standard ULP it would take 297.97l of hydrogen.

If you were then to work that out to a 15% ratio over 1 Disco tank of 80ltrs your talking about 3576ltrs of hydrogen meaning that at that rate it would take 2.28 years to fill the H2 tank for 1 fill of the petrol tank, meaning by my laymans calculations would need 1.022736Mj of energy.

Some how I don't think the standard alternator will do the job, it may need an upgrade

It's nothing to do with personal feelings, opinions or attitudes why the home made, run off the engine systems referred too don't work, it is the physical science and maths which make it impractical.

If you want some link to verify my calculations, I found this on a Google search, came up first link when I punched in "How much power does it take to make 1 litre of Hydrogen gas".

How much electric power you need to produce 1 litre of hydrogen from water? - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers

My answer is not just based on that, it's also based on my Mechanical experience (22 years qualified motor mechanic) and my electronics background (just a couple of certs and a Diploma, nothing much).

If anyone smarter than me checks my numbers and I'm wrong please point it out as I'm not a mathematician or an engineer.

Cheers Casper.