I mean...seriously?

[Inodoro Pereyra]

So, I was looking at cars on Craigslist, and then I saw this:



I mean...do people still believe in this kind of BS?

[Savin]

I wouldn't trust that kit, but I would make my own. It does work, but it would take a huge amount of effort to get up to 50% gains. There's a guy over on the saturn ion redline forums that's getting around 50mpg with his hydroxy gas setup. Its a cool little system to rig up once enough research is done. I plan to make hydroxy systems for my cavalier and sunfire once I have time and done more research.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Sorry Savin, but that guy on the Saturn forum is either a liar, or his measuring method is seriously flawed.
Onboard electrolysis systems are a scientific impossibility. They don't work. They CAN'T work. The only way he'd get 50 mpg in a car with that system is if he started with a car that gave him more than 50 mpg without it.

If you want to do research about it, start with the 4 laws of thermodynamics (especially the 1st and 2nd one), and then you can do research on the efficiency of electrolysis systems, and finally, the energy density of hydrogen, compared to gasoline. That'll give you plenty of data as to why those systems can't work.

They're a scam, pure and simple. They've been busted years ago on national TV (on Mythbusters), and the scientific reasons as to why they can't work have been known for more than a century.

Bottom line, before wasting your time (and money) on that crap, ask a physicist, ask a chemist, ask an engineer. They will all tell you exactly the same.

[Savin]

They've been busted years ago on national TV (on Mythbusters)

They tried running the car solely on hydroxy. And it was a baby machine they used, not to mention, they ONLY used water. They didn't use a catalyst (electrolyte like KOH or baking soda) in the water to make the reaction stronger. Hydroxy systems are designed to be assist systems, not pure replacements for gas.

I've seen these generators at work. My brother even made a TINY one that produced more than the one on mythbusters, and his was just made out of some washers, a bolt, and a few nylon spacers.

http://www.redlineforums.com/forums/gen ... n-ion.html <-- this guy seems to know his stuff. Read if you'd like.
here are some other good ones from when I was looking up the mythbusters hydroxy generator (since its been quite some time since I've seen that episode and wanted to reply accurately) I haven't fully read through them yet, as I've just found them.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.p ... -3286.html
http://www.fordmods.com/boost-mileage-w ... 59449.html

I completely respect your view Inodoro, but I'm one of those believers in this system. If I can build a hydroxy system for less than $100 (which is definitely plausible) then its worth the gamble to me. If it works, then score one point for me. And if not, then I'm only out a little money and some time. BUT I would have a nice little experience and gained knowledge to go with it. THAT is worth the investment.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Well, if you want to do it just because you like to experiment, the more power to you. Personally, I think experimenting on something when I already know the outcome is like watching a movie when I know how it's gonna end. Anyways, just be careful. Remember with HHO you're storing the hydrogen and oxygen together. All you need is a spark, and you have an explosion.

I used to be a member of the Mythbusters forum, a few years ago, under a different username (two actually, as I got banned for having an encrypted conversation with another member, and signed up under a different username), and, believe me, I've read about every argument there is in favor of those systems. Neither of them can survive the laws of thermodynamics.

I just read your first link. I would like to publicly CHALLENGE that guy to demonstrate the veracity of his claims. I can tell you, without a doubt, he's full of sh!t.

No matter what scenario you want to use, there are a couple of things that don't change:

1. The electrolysis of water (with whatever catalyst you want to use) takes roughly 3 times the energy the combustion of the resulting gases can provide.

2. Unless you modify your engine to inject the hydrogen (at high pressure, which, by the way, the HHO generator can't develop) directly into the cylinder, the HHO will cause less fuel, or less air (or less of both, if you want to keep your ratios right) to enter the cylinder. The energy density of hydrogen is, IIRC, about 0.03% that of gasoline.

But, most importantly, there's ONE thing that can never change: "Energy can not be created".
That means, in this case, that, if you take energy from the engine (in the form of electricity) to power the HHO generator, there's no way in hell that generator can produce more energy than it consumes, which means there's no way you can increase your gas mileage, with any device that's powered up, directly or indirectly, by the engine.

[Savin]

But, most importantly, there's ONE thing that can never change: "Energy can not be created".
That means, in this case, that, if you take energy from the engine (in the form of electricity) to power the HHO generator, there's no way in hell that generator can produce more energy than it consumes, which means there's no way you can increase your gas mileage, with any device that's powered up, directly or indirectly, by the engine.

Just curious, but what if you have an abundance of amperage to power the generator with a high amp alt? The stock output of the 2.2L LN2 J-Body is 105 amp, which is already decent enough, but the alternator from the LT1 powered Vortec trucks bolts right in its place, and that puts out 145amp I believe. If I could use that extra amperage to power the generator, it would theoretically put use to the newly acquired extra increase that would have been put to waste, correct? (sorry if wording is confusing)

An increase in amperage like that to power the generator should be more than enough to offset the powerloss from spinning the alternator, no? Its not increasing efficiently of producing the energy, but its a larger source a power output to draw energy from to produce a different form of energy?

[Dragon1212]

But, most importantly, there's ONE thing that can never change: "Energy can not be created".
That means, in this case, that, if you take energy from the engine (in the form of electricity) to power the HHO generator, there's no way in hell that generator can produce more energy than it consumes, which means there's no way you can increase your gas mileage, with any device that's powered up, directly or indirectly, by the engine.

Just curious, but what if you have an abundance of amperage to power the generator with a high amp alt? The stock output of the 2.2L LN2 J-Body is 105 amp, which is already decent enough, but the alternator from the LT1 powered Vortec trucks bolts right in its place, and that puts out 145amp I believe. If I could use that extra amperage to power the generator, it would theoretically put use to the newly acquired extra increase that would have been put to waste, correct? (sorry if wording is confusing)

An increase in amperage like that to power the generator should be more than enough to offset the powerloss from spinning the alternator, no? Its not increasing efficiently of producing the energy, but its a larger source a power output to draw energy from to produce a different form of energy?

Essentially your say I could just put a alternator of the Correct amperage in an get the same gain because of less resistance of a smaller alternator?

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Just curious, but what if you have an abundance of amperage to power the generator with a high amp alt? The stock output of the 2.2L LN2 J-Body is 105 amp, which is already decent enough, but the alternator from the LT1 powered Vortec trucks bolts right in its place, and that puts out 145amp I believe. If I could use that extra amperage to power the generator, it would theoretically put use to the newly acquired extra increase that would have been put to waste, correct? (sorry if wording is confusing)

An increase in amperage like that to power the generator should be more than enough to offset the powerloss from spinning the alternator, no? Its not increasing efficiently of producing the energy, but its a larger source a power output to draw energy from to produce a different form of energy?

It doesn't work like that.

First, voltage regulators today are very efficient circuits, that only demand from the alternator a current just a little higher than the system's consumption. There's no "abundance of amperage" anymore.

Second, the load the alternator puts on the engine is directly proportional to the load put on it. That means that, if you don't consider the fact that a 145 A alternator will be a little harder to turn, even with no load, than a 55 A unit (because the rotor is heavier), either one will consume twice the power (and twice the gas) if their loads are doubled.

So, to make it short, there's no extra energy to take advantage of. Car manufacturers today (and for the last 20-30 years, at least) make a huge effort to decrease fuel consumption as much as possible. Those old voltage regulators, that were nothing more than space heaters in a box, are a thing of a long forgotten past.

[Ryan]

Inodoro, you're forgetting the HHO source. Water contains energy, the system is not "creating energy"


Also remember the rule of thumb, each mole of matter has 25 times the volume in its gaseous form... ie, you can get a LOT of gas out of a few litres of water. Not the same energy content as any organic, but water is free.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Water contains potential energy, but to liberate that potential energy takes far more energy than the water would deliver. From a chemical standpoint, water is hydrogen ash (or oxidized hydrogen, whatever you want to call it). Splitting the water to reuse the hydrogen makes no more sense than reducing ash to reuse the coal.

But let's put some numbers to it:

It takes 142 MJ (theoretically), to split 1 liter of water. In reality, the best electrolysis reactors need about 270 MJ per liter. But let's go with the 142 MJ/L.

One liter of water would produce 25 L of HHO gas, of which roughly 2/3 are hydrogen. That leaves us with about 17 L of hydrogen gas.

Hydrogen gas has an energy density of 0.01079 MJ/L. That means, our 17 L of H2 would provide a total energy of 0.18 MJ, or 0.126% of the energy needed to split the water. And that's assuming a 100% efficiency on the electrolysis process.

But now, let's look at how much water you'd need to make the usual claims true. Let's suppose you have an car that makes 30 mpg highway, at 60 mph, and you want to get 50 mpg.

At 30 mpg, you're burning 2 gallons an hour. To get to 50 mpg, you'd need to burn 1.2 gallons an hour (of gas). That means you need to substitute the energy of 0.8 gallons of gas per hour.

As I said before, hydrogen gas has an energy density of 0.01079 MJ/L, or 0.04084015 MJ/Gal.
Gasoline has an energy density of 34.2 MJ/L, or 129.447 MJ/Gal.

You need to replace the energy of 0.8 Gal of gas per hour, so you will need 103.5576 MJ per hour of hydrogen, that come down to 9597.55 gallons of hydrogen per hour, or, at 17 gallons of hydrogen per gallon of water, 564.56 gallons of water, per hour.

See now what I mean?

[Ryan]

I'm sure the claims are bogus... of that I had no doubt.

Check out some HHO torch videos on youtube, its pretty neat what you can do. Its not a large scale energy production thing, but it has potential.

But I guess I agree, not as a fuel alternative. I'm pretty sure you don't have all the factors accounted for, although I'm sure your math and stoich is fine, gasoline will burn much differently than straight H, oxidize differently (much different AFR) and the list goes on and on and on... Best left up to Mythbusters.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Exactly.

The use of hydrogen on torches is nothing new, but the volume of gases a torch consumes can't compare with what even a small engine needs.

Other than that, I have 3 big problems with the ad I posted initially:

1. It promotes hydrogen as a suitable automotive fuel. I've been following the research on alternative fuels since the late '70s, when everybody in my country was laughing at the Brazilians' "crazy idea" of using ethanol to power cars. Of course, time would give the Brazilians the last laugh.
Throughout these last 30 some years, I've read many different methods for producing and storing hydrogen, for automotive use: metal hydrides, bacteria, cryogenic tanks, electrolysis, etc. Up till today, the only method in which hydrogen might have a future as an automotive power source is in fuel cells, and even that is debatable.

2. It also promotes the most dangerous possible way of storing (even if for a short period) any fuel: in a stoichiometric ratio with pure oxygen.

3. it implies that perpetual motion is possible, even when anybody who didn't sleep through high shool physics should be well aware it's not.

Other than that, I know it's just a scam, but I was surprised to see this kind of scam again, after almost 4 years. I thought people had smartened up already.

[Savin]

Aside from all the "mpg gains", would you think it would have any effect on the reduction of emissions? I was never planning on trying to make a 50% increase in mileage (if, by some chance, possible). when I saw that in the ad, I knew it would be bogus. I was maybe going to shoot for 2-5%, haha. If there's no other benefit to it, a reduction of emissions would be something to look into on the devise. Or not likely since you'd still be burning the same amount of gasoline anyway?

[Inodoro Pereyra]

I doubt it. Again, the amount of hydrogen you can produce is negligible compared to the volume of exhaust gases emitted, even by a very small engine, and what the promoters of hydrogen as a fuel don't seem to realize (when they say that hydrogen exhaust is "clean"), is that water vapor is actually the most powerful greenhouse gas there is.

There are already many alternative fuels that are proven to work, require little or no modification to the engine, and cut your emissions down, sometimes to "0". Some of the most popular (at least in some parts of the world), are CNG (compressed natural gas, mostly methane), biodiesel (for diesel engines), and ethanol. Unfortunately, here in the US, they have been turned into a political issue, so nobody pays attention to them.

If you want to cut your fuel expenses down, while at the same time lower your emissions to almost nothing, and get some extra power, slap a turbo to your engine, get bigger injectors, flash the ECU, and start making your own ethanol (you need a free permit from the TTB). That'll be far more effective than any hydrogen or HHO system you can find.