Quote:
Originally Posted by Laird Scooby
Is this real hydrogen or Browns Gas aka "heavy" hydrogen?
It comes from the electrolysis of water and is produced by the battery in your car while charging as well as the canisters i assume (because i haven't read all the links) you have installed to produce the H-H-O or Browns Gas.
I looked into this some years ago and after doing some sums, realised it won't actually give the gains suggested, Granted it may appear you're getting twice the mpg but that energy has to come from somewhere to split the water molecules into two separate hydrogen and one oxygen molecule. This comes from your alternator and where does that get its energy from?
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Yes Dave, that is what the old thread above was about
: using power from the alternator to do a bit of electrolysis, break some chemical bonds and then recombine them by burning them in the engine. If one thinks about it that is bunkum of course: the alternator will be rated at about 55w, which is about 1/10 HP, so that is the most one could get to do electrolysis (assuming the alternator wasn't doing anything else like charging the battery or powering the lights). Some of that would be lost in the process (heat in the conductors and the electrolyte mostly), so the process would not make any real contribution to internal combustion.
I had a feeling that derek vivian's question was more wide ranging, as to whether his motor could be converted to run on hydrogen that came from elsewhere. Hydrogen is of course available in cylinders as an industrial gas (I recall when I was a diver in the Army we used it is a really horrible torch called the Vixen for cutting metal plates underwater), but it is not widely available and is very difficult to store and use. I dare say an internal combustion engine could be converted to run on bottled hydrogen (as LPG) but the acquisition and storage problems (as well as convincing the government it was safe) would far outweigh any possible gains.
As an aside - I suspect hydrogen is the fuel of the future; the limiting factor for electric cars will be their rechargeable batteries, the physics of the problem means we won't be able to make them much better than we do now. The answer is probably to use surplus electrical energy (from solar, wind and nuclear) to make hydrogen (and oxygen) via electrolysis, solve the distribution and storage problems and then power vehicles by oxidising the hydrogen (probably in a fuel cell rather than internal combustion engine).
That is a way off yet, and in practice the answer to derek vivian's question is: no.
Interesting thought though.
Alan
PS. I notice that the OP (d_taddei2) suddenly disappeared not long after posting his Eureka! moment... I rather suspect that means the conversion he had paid for was indeed bogus.