Quote:
Originally Posted by Othen
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.
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Alternators are a bit beefier than 55W Alan or they would only run a headlight bulb.
If you check the alternator on your RB, you'll find it has a rating sticker, i can't remember if we've discussed this in your thread but let's say it's 14V 70A. That's 980W so about 1.3kW.
However, on a modern EFi engine, ~20-30A is used to run the injection system, fuel pump, igniton system etc and when first started, about 30-40A direct to the battery for recharging. That swallows up 50-70A so there may only be 4A available for the electrolysis which at 14V would be 56W so your figures aren't actually that far out.
That isn't going to produce a viable amount of H-H-O so won't contribute greatly to the economy of the engine.
Obviously once the battery is replenished, more current is available for other things but still not the amount of hydrogen necessary for a sensible improvement.
I also believe hydrogen is the fuel of the future, petrolheads like me will want to do a fuel conversion on their engines (maybe not the most efficient use of it) while others will want to use it to create electricity to power their milk-floats on steroids in pretty skirts (EVs) but it's all still a long way off and certainly at the present time, very costly.
For now, i'll settle for an LPG conversion and the effect of basically halving my running costs.
