Hydrogen Fuel Cell?

Snake oil. It takes more energy to split the water than you get back when you burn it. There is some anecdotal evidence that the introduction of hydrogen into a diesel engine will pay for the cost of splitting water, but the jury is still out, and there is no evidence that it will help with the Prius. Furthermore, that has nothing to do with a fuel cell. If you really were talking about splitting water to turn around and recombine it using a fuel cell, then it would be cheaper and better to just put larger tires on the back of your Prius so it can roll down hill all of the time.

Tom

 

As far as generating your own hydrogen generator, don't waste your time. I have tried plenty of experiments just trying to make enough gas to even light a flame, and I got it to generate like crazy, but NEVER could get it to ignite. Then the other problems were finding an electrolyte that would not burn and corrode the contact poles.

I even went to a trucking show and saw a few generators, and as usual they had them locked up so you could not see anything, and even told me I would not see an improvement enough to pay for the unit on a car.

So, that has to tell you something, most of generating your own hydrogen is bogus.

 

Very interesting video, however, many questions to be asked of course. My first question would be WHY did he get his voltage checker to light up when he put it in WATER. I thought the car needed hydrogen, not power to actually run the engine. I am not doubting the car is running off the water from hydrogen, but I see some major corrosion issues that that did not mention anything about, especially using sea water. The sea water would prevent you from needing an electrolyte, but salt burned through the process gets very nasty. I have done the experiments before, so they is why I know. Seriously, get you a battery, two bolts, wire, a jar with water, and some salt. Then put it to the test. During the process the current between the two bolts generate the hydrogen, but burn the salt leaving nasty brown water.

 

He is using hydrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then saving the hydrogen to use as fuel which he burns in his car. There is nothing new about this idea for producing hydrogen or using it to power a conventional internal combustion engine. It still takes energy to move the car, and in this case, quite a bit more energy due to the inefficiency of hydrolysis. This is the fundamental problem with hydrogen power: From where do you get the hydrogen? There isn't much of it in air. You can extract it from petroleum, but that's what we are trying to replace. Sea water is a natural choice, since it is plentiful and full of hydrogen, but it takes energy to brake those hydrogen-oxygen bonds. You need a good source of clean energy to make it practical. The best way to think of hydrogen power is as a way to store energy in a usable form; kind of like a battery. Energy is consumed to get the hydrogen, the hydrogen is stored in a tank, the stored hydrogen is transfered to its point of use - in this case a car - and the hydrogen is pulled from the tank and consumed, thereby recovering a portion of the energy used to extract, transport, and store the hydrogen.

The only difference between burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine and using a fuel cell is in the last step described above: The part where the hydrogen is consumed to release energy. In a fuel cell, the hydrogen in chemically recombined with oxygen to produce electricity and water. In an internal combustion engine, the hydrogen is burned to produce heat, water, and mechanical energy. The fuel cell is attractive due to its simplicity and direct production of electricity.

Tom

 

Interesting test case:

I bought small science kit for $100 at the local Frys. It contains a small model car, an electric motor, a small solar cell, and a membrane fuel cell. If you put the solar cell and electric motor on the car and take it outside, the car will go speeding off at a pretty imressive rate anytime sun falls on the panel. If you use the solar cell to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, it has to sit in full sunlight for ~8 hrs to fill the small H and O tanks. this will then drive the car around for ~10 min.

Electrolysis to H ICE is extremely energy inefficient.
Electrolysis to HFC is somewhat energy inefficient.
More complicated/expensive methods of generating Hydrogen from methane, natural gas, or coal plus a FC is less energy efficient than a Prius but might be better in 20 yrs. Its also marginally cleaner/less ghg if you can sequester most of the carbon emitted

http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/docs/cs_central_coal_gasification.doc

Both are ~ 2-3x less energy efficient than a late 1990s EV
http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/fsev/eva/ev1_eva.pdf
http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/fsev/eva/toyrav98.pdf

Rob

 

interesting link.

i've always wondered if a prius would make a perfect hydrogen car. with the big battery and advanced control system... it may do well.

My father wants to use solar to create hydrogen. I say stay electric... but filling up from a tank to a tank is a lot faster than a battery swap.

 

I bought a Prius with this hydrogen system installed. The first thing I did was remove all this non-standard clutter from my engine compartment. It was haphazardly installed and in jeopardy of mucking up some critical parts like the rotating fan blades (for example). I had to replace the Air intake filter lid and the water reservoir too since both had unwanted holes drilled into them. I think you could recover more energy from solar panels on the roof of your Prius then this contraption! And I read that solar panels on the roof would give you approximately 3 miles run time a day minus all the extra clutter to support that system.