Hydrogen Generator

Takes energy to make the hydrogen - that has to come from somewhere. Electrolysis gives off heat, so it's not reversible. TANSTAAFL.

 

The key to H2 is not "efficiency" its Energy independence and Cleanliness.

Of course the process needs some improvement and the electricity would have to come from "green" sources, but H2 is an energy storage medium and until (if ever) battery or other energy storage is sufficiently developed we will need a replacement for fossil fuels. (Let's see a jet fly on battery power! Well, it wouldn't be a jet but something with the same performance.)

 

I think the OP is talking about electrolyzing water onboard his car, so it is about efficiency.

 

It's snake oil, in it's pure and simple form. The only gain from these hydrogen generators is to the bank account of the people that sell the plans and kits. What you gain from burning the hydrogen is more than offset by the energy cost of liberating it. Skip the hydrogen generator and try something better proven, like putting a Plastic Jesus on your dash.

Tom

 

Two thoughts.

1) HHO is water, not hydrogen gas. Water doesn't burn, and I doubt injecting water into the intake is going to gain you much benefit.

2) If you decide to inject HH (Hydrogen gas), I'm curious as to where you will get the hydrogen. You could purchase it, I'm not sure how much it would cost nor whether you'd improve your miles per dollar that way. You could generate it at home off the electrical service to your house, depending on your electrical costs this might have a slight cost per mile benefit. You could generate it from the vehicle's electrical system, while you may have individual trips or tanks that appear to have an improvement, since the vehicle gets it's electricity from burning gasoline, this is likely to cost you more in the long run.

 

The key to any kind of proposition like this one is whether the person advertising it can throw in enough plausible-sounding claims to successfully distract you from the fundamentals.

Chief among the fundamentals is: you don't get any energy that didn't come from somewhere. So you need to be asking the question: what energy am I getting, and where did it come from? This one simple question can be very useful in defending your money from people who wouldn't mind having it.

In this case, the energy you're getting is the energy released when you combine HH with O in the combustion chamber, forming water. Good, that releases energy. How much? Not one joule more than you put in by electrolysis to split the water into HH and O to begin with. Where did that energy come from? From the battery/electrical system, ultimately put there by the gasoline engine, which got it by burning gasoline.

It's not clear what you're thinking of as "modest" amperage, but let's put an upper limit on it. You're not going to exceed 100 amps without blowing your Prius's DC/DC converter fuse, so you have an outside maximum budget of 1200 watts to put into electrolysis (12 V x 100 A). That gives you directly an outside maximum of 1200 watts to recover by recombining the HH and O when you burn it. Given that your gas engine is rated around 56,000 watts at full output ... 1200 watts is not likely to make anything like a 40-50% difference in your overall performance - even if you do forget for a moment that those 1200 are coming out of the 56,000 available from the engine to begin with.

You might want to do a little googling around whatever firm is advertising the kit that you are looking at. A relative of mine asked me to look at one such outfit (not necessarily the same one you've found) that turned out to have a name I recognized as its Director of Marketing. This gent formerly had a business called something like Better World, whose shtick was to sell you an electric motor/generator you could put in your basement. The motor would turn the generator using electricity produced by the generator, and you would use the extra to power your house and sell back to the utility. Just about exactly the same proposition, really.

He has also visited a couple of years with the California dept. of corrections. All his publicity says it was over an "obscure civil code violation" and proved that somebody wanted to suppress his breakthrough technology. It was actually under a deceptive marketing provision of the state's consumer protection laws, unsurprisingly enough. As I said, the outfit you're looking at might not be exactly the same one, but you might learn some entertaining things about it just the same.

If you achieve such a result, please do report back with the details.

Good luck,
-Chap

 

I have to second this. Please capture data both before and after installing the device.

Also, if this really works, forget installing it on your car - use it to produce energy with a generator and sell that energy back to the power company - you will be rich.

 

We did put a plastic Jesus on the dashboard of the GF's motorhome. We can't tell if it helps the FE because we can't afford to fill up the tank to get a baseline. I think it does help though.

 

Fill the tank with water. If you have a really good plastic Jesus he will turn it into gas.

Tom

 

ray2: :rofl:

 

Hell, I say go for it! (sorry plastic Jesus) It is, after all, your money and time. I have seen a few threads on here pertaining to this subject, but no one has pursued it. Post your results and give us the definitive answer to the snake oil question. You will be a hero either way! I bet 15-20 years ago the idea of running a car on batteries and gas in some funky union of technology would be considered science-fiction, or even snake oil.

 

Speaking as a physicist with grad work at Stanford who has worked in Silicon Valley for 25 years, I can assure you that all these "save fuel with hydrogen generator" schemes are 100% triple-distilled Bull Manure. I will not bore you with technical detail because anyone that can actually follow such a discussion as a rational discourse rather than throwing long words around would never even raise this question.

"There's a fool born every minute" ..Phineas T. Barnum

 

Some things are so easy to disprove that there is no utility in wasting time and money to test. This is one of them.

Tom

 

I think "HHO Gas" may be tricky semantics to make the buyer think they're injecting a mix of hydrogen and oxygen, but it's probably referring to water vapor (which is more properly HOH gas).

 

Ever take any thermodynamics courses?

 

I put a windmill on the roof of my Prius to charge the battery while I drive. If the battery level gets low I just drive faster to spin the windmill to charge it up.

I have taken way to many thermodynamics classes.....