Slashdot Mirror
Increasing Fuel Mileage With Hydrogen?
cr0sh asks: "I was recently looking into the costs and availabilty associated with small, hydrogen fuel cells (results: they are still expensive), when I came across this site about the Hydrogen-Boost [Warning: Pop-ups]. Looking at this site, it seemed like just another in the long line of scamming 'get more mileage/power' engine products out there, but it intrigued me enough to continue looking into it. I eventually came upon another site on
hydrogen experiments. A little more searching revealed this one about constructing your own Hydro-Boost device, which goes into detail about how you would build such a system. None of these sites answered the big questions, however: 'does it work?', and 'if so, how well?'. I also wanted something a little more authoritative. So, back to digging...which came up with this paper from OSTI [PDF]. The very first line of the abstract of this paper reads 'It is well known that hydrogen addition to spark-ignited (SI) engines can reduce exhaust emissions and increase efficiency.' This paper seems to advance the notion that such a system like the 'Hydrogen Boost' system may actually work. Does Slashdot think such a system would work? If so, how it could be improved, especially given today's rapidly rising gasoline prices, here in America?"
"On the experiments site, via the link to 'Hydrogen Experiments Part 2', the author references the first site. He ultimately decides to 'home-brew' his own system instead, and gives enough detail for anybody to do so. I was hoping the author had more details on the effects caused by dumping hydrogen into his engine, but that doesn't appear to be.
A notable observation on the Hydro Boost Device is that instead of using a stainless steel mesh as the other guy uses (which would seem to be a superior material to use, though difficult to find), this design uses galvanized steel bolts for the electrodes, making it something that can be built from materials found at a local building materials warehouse."
I did some research and ended up chosing a Honda hybrid. There just wasn't enough of an availability to the consumer to drive something based on hydrogen. At least not yet.
My civic hybrid gets 45-47 MPG, is quiet as hell, and was fairly cheap. GM and Ford both have alternative fuel vehicle programs, but until I can go down to the local dealer and drive home with a hydrogen F-150, I'll be in a hybrid.
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Free your mind.
Efficiency is for tree hugging hippies. You drive a car because you want insane power at your disposal. So you need a NOS system, not a hydrogen system. However, if you combined the two.. Imagine the possibilities.
I heard that jet engines actually utilize (i.e. burn) the hydrogen in water vapor that comes through the intake. Any aviation experts out there care to confirm?
I also heard cars get a little horsepower boost from intake of highly humidified air?
Experts, please confirm or deny.
Most fuel cells that will be used in cars will be PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cells. The problem with PEM fuel cells is that it requires a platinum catalyst to remove the electron from the hydrogen aton. As we know platinum is one of the most expensive elements on earth. The key is to find a catalyst that is cheaper and just as noble as platinum. There are other hydrogen fuel cells out there, but they usually operate at high temperatures (the main advantage of PEM). It is not like you want to wait 5 minutes for your car to warm up before you leave.
Does Slashdot think such a system would work? Yeah, that'll solve it once and for all.
The energy required to break the water up into hydrogen and oxygen will be at least equal to, and in a practical electrolytic cell it will be greater than, the energy you get back by burning the hydrogen later on. Typical electrolytic processes are around 60% efficient, from memory. This energy comes from the battery, which is about 92% efficient, which comes from the alternator, which is about 60% efficient, which is driven by the engine. So I get a loop efficiency of about 30%.
However, there may be some subtle advantages in adding gaseous hydrogen and oxygen to the fuel mixture. I doubt they would compensate for the efficiencies in the first paragraph.
You should ignore this post, the oil companies are paying me $$$ to suppress these crazy inventions.
Think about it for a second: News about the war has already saturated all the major news outlets. You can't get away from the damn thing.
If you want to comment about the war then for goodness sake do it in the story that's about the war, not in a story about hydrogen. Sheesh!
I am artificially intelligent.
The person to go looking for on this one is Roger Billings; he's currently with the International Academy of Science (I drive by there every morning on my way to work). He was driving hydrogen-powered ICE vehicles back in the '70's.
He ran into two problems with running an engine on Hydrogen.
He got hydrogen engines down to such an artform that he modified a Volkswagen Beetle ('72, IIRC) to run on the stuff for a college competition (he was an undergrad at the time), and the emissions coming out of the tailpipe were actually CLEANER than the air going into the intake. Basically, any Carbon Monoxide or unburned Hydrocarbons (common vehicle pollutants) which made it into the intake were finished off in the process, and the hydrogen fuel didn't produce any such emissions (water vapor).
I'd be wary about adding hydrogen to a gasoline engine to help the economy. You'd need a significant amount of hydrogen to make any real difference, and hydrogen storage these days is either:
Sorry guys, but this sounds like B.S.
... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
okay, so I can't spell :)
I'm just curious - how is this technique achieving accurate control of the air/fuel mixture ratio? Can oxygen sensors still accurately determine if the burn is/was lean/rich ?
Humboldt University has successfully found a way to produce Hydrogen Fuel cells using only Solar Energy and Water. It doesn't get much cheaper than Sunlight and Water. So the current cost comparison you refer to is dated.
I once read a page containing a suspect method for boosting the power of a motor by adding water. I don't remember how I ran across the page, but it was full of rambling by someone who basically had no idea how chemistry works but who had done some experimenting and may have stumbled on something...
The idea basically involved mixing water and gasoline before feeding it into the engine. A surfactant was used to allow the two to misch, so the engine was never fed pure water. The experimenter also bolted a hunk of platinum to the top of the cylinder, saying the platinum would be a catalyst and would crack the water into hydrogen and oxygen, producing more energy.
Pretty funny, huh?
Well, maybe not. I sent him a letter with an alternative theory; that the added water absorbed heat and evaporated, trading heat that would otherwise be wasted for additional pressure inside the cylinder. I also postulated that the platinum chunk wasn't taking an active part in the situation, but was instead using up space inside the cylinder and increasing the compression ratio; and that a ratio that would lead to pre-detonation in a pure gasoline engine might not do so in a system that ran at lower temperatures, thanks to the water's cooling effect. I suggested running a few experiments to find out, by measuring operating temperatures with and without the water, and by bolting in a hunk of steel in place of the platinum and seeing if it made a difference. I also recommended he try a dual injection system, one for fuel and one for water, rather than try and mix them.
I did get an email message back from the page's maintainer, but I've no idea if the experimenter ever got the message. Oh well.
Cocksucking is Anti-American? Since when?
First office sized message delivery hindenbergs, and now 4-wheeled hindenbergs?! No good will come of this! No good at all!
"# high-pressure gas (expensive, heavy tanks and very little capacity)"
They aren't really heavy any more. They are made out of composite materials, with pressures up to 700bar (10000psi).
Is gasoline expensive in the US? :/
I thought it was dirt cheap there!
You should try paying around $3.7/gallon, like we do in sweden...
And this has nothing to do with the US war threats. It's been like this for years...
Once the US invasion of Iraq is underway, the price'll probably skyrocket.
Luckily, I drive a diesel. That's "only" about $3.2/gallon. =)
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
For a real life way to make your car run a little cleaner (Albeit with some LESS power, since ethanol has a lower energy density than gas), add ethanol to your gas tank. Many newer cars now support ethanol in the gas mix (they detect how much alcohol is present in the gasoline) and adjust the engine accordingly. I know the production Ford Ranger 3.0L has this right now, and I'm sure some other cars do too.
I realize that gas in Europe and most elsewhere is *much* more expensive than US gas, and that we are nowhere near those prices yet. Still, with our economy the way it is, any way to increase the efficient use of the gas we do use would be a benefit for our pocketbooks...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Well, everything I've ever heard or read about trying electrolysis can't produce enough hydrogen to fuel a car. Breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen and feeding just won't cut it. If it could, a more robust system should be able to power the car by itself.
The theory does sound interesting though. I'm curious myself if it would work.
After reading his text, I have to wonder about the author though. He says he has a background in chemestry (at least teaching it in hgih school), but then failed to do any sort of consistant tests. He used his fuel gauge to measure the fuel usage? Gauges are rarely accurate. You're using a linear measure in a irregularly shaped tank. I've had the luxury of testing this on many road trips. I'd watch milages roll by and the gas guage would drop slowly at the beginning, implying a very good fuel economy. But when we get to the bottom of the tank the needle drops fast.
Anyone who owns a late model F-Body car (Firebird or Camaro) knows this. One friend lives by the rule of, if his car reads 1/4 tank, find a gas station. If I remember right, 1/4 means you have about 3 gallons in the tank, on a 16 gallon tank.
He honestly should have been at least stopping at gas stations, filling the tank, and measuring his milage. Not 100% accurate, but much better than reading the gauge.
The links he has on the bottom of the page scare me. I knew someone who absolutely lived by the concepts of doing all the witchcraft mechanics for power. He also calculated his car had 500hp based on add-on parts and their advertised increase percentages. hehe.
With all that said, some time I have lots of spare time on my hands, and an urge to put several hundred miles on my car, I'll try out his concept. I'd love to say that I've increased my horsepower by x%, and fuel economy by x mpg.. More than likely I'll say "that was interesting.", and pull all the crap off.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Of course...
And any such innovation would lower my gas bill too. =)
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
I had an '85 Nissan Sentra diesel, 1.7 liter, no A/C. I got 45 to 50 miles to the gallon of cheaper (!) diesel fuel. On the open roads, it was at least 55 miles to the gallon at highway speeds of 65 to 75. Top speed was almost 100 mph (but don't tell anybody)...
My question is, why don't they build'em that way anymore...?
He seems to be implying that the hyrdogen gas produced by the decomposition of water reacts with gasoline to produce a different type of hydrocarbon, which burns more efficiently.
However this seems like it would be easy to verify in a lab setting. Combine vaporized gasoline and hyrdogen gas under the pressures experienced in an average engine, and test how well it burns compared to normal gasoline.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Back in the mid to late 70's my dad had a Fiat sedan and being tinkerers (more people tinkered on their cars then it seems, and if you had a Fiat you pretty much always had to tinker with it :) we tried some of the water-vapor injection ideas that were around then (supposed to give a 10% boost in milage) - but it didn't really work. Then we got the idea: what if we electrolyzed the water into hydrogen & oxygen and sent the gases into the carburator. We tried it out, it's pretty easy to do (though I'm not sure how you'd do it on a fuel injected car - I suppose you'd pump it into the air intake as shown on the diagram on one of those sites)... Well, our results were pretty inconclusive. We were gonna experiment with some other ideas related to this, but that's about the time I went off to college.
You are probably right about the amount needed for increasing the efficiency - still, it would be a fun thing to play with (one of those weekend time projects) - my only main concern is avoiding hydrogen gas leakage at the hose joints...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Changing from 12V to 42V will be a lot easier than moving from gasoline to something else. Look what you get for going to 42V:
That's a lot of weight removed and fuel saved. And it's all so much more attainable and immediate than fuel cells with PEM conversion or changing to pressurized tanks of hydrogen. Don't get me wrong, good practical stuff comes out of alternative fuel research. But let's not focus on pie in the sky to the exclusion of all else.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
This "hydrogen boosting" is just adding a different fuel to the mix. Of course the "mileage" will increase because you are getting more power from the other fuel. The other fuel is probably more expensive than gasoline, so why bother? Not only that, but you are "misfueling" your vehicle, so unless you really know what you're doing it could impact the performance and/or lifetime of the engine and it certainly voids your warranty.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
- Emissions result from incomplete combustion of the fuel. If this is true, how can adding hydrogen (i.e. more fuel) help the emissions quality when the limiting ingredient is oxygen?
- NOx gasses are going to form as long as there's nitrogen present at high temperatures, pretty much no matter what you burn. So that's not going to improve emissions...
- Where are we supposed to be getting the hydrogen from in sufficient amounts to make it worth the effort?
Color me very confused...Here in india we are not that power consious. So a 90-95mph top speed car(diesal) gives around 20Km/ltr on long trips, thats about 12.5 miles to a litre or more than 60 MPG!. So if you are willing to sacrifice power, its easy to get economy
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
First, an acid filled generator will produce acid spray in the hydrogen. Which gets into the engine...which is made of aluminum and iron. Instant damaging corrosion time.
If you use the alternative electrolyte, sodium hydroxide, that just dissolves the piston.
Second, it is possible that (assuming the article isn't a complete troll) the engine used was fouled up and the acid mist actually cleaned up the plugs a bit. Cleaning plugs on old dirty engines usually increases gas mileage for a short while till the thing starts poorly and fouls up again.
I don't know why chemistry teachers bother, honestly. Conservation of energy, thermal changes in reactions, then their little charges grow up and forget the lot, and start believing in fairy dust.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Has any of the wrench geeks here actually read these articles?
My automotive mentor couldn't even read, but he was able to double the gas mileagle of a 4 barrel v8 with a couple of gaskets and a screen...
I have produced a device that boils the gasoline before entering a modified carborator on a VW (dangerous, stupid, yes...I won't do it again) and I was able to get it to run on fumes, while normally with an unmodified carborator just stepping on the accelerator would literally squirt a thick stream of gas down the intake! (keep in mind this is even on a vw beetle engine...)
Any basic mechanic knows that if you add oxygen to your system you will improve performance drastically. And the internal combustion engine is widely known as an incredibly inefficient system. A steam powered engine that is hermetically sealed and uses modern technology will far out perform any modern internal combustion engine and also burn feul much better.
A steam engine can burn it's fuel and atmospheric preasures therefore get a much cleaner and more effient combustion than is possible under preasure. Also you could have a car that could run on 10 different types of feul all at once, including kerosene(which I will note is used in the designs of a mars lander vehicle because of the power/weight ratio of the feul), gasoline, hydrogen, etc...
Of course if you are really looking to cut your gas costs, get rid of your need for gasoline altogether with a pegasus unit. In world war II when all the feul was being used for war a device was made that coverted peatmoss, wood chips or pressed sawdust pellets into a burnable gas for the internal combustion engine. Off the top of my head the ratio was 50% normal air and 50% gas from the pegasus unit.
The pegasus unit was basically a large furnace in a trash can lookiing thing that you mounted on the back of your car or truck, the hard fuel would be lit on fire at the base and as it burned up the gas was sent through a hose directly to the carberator. Thousands and thousands of vehicles (I've even seen photos of large trucks with these units) were setup with pegasus units.
Modern steam engines would awesome, the got an engine in the 70s to heat up in 7 seconds in 20 below zero temperatures, as that was one problem with steam engines in the past. They are super quite and a _ton_ of torque... etc...
All this electric garbage makes me sick, who cares about feul cells? They are for elitist pig corporations bent on making a technology that the normal person can't provide for themselves. In the 50s congress sought after an alternative to the internal combustion engine, steam power was the best option presented by far, but lobbying from 'Detroit' screwed it over...
In regards to whether or not adding hydrogen to an internal combustion engine would help? Of course it would, you might as well tap some of the tons of wasted energy of an internal combustion engine, the alternator is pumping out the amps, why not use them?
Obviously you can't run a vehicle entirely this way without gasoline, but as an additive it will vastly improve the combustion you do get, but of course to really see better performance you would have to modify your carborator or feul injection system to lower the fuel output, otherwise you will more likely only see just more power...
About 10 years ago Denver modified some of their public buses to run on hydrogen (internal combustion engines). The only reason it seems that feul cells are so hot is because of global/local preassure to lower emmissions and also someone has to make Hydrogen for you, guess who that will be... here's a few hints , Exxon, Shell, BP, etc... yup, they will burn oil to make hydrogen so you happy people can drive hydrogen feul cell cars... just dumb.
Where do you think the power is going to come from to make hydrogen? You have Nuclear, coal and hydro-electric... If we went with steam powered cars, if you were clever, you could use garbage, wood, recycled newspapers, peatmoss, hydroge
Diesel cars are really common in the EU and UK. Quite a few of the "common-rail" turbo diesels are about as powerful, capacity-for-capacity, as their petrol equivalents. A fairly typical big car would maybe use a 2.5l 170hp turbo diesel, for example. Oh, and bear in mind that UK and EU power figures are usually taken on a rolling road, whereas in the US they are "test stand" figures, and consequently higher. That would probably equate to 250bhp or so in US terms.
Just out of interest... what do you pay for one litre of unleaded gasoline/petrol in the US?
Recently in Australia, the price usually lies within 95c to 105c per litre (56c - 62c US). In just 10 years the price has gone up more than 20 cents, partially due to the introduction of the GST (10%).
Goodluck to the US... Australia is your brother in arms.
I keep on getting spam about Fuel Savers that will increase the efficiency of my engine by 27%, 100% guaranteed, etc., etc. and now Slashdot is promoting them and the spammers!
If somebody is saying that cracking hydrogen will increase the mileage on your car, they're full of crack. The only way that could occur would be if hydrogen was to act as a catalyst increasing efficiency of the burn in your car (You can't get more energy from a chemical reaction then you get from it in reverse. Burning oxygen with hydrogen in an ideal environment will give the same energy as was needed to split water)
And if it did and did so safely, you'd find hydrogen crackers in modern cars. Not to mention planes, ships, trains, tanks, etc. Everybody from the car manufacturers to the military to NASA would use this technology.
For the sake of Sagan, do the ballanoie test.
Anyone remeber that magic electric DeLorean that was on /. a while ago? Ran forever on just one charge. Mabye those guys are working on hydrogen cars now.
Saw a news item on TV one news here a couple weeks ago about a guy here in New Zealand that had modified a late model Nissan Skyline to run on a mix on hydrogen and petrol. Claimed to get almost double the mileage. He had built a device to simply split the hydrogen from water stored in a container in the boot (trunk) of the car and a system to induct it into the engine intake. Spent quite a bit of time searching for the story online but never found anything. Nothing about it made it into newspapers that I saw either. I suspect the oil companies probably paid this guy to shut-up about it.
I own a daewoo matiz, not sure if you can get them in america, but it is a small european style mini city car.
This thing is great, will happly cruise @ 70mph on a motorway, and around town / my usual short journeys I get 40mpg, on a long run it can go as high as 45mpg.
The key is that it only have an 800cc 3 cylinder engine, it's not the fastest car around but has all the toys such as A/C power steering etc. and is VERY easy to park.
Best thing is that second hand you can pick a 2 year old one up for £4000 easy, probably less.
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
Adding hydrogen to fuel is a valid way to get better fuel economy. One of the postgrads in the Mech Eng Department of the University of Melbourne (Aust) is doing his thesis on it. I couldn't tell you the specifics of what went on, but it had something to do with getting better flame propogation within the cylinder, which made sure all the fuel was burnt. Hence bringing about better fuel economy and more power. Note this experiment was only done on the actual benefits of using hyrodgen as the ignitor with the engine on a dynameter. No research was done in how this would actually be implemented.
@ 140 h.p. .... fun as hell!
Pump a little water vapour into the cylinder with the air, you get a power boost[1]. But who's going to bother? It isn't worth the hassle, like these hydrogen bullshit things. You gonna carry a hydrogen cylinder along when you fill up your petrol tank?
[1] Note, this happens naturally on cold and misty mornings.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
There's a company already supplying water injection for forced induction cars which takes advantage of the cooling effect that the water provides, to lower the cylinder temperatures to prevent detenotation so more boost can be used :)
Diesel is easier to manufacture than gas (lower emissions from processing plant, lower costs for consumers) so it is clearly the better fuel. Maybe with this stupid war we'll see more diesel vehicles sold.
There is no actual need for internal combustion engines to run on oil derived fuels anyway. The prototypes of both the diesel and gas turbine (jet) used vegetable oil. Spark ignition engines can run on alcohol, either pure alcohol or blended with petro-chemicals. There is even motor racing with uses methanol fueled cars.
We need to to focus on Diesel which can help us here and now instead of hydrogen/solar power which are decades off.
Diesel is used more or less exclusivly as the fuel for internal combustion engines in trucks, rail locomotives, ships, agricultureal machinary and construction plant.
Every car on the market for the past few decades has come with a catalytic converter. Catalytic converters have an internal structure (either honeycombed or beads) which is coated with a catlyst, which is most often platinum. Palladium and Rhodium are apparently also used.
So you'd be replacing one use of an expensive metal with another, at least in part. Granted, the internal structure of the converter is designed to minimize the amount of catlyst used, but I'd imagine so would a fuel cell. I wonder what the relative quantities would be.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Rising fuel prices in the US? Don't make me laugh.
Try paying US$5 per gallon like we do in Europe, then you'll know what high fuel prices are like.
-Nano.
The step from 12.5 miles per liter to 60 MPG is wrong.
Stating fuel economy on a international forum is highly confusing since there are different kinds of gallons.
The vast majority of the postings here are by people who obviously didn't bother to read the SAE paper cited in the original posting.
:)
The paper shows a dramatic improvement in pollution and no improvement in efficiency.
You can build your own hydrogen reformer but to use it practically, you have to be able to recalibrate your car's computer. ie. it's one of those projects that can consume months and years of your time. Some of us enjoy that
Call me skeptical, but seriously. Until I start seeing conversion kits for sale in the NAPA dealer, this will be relegated in my mind to the realm of infomercials.
I live nearby, the address of the company is a residential subdivision in a small town nearby. The site also fails several of the test from the recent Seven Rules for Spotting Bogus Science article.
I suppose if a good system of nuclear power plants were implented, you could use the electricity to generate hydrogen. Could the publicity being given to hydrogen power be a stalking horse for building nuclear plants?
I18N == Intergalacticization
I can't believe that Americans on here are complaining about fuel prices when they pay the least amount for fuel of any country that I can find data for.
:)
In the UK (and I think in most of Europe) we pay UKP 0.80/liter for fuel. That's USD 1.24/liter or USD 4.72 / US gallon. I'm not sure what you guys actually pay, but I bet it's nothing like as much as 4.72/gallon.
It now costs me UKP 40 (USD 62) to fill my Ford Focus with fuel and that's only good for 300 miles.
Perhaps if they didn't all drive massively heavy cars with enormous engines they'd reduce pollution and them themselves money. They'd also end up with nicer cars which don't handle like tanks and require notice in writing to stop in time for pedestrians. I've only driven a couple of American cars (a Buick Centry and an Oldsmobile Sierra Cutlass or something - scuse if I've got the names wrong) and they were both extremely heavy/slow (despite massive 3 liter V6 engines!) and handled unbelieveably badly compared to my Focus. No wonder you have such slow speed limits; There's no way of safely controlling the average 'yank-tank' when it gets much beyond 50-60 mph. My Focus handles fine upto about 100mph. Even at 120mph it seemed fairly stable - I just wouldn't want to try turning much at that speed
I'm sure you'd have more fun driving if you had ligher more efficent cars. You'd also lose your status as the biggest polluter of the planet per capita by quite a long way.
Nick...
The key to fuel economy with internal intermittant combustion engines (like reciprocating gas engines found in cars) is to use them at their maximum power setting with as few combustion events per unit time as possible. In other words, wide open throttle and low RPMs (high manifold pressures). This car gets 128 miles per gallon at 35 MPH, and it's just a pure diesel engine.
Hydrogen is a losing proposition because there isn't any lying around free. It has to be made, and that takes energy. In fact, it takes more energy to make it than could ever be returned by burning it (Thermodynamics... increaing entropy...).
Currently I think that the gas/electric hybrid is the best touring vehicle (as opposed to a commuting vehicle) platform, but I have yet to see one that I like. The Toyota Prius I got to look at closely a few weeks ago was very disappointing. A 1989 Honda Civic CRX gets better milage! The Toyota drive system is overly complicated with a gearbox that allows the wheels to be driven by either the electric motor and/or the gas engine. The added complexity and weight of the gearbox offset any efficiency gains of the electric system.
Okay basicly you are sperating the water turning it into hydrogen and oxygen then burning it again. Now you can't get more engery back from burning then you had to put in. So your running engine to power you battery then you using that power to turn water into hydrogen and buring it in your engine. Basicly you have formed a cycle system and if any stage isn't 100% efficent then you loosing energy. Yes hydrogen engines are usefull but only if you making the hydrogen using a more efficent fuel the petrol.
90% of turbocharger systems on the market use an aftercooler. (Usually called an intercooler, but in most situations this isn't actually the correct term - Intercoolers are used in systems with multiple compressor stages, usually fixed generators.)
When gas is pressurized, it heats up. The aftercooler allows this heat to be exchanged to the ambient air, resulting in gas which is close to the same pressure. (Slightly less due to frictional losses in the aftercooler) But since it's cooler, it's more dense than if it were the same pressure (or even slightly higher pressure) at a warmer temperature.
This allows the engine to fit more air into the cylinders without the risk of detonation.
All of that heat given up in the intercooler is mere waste...
A lot could be done for efficiency of cars if someone could figure out a way to use gasoline in a combustion cycle similar to diesel engines. Diesels don't have problems with preignition/detonation, in fact they RELY on the phenomenon that causes it (compression heats the air) in order to ignite the air/fuel mixture. Rather than mixing the air/fuel and then compressing it (and having a risk of the heating from compression alone causing the mix to ignite), diesels compress the gas heavily and THEN inject fuel, which instantly burns because the gases are so hot. (This is why diesels are usually more efficient - They run much higher compression ratios than gasoline engines can.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
There's a lot wrong with this. The first tip off is the fuel line magnet they have for sale, which is widely known to be a hoax. Besides, other posters on here are right: Electrolysis cannot make enough hydrogen to make a difference without draining too much mechanical energy from the engine. Placing more load on the alternator would increase the resistance of it to the engine, cancelling out the effect.
Also, modern fuel injected vehicles would not correctly cope with that sort of air/fuel ratio enrichment. Even equiped with an o2 sensor and ecu, the vehicle would probably go into a "limp home" mode if it detected a fuel-rich senario.
Hydrogen does not carry the same energy as gasoline. It would require far larger amounts of hydrogen to run an engine than gasoline. Auto makers have made purely hydrogen vehicles before, and they work, but require very complex and expensive
Most of the time, water injection is used in turbocharged/supercharged engines. It is used in place of an aftercooler (usually incorrectly called an intercooler) or to augment a smaller one. Compressing air in a supercharger/turbo heats it, injecting water cools it back down. Air at the same pressure but a lower temperature is more dense = more air fits into the cylinder. Also, since the intake air is cooler, the temperature after compression in the cylinder is lower, so detonation is less likely.
It may be possible in some normally aspirated engines to get a benefit from water injection. Over on the allpar.com forums, one guy was experimenting with it on his Dodge Shadow and getting good results. If it had been anyone else I wouldn't have believed him, but this guy was pretty thorough. Note that he saw no benefit from water injection until he advanced his timing - Essentially water injection was raising the effective octane rating of his fuel, allowing him to advance timing. It would also have allowed for a higher compression ratio without detonation. It could potentially be used as a replacement for lead in older cars that prefer leaded gasoline (Such cars had higher compression ratios, since leaded is less likely to preignite), but I don't know about that.
This might not have been of any benefit on an "optimum" engine like 90% of those on the market today. (Thanks to computer simulations, most engines in newer cars are close to the limits of what can be done in a normally aspirated car without major sacrifices in emissions/driving flexibility/efficiency.) It happened that the 2.2/2.5 Chrysler engines had rather suboptimal intake systems and it didn't take much to improve that model of engine. (Matt also had a ram air intake system that was a major benefit for 2.2/2.5 users but of almost no benefit to most 3.0L V6 users because that engine was a bit more recent and had a better stock intake system to begin with.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Hydrogen huh? Have you tried hot grits?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Just one note: Do NOT put ethanol into your gas tank unless you know for a fact that your car is an FFV.
Ethanol is VERY corrosive. While the engine management systems of FFVs are often unchanged, anything that comes into contact with the fuel must often be redesigned with additional corrosion resistance. (Chrysler's FFV engines had some fancy corrosion-resistant coatings on their valves, for instance. They also had special fuel lines.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Nothing says that you have to inject the water after the fuel, nor do you have to inject the water in the same manner the fuel is injected.
Note that some of the older fuel injection designs, instead of having multiport injection (one injector/cylinder), they used throttle body injection. (One injector at the throttle body). You could just add a water injector at the throttle body. One guy did it on his Dodge Shadow (http://www.karlsnet.com/mopar/) - There's a lot of info not on that page, he was an active poster on the Allpar (http://www.allpar.com/) forums until he changed jobs and no longer had much time to experiment or post on the forums. Too bad, the guy had some great ideas and was very good at documenting his results, and open to suggestions/constructive criticism. (He had a few errors in some formulas and said, "oops, you're right" and subsequently made corrections on his page.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Here are a few reasons Biodiesel is a better immediate solution.
- Biodiesel requires no diesel engine modifications to run
- The fuel infrastructure exists now. No modifications needed.
- Mass production is very feasible
- No net carbon dioxide emissions (if made with ethanol)
- Renewable
- For every 1 unit of energy used to make biodiesel 2.3 units are gained
- In a modern diesel engine (VW TDI for example) there are fewer toxic emissions than in a gas/electric hybrid (Toyota Prius for example).
For more info check out the fact sheets at biodiesel.org.a little thing called thermodynamics. More specifically, the second law. You can't get more energy out than you put in. As a matter of fact, you can't even get back the same amount.
Heisenberg might have been here.
Find his book, "The Hydrogen World View," by Roger E. Billings (ISBN 0963163426). It's autobiographical, an amusing read, and packed with A GREAT DEAL of valuable insight.
... by the Dew of Mountains the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning
When working out your "mpg" remember:
gallon (US) = 3.7854 litre
gallon (UK) = 4.5460 litre
So please state your units. Gallons is ambiguous. Better still... use metric.
For an easy answer to the original poster, see the charts on page 7 of the PDF. The efficiency of the engine never increases and sometimes decreases. The research is describing pollution control, not increased efficiency!!
If _they_ only had a brain!!
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
I saw nothing about managing this effect in a quick read of the site, and it wouldn't surprise me to find that this might work well, until you burn your pistons.
caveat emptor...
I've been hearing about cars which run on compressed air for some time. They are not, unsurprisingly, sold in the US...does anyone in a foreign country have access to an "air car"? If so, how well does
it work?
http://www.theaircar.com/
Not to mention that diesel is just another petroleum product.
The same limitations apply to diesel as do gasoline...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
The advocates of this idea are claiming that small amounts of hydrogen can have a large impact because somehow the hydrogen interacts with the partially spent hydrocarbons that are re-cycled out of the PVC valve. During this interaction, they claim that the pollutants are reformed into natural gas and then burned.
Since they are not using the hydrogen as a primary fuel, but as a way of reforming partially spent fuels, the volume they claim to require in small enough that they are generating it via electrolysis from a jar in the engine compartment.
This leads to some questions: How much water vapor is getting into the system? Is that the real cause of any efficiencies that they are seeing? What is the true composition of the gases coming from the PVC before and after mixing with hydrogen?
I almost decided to try it out on an old Pinto or something. The main defect of any of this works seems to be that they aren't at all rigorous in their measurements or experiments. The efficiencies they claim are dramatic, but the measurements are anecdotal at best.
> A bigger show stopper is likely to be "where do I refuel it?"
Then the big show restarter would be "a gas station". Without the hydrogen booster, your car would run normally, like it did before the mod. If you run out of hydrogen on the road, your fuel economy drops, but the car will keep running. Then, you reload the hydrogen system when you get to wherever you can fill it.
Virg
If you want to see a similar system that is actually affordable and is already in use across the US, check out propane or methane conversions for cars. Those fuels are easier to store, but use similar equipment that a hydrogen conversion would require. Most propane/methan conversions are dual fuel, so you are able to use gasoline or the alternate fuel.
A very interesting alternate fuel is bio-diesel. Which is a simple process (lye+veg oil+methanol) that converts vegtable/animal fat oils into a diesel equivalent. The midwest of the US uses it as fuel additive. Content ranges from 20-100%. Burning it straight will not hurt a diesel engine. The nice thing is diesels get much better fuel economy are very powerfull, are inexpensive and readily available. If we "grow" our own fuel then the CO2 would be cycled instead of released. Farmers would benefit and "foreign oil" would be an issue of corn or soybeans instead crude. Something even the poorest country could produce. A "oil spill" wouldn't be as environmentally destructive and would bio-degrade in a matter of days. The funny thing is the guys that have been promoting use resturant oil so their vehicle exhaust smells like fries or onion rings.
A friend of mine who happens to keep up with these sorts of things told me that in Canada, public service vehicles, like city buses are using hydrogen based fuel. These aren't hybrid vehicles, but 100% based hydrogen. They must have a lot of power to run a bus. I'd imagine you don't see these mass produced for after market people because how are you going to convince every Joe blow Mom and Pop gas station to start buying Hydrogen Fuel, and Install a Hydrogen fuel pump, when at first, they won't have many customers. But maybe you can get some info from some Canadian resources.
>Ever heard of Nitrous Oxide (NO2)? Used in racing to help increase the performance of the vehicle, works by cooling the air (making it denser - more air - therefore more O2 - through the carb) before it enters the carb, does not burn or otherwise directly enhance POWER,
... creating a much more efficient and powerful burn of the gasoline - which is why it increases the power.
Actually this is about 100% wrong. Bonus points for correct grammar and spelling, nice use of paragraphs, but completely devoid of facts.
Regular air is about 80% inert gases and about 20% oxygen. Mix that with gasoline and roughly 1/5th of the volume of the air in the fuel to air mix is oxygen - the part that actually lets the gasoline burn.
NO2 is about 66% oxygen by volume, therefore increasing the amount of oxygen available for the combustion by a factor of 3
Has nothing to do with the temperature of the air, although I have seen systems that have a tub to put in dry ice (frozen CO2, really cold) near the air intake to cool the entire assembly down to get the effect you are describing - it is good, but nowhere near as effective as dumping NO2 directly into the intake like a NOs fogger. The dry ice rig has been seen on machines with blowers on them as the blowers tend to heat the incoming air quite a bit (friction within the blower heats the blower, the blower heats the air.) Not to mention it gets hot in Bonnieville on the salt flats.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Of course, we'll be all up in there toting freedom fries and SUVs before ya know it!
--------
Free your mind.
1) The system has NOTHING to do with alternative fuels. We are talking fuel additive.
2) The system is claiming increased efficiancy and increased power. Neither one of these claims is prima facia negated by the fact that things are being added or the fact that the fuel must be manufactured by the hydrolisis machine.
Power is the easiest to understand - if the engine is now capable of providing more energy bursts, even if it uses up more gallons of gas to do so, it is a success. If a single combustion cycle provides more energy than it is succesful, even if the engine has to spend 2 hours creating electricity to generate the hydrogen first.
Efficiancy is harder to understand. Basically if the alternators are properly designed, through normal use they will generate excess electricity beyond what the car needs. This energy is WASTED - untill the complex hydrolis system presented is used to recapture that waste energy.
In other words, this device is theoretically useful, assuming that
A) Hydrogen is not damaging to the engine and
B) Hydrogen in the fuel increases the power or efficency of the combustion cycle more than a similar amount of gasoline would.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Water injection is used to cool the intake air in supercharged aircraft engines. Kind of like an intercooler but cheaper and lighter.
It makes use of water's heat of vaporization to reduce the fuel/air mixture temperature before it goes into the cylinder, and it reduces the chances of detonation (knocking)under high intake pressures. Also cleans the plugs and valves rather nicely. One problem, water is not compressible like air is, so you can blow your engine big time with too much water injection. BOOM.
Incidentally, adding hydrogen to the intake won't accomplish squat, except possibly jack up the chamber temperature. Not what you want in a long distance engine.
What you do want is more oxygen, so adding a supercharger or turbocharger to compress the intake charge is good, or possibly nitrous (NOS for you rice heads out there) for a bit of extra kick.
Trying to inject pure oxygen just drives the temperature up to acetalene torch temperatures. That's rocket territory, reciprocating engines can't survive that kind of heat. Plus the violence of the combustion makes detonation knock look like a pat on the head from Grandma. BOOM!
What are the real barriers to creating a modern gas turbine powered
hybrid?
Gas turbine engines can burn just about any reasonable fuel, including
methanol/ethanol, methane, CNG, diesel, gasoline, and soforth. They do
it efficiently, probably similar to diesel. They have fewer moving
parts, and are more amenable to computer control. They work best at
constant speed, and therefore are great when used in hybrid
configuration.
Ceramics research since the 80s or so have produced high quality high
temperature ceramics materials that require little machining for
example at ORNL (at one point I wanted to be a ceramics engineer).
Gas turbine engines need not make a lot of noise. In fact you can buy
them as smallish backup generators.
The main thing as far as I can tell is that the infrastructure isn't
in place (parts, repair centers, etc). But it would be a lot easier to
ship out some parts and run some repair training than to convert every
gas station in america to something other than petroleum products.
In terms of emissions, efficiency, power, and ability to use multiple
fuels (an hence oil independence), the gas turbine and hybrid electric
drivetrain seems like the way to go.
Chrysler built some back in the 50s and 60's but as near as I can tell most
of the problems would be solved with ceramic parts and a hybrid
electric configuration.
((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) http://www.endpointcomputing.com a scientific approach to custom computing.
They are learning how to make synthetic fossil fuels, that is the future! Kris http://www.geocities.com/zainzoo/
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
The new Subaru WRX STi has a water sprayer.
x st i/wrxsti.jsp
"The large capacity intercooler includes a manually operated water spray feature to provide additional cooling."
http://impreza.subaru.com/microsites/impreza/wr
I would kill to see more diesel tech in the US. I would love a midsize SUV (read that as Grand Cherokee or Explorer sized) that had an efficient turbo diesel.
The diesels of today are reliable, trouble free, get great mileage, and are quiet and powerfull. But, americans still remember the bad old days of 70's diesels that were loud, unreliable, etc.
OK detroit, here's the deal. I will write a check the day you deliver what I want. otherwise I'll stick with BMW coupes (in gasoline, alas)
It's simple chemistry. The main components in the combustion process within a car engine is the hydrogen from the hydro-carbon, and the oxygen in the air. Give it a spark, and you get some nice energy output.
The timing of the car depends on the octane level of the gas. If you have a higher octane level, the gas burns slower, but hotter.
If you replace the carbon/hydrogen bonded molecules with pure hydrogen, you won't have to have so much energy to overcome breaking the C-H bonds (burn faster), and you'll get a much much much much higher energy output. Get the ratio of 2hydrogen atoms for every oxygen, and you get the perfect combustion setup with pure water as your "exhaust" (and you wont have CO2 being expelled either... just pure water).
The reason we don't have pure hydrogen/oxygen burning internal combustion cars is because it would be TOO powerful... the fuel misture injected per stroke would be too delicate to control within a safe error range, so sticking to something much safer (our present gas) allows us to not worry about the fuel mixtures as much.
Hmmmm, thats odd not that daewoo have had a perfect service history, but I've had things replaced - like a new clutch cable, which they had in stock, along with new break pads. I've also had it broken into they got a new lock, with correct lock barrel for my key, in 1 week. They've sucked in other ways but no more than any other manufacturer that I have owned cars from ;)
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
The only reason I brought up biodiesel is it would be an excellent solution to break our dependency on imported oil. I say let the middleast choak on their oil.
As far as providing all our oil, yes it would most likely outstip our present farming capabilities, though I doubt it would take 96% of our land mass to do it. The author of the book I got the info from acknoledges the limitations. His take on it is biodiesel is fairly cheap to make, considering somewhere in the neighboor of 3 billion gallons of cooking oil and 300 million tons of animal fats (also a source for biodiesel) are dumped in the landfills every year. Quite a bit of useable energy in that, might as well make good use of it.
Also carburetor's don't "decide" anything, they are adjusted and then operate according to that adjustment. Now on the other hand a fuel injection system, can adjust itself on the fly and compensate according to what it's sensors tell it, but it cannot magically force more air into the combustion chamber without outside help. Ram air scoups, blowers, or turbos help out, but all have their limitations. On top of that there is still the fact that air has only around 21% oxygen in it. Another popular strategy is the injection of Nitrous-oxide into the system which artificial increases the available oxygen. Only problem there is heat and nitrogen polutants issues. Theoretically I guess you could run 100% O2 using liquid oxygen to completely combust all available fuel, but I've never heard of anyone doing that before. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the metals that make up the engine itself tend to start to burn in a high temp 100% oxygen atmosphere. On the other hand if they could get that to work (make the parts out of ceramics) then you might see a big jump in fuel economy, and not to mention some crazy power.
Very nice post.
One nitpick: The author's question was not about Hydrogen fuel-cells, or going with hydrogen entirely, but about adding hydrogen to the mix somehow and if it was feasible to do so.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
So in the plot to Road Warrior, this is supposed to be a post-nuclear war society where gasoline is very scarce apart from quantities stashed away by various tribal groups. So tell me, if gasoline is such a precious commodity, why are people driving around the Outback with big-block V-8 engines, superchargers, NOS systems and the like?
Everything I learned about NOs I learned from the guys that had it on their race bikes. There I was on my 500 Interceptor (could smoke any other 500 or 550 out there (four stroke, couldn't compete with the two strokes) and keep pretty close to the 600 Ninjas ... and these guys pull up with Suzuki 1150ES bikes with a blue bottle the size of a gallon milk jug bolted to the side.
:) Yaya, I rescind my 100% to roughly 90%.
... meaning as a gas or as a liquid it doesn't oxidize things like H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) or H2NO3 (Nitric Acid) might ...
The horn did double duty, and one of the guys had an orange 'Remove before flight' streamer on the pin he kept in his to keep from accidently tapping it before he was damn well ready.
Like all good hackers, you have this uncanny knack of seeing something and just storing it away, bringing it back two or three years later when Voila! it becomes noteworthy
Last note - when the thing you quoted said that NO2 doesn't react with most substances at room temperature, it implies -unless there is a spark-
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Yup. My current daily driver is an unmodified '84 K5 Blazer 4x4 with the GM 6.2L NA diesel. On the highway it will average around 27MPG, with 30MPG peak average for extended trips.
I drive 160 miles a day for my daily commute (round trip, all highway miles), and can go a week on one tank (31 gallons).
Compare that with any new SUV or light truck. I know I'm happy with my beat up K5!
To save myself even more $$$, I'm going to try and buy a used Chevy Sprint this weekend. Should be in the 50MPG range, and this car's not even fuel injected!
A teacher at my highschool remembers when he was in college that there were a couple of college students that invented a vehicle that ran around 60miles on 1 cylinder of gas...the secret to conserving so much gas was lost...my guess is that some oil company bought the remains of what was built and gave the sell-outs enough money to shut up about the whole idea...if anyone else has heard something similar to this just let me know all the details
Take a look at Iceland's initiative to go to all hydrogen powered vehicles. Do a search for "Iceland's Hydrogen Economy" to find all sorts of info on how hydrogen is working for them and their bid to convert their country completely by 2030-40. They'll open their first hydrogen filling station in April of this year, starting with some of their bus lines using it, and eventually plan to convert their fishing fleet, etc. Some amazing stuff really.
Some other good links are:
American Hydrogen Association
and
Fuel Cells Explained
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.