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Truckers Choose Hydrogen Power
hipernoico writes to tell us Wired News is reporting that hundreds of semi trucks now on the roads are being partially powered by hydrogen. From the article: "These 18-wheelers make hydrogen as they go, eliminating the need for high-pressure, cryogenic storage tanks or hydrogen filling stations, which, by the way, don't yet exist. These truckers aren't just do-gooders. They like Canadian Hydrogen Energy's Hydrogen Fuel Injection, or HFI, system because it lets them save fuel, get more horsepower and, as a bonus, cause less pollution."
They like Canadian Hydrogen Energy's Hydrogen Fuel Injection, or HFI, system because it lets them save fuel, get more horsepower and, as a bonus, cause less pollution."
Could our root problem be that we consider less pollution a bonus instead of a motivating factor?
The faster and farther we get away from oil the better IMHO. I think the bonus should be the extra MPG, and the environmental impact should be the reason. We can spare a few $$$ for environmentally friendlier vehicles. I guess the real problem is, if the government does not intervene, companies will only do what will profit them, and if it does, we end up with violations of rights. Will we ever make the switch in consumer end vehicles in the long run?
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But the HFI system uses electricity from an engine's alternator to power the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen as needed from small amounts of distilled water.
R Given that diesel engines are not 100% efficient, and even assuming that water->hydrogen is. How is it this produces a net gain in energy? The burning hydrogen should only produce as much energy as is used to seperate the oxygen and hydrogen. Disconecting the alternator (which many cars do right now to increase fuel efficiency) should save more gasoline than seperating the water to hydrogen/oxygen.
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Are we talking about perpetual motion?
...this fuel source may not be exactly the "less" polluting alternative as one may think.
No, the trucks still run mainly on diesel augmented with hydrogen.
It's less polluting because the hydrogen boosts the performance of the engine over burning diesel alone, lowers particulates, and all that good stuff. So it does pollute less, by burning the fuel more efficiently.
Wha? I always thought the stereotypical trucker was pissed about how much gas prices were cutting into their income (or the corporation was if the trucker didn't own his rig).
In either case the diesel is cutting into someones proffits and someone is eager to cut costs. Maybe the ends isn't a decrease in pollution, but it's a natural by product in using less fuel, which is a major goal for any semi-truck owner.
Conservation of energy and thermodynamics tells us that this system has to operate with a net loss in efficiency for the *same* operating conditions. Perhaps the enhanced combustion improves the thermodynamic efficiency of the engine enough to offset energy required to produce the hydrogen and yield a 10% reduction in fuel consumption.
For all the naysayers, keep in mind, these truckers make their LIVING hauling product long distances. If this didn't work, or made the overall process less effecient, they'd know it. We're talking about their own profits it would be eating into, not some mystery lab result.
Sorry, but doubt hundreds of truckers are going to do that just to help out a company that involved in "psuedo science".
Did nobody read up on this? The hydrogen helps the engine burn more of the fuel that would have been released unused. That is why you use less fuel and have lower emissions.
The alternator is being driven regardless of whether you use some of the electricity to split water into hydrogen or not. This isn't a matter of getting something for nothing... it's a matter of not throwing away electricity that's already being generated by the alternator.
When will people finally figure out that causing less pollution should be a goal, not just a pretty side-effect? Unless people do, our planet is doomed.
You get more energy back than it took to produce the hydrogen because you are burning the deisel fuel more efficiently. So instead of unburnt deisel fuel being pumped out the smoke stack that causes all the black smoke, you are burning it. You will get more energy out of the now burnt deisel fuel than it takes to make the hydrogen. So, you have more energy doing work in the engine. Thus it is more efficient, and cuts down on fuel costs. You don't have to mash your foot on the floor and waste fuel.
This is not hydrogen power. Not even close. All it's doing is generating a small amount of hydrgen to make the diesel combustion more efficient and complete. This is not perpetual motion (taking energy out and putting a greater amount back into the system), it's just a bit of fancy chemistry to make the existing diesel burn better. This has nothing to do with the hydrogen fuel debate.
not all of the power output from the alternator is needed at any given time to power the vehicle's components... why let that excess energy go to waste?
That energy isn't going to waste. The greater the load, the harder it is to turn the alternator, so the more power it consumes from the engine.
But that's not how this gadget works. The hydrogen generated isn't really used to get more power directly, but to make the existing combustion of diesel more efficient. Which results in more power, and less incompletely combusted crud (that noxious cloud of soot when the truck accelerates represents wasted energy). At least, that's what TFA says.
Yes, it takes energy to separate the water. That's not the whole story.
The hydrogen and oxygen don't just re-combine - that would clearly not make up the energy spent - they improve combustion of the diesel fuel. Presumably that improvement more than makes up for the energy spent.
Think: SUPERCHARGER. That also takes energy away from an engine by putting a mechanical load on it, and it's worthwhile because the higher air pressure gives a better fuel burn. Plus, as anyone who watched "Mad Max" knows, you can put an electrical clutch on a supercharger so you're only using it at high speed when that tradeoff is most effective.
As others have noted, truckers and trucking companies are in business to make money, and they wouldn't be doing this if it didn't work on the road. And for everyone whining about how ecology should be the primary issue: Nobody wants to pollute, they're just saving short-term money on prevention. Make NON-pollution cost less and everyone will adopt it in a heartbeat.
When something sounds too good to be true, always look for what they skate around.
Or, look for failures of logic and/or math. Using your numbers, and the numbers of a reply to your post: his truck drives 4500 miles a week, and he gets about 7mpg (1200 miles on 175 gallons). 4500/7=640 gallons consumed a week; 2.75/gallon=$1767 in fuel per week.
Your numbers assumed that this device might allow for a 10% in fuel savings--that'd be $176/week, or x4=$707/month, or very close to what the article estimated the savings were--$700/month. On a $14K device, you'd make it back in 20 months or so-although I also question the consequences of running a (10%?) hotter engine for those kinds of periods ie does it stress the cooling system, or wear the engine components faster?
The only ones suggesting that there is some magic in the hydrogen didn't RTFA. It was pretty clear to me, at least, that the extra power/fuel savings isn't from the hydrogen burn itself, but that the energy released by that burn allowed otherwise unburned (and therefore uncaptured) exhaust particulate to be consumed.
When you go to light a fire with a match, you get more energy in return than what it took to produce the match; you burn the kindling. Here we have kindling flowing out the tailpipe because it wasn't ignited--so the hydrogen is just a match. You naysayers are forgetting that ICE aren't 100% efficient already--so this process raises the efficiency of the primary fuel source, which apparently it can do in greater gains than it took to produce the hydrogen in the first place.
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$tar -xvf
Incomplete combustion occurs because too much fuel is present per mass of air in the cylinder.
Ever have a campfire? Although you had unlimited air supply, why did you have unburned logs at the conclusion of it? Answer: because the material that didn't burn didn't reach the heat needed to combust. If you took a blowtorch to those remaining logs, you may be able to get another fire going, as the particulate that didn't reach it's combustion point the first time is burned off. With enough unburned logs, you might be able to get more energy back than the blowtorch uses. Same principal here.
At least in my view this entire system is bunk and the person interviewed must have some financial interest in the promotion of this product.
Or maybe he just knows what he's talking about, and doesn't draw conclusions from a single faulty premise.
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Air normally contains (roughly) 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 1% Argon, and trace amounts of a couple of dozen other molecules. This is increasing the amount of Oxygen and Hydrogen in the air entering the engine and conversely lowering the ratio of the Nitrogen, Argon and other (mostly nonvolatile) gases. This will naturally allow for a quicker, hotter, more complete burn that generates more power and less naughty parts like Nitrogen oxides and particulate matter.
I would imagine that the additional Oxygen provides a large chunk of the benefits, rather than it just being attributed to the Hydrogen.
They've actually invented a way to use some handy prepackaged "air for burning" (distilled water) that is (relatively) efficient and simple to make by using electrolysis. Not too much of it, because there it can be too much of a good thing. Try running an engine off pure oxygen and see what you get. You'd still get explosions, but they'd likely be uncontained this time around. The amount of electricity to electrolyse a lot of water would be quite counter-productive anyway.
I would imagine you could get much of the same results if you could figure out a way to filter some of the Nitrogen out of the incoming air. Unfortunately, there's no good, cheap, efficient way to do that... yet....
My point is that if it's economically ripe, the truckers will be the first to use a new form of energy. If they ain't using it, it ain't ripe (unless it's an amphetamine). Moreover, "If you got it, a truck brought it."
Diesels actually have excess air available, with the possible (but unlikely) exception of full demand. They emit carbon because there is not enough time for all the fuel to burn fully. The hydrogen /may/ improve the combustion efficiency to reduce this, or even prevent it.
Of course, if they then richen the mixture again (and knowing truckies that's quite likely) then you are back where you started, but with more power.
I don't necessarily believe the hype, but the benefits of using hydrogen to improve efficiency and reduce emissions has been demonstrated by several groups over the past decade.
You're absolutely correct, as far as I can see. Diesel smoke is influenced by a) the air-fuel ratio b) the timing of the injection of fuel into the cylinder. Since diesel engines typically rarely run at stoichiometric (where some smoke could result) ratio for very long, I don't see the hydrogen having a smoke reducing/power+efficiency increasing ability as a result of being used purely as a fuel.
The thing is, after the diesel is injected into the cylinder, there is a sort of lag in the combustion of the fuel, because of oxygen availability and proximity. It's not instantaneous, just like gasoline in an engine, it takes time for the flame to propagate in the cylinder, however short that time is. Obviously, more efficiency is obtained when the flame is contained going at full blast for the entire power stroke, but since there is a lag in combustion, the fuel has to be injected before the cylinder reaches top dead center on the power stroke. Under full load conditions, the combustion lag is longer because the increased fuel, but similar fuel/air proximity. This results in unburnt fuel getting exhausted, resulting in higher exhaust gas temperatures, and typically more boost if there is a turbocharger present--the unburnt fuel is being combusted in the manifold, just before the turbo. It's not obvious, but in the diesel truck tuning industry, this is actually desirable--it increases efficiency and performance because that fuel is still being utilized--to increase boost pressure (increasing the effective compression ratio and therefore efficiency) and allow for even more fuel to be injected, but I'm sure it causes more stress on the engine's materials.
Consumer trucks can already have propane injection installed as aftermarket modifications. Propane is injected into the intake manifold. It's just a guess, I'm not a diesel guy, but I know a bit about it... I'd guess the result of doing so is to effectively decrease the ignition lag of the diesel fuel itself, thereby allowing injection timings nearer TDC... Thus giving the fuel more time to completely burn in the power stroke, increasing efficiency, power, and reducing particulate emissions--but only at high load conditions. If any of that makes any sense, particularly to a non-gearhead, I'd be surprised, but oh well.
If this is the case, they're obviously touting hydrogen because "everyone" knows hydrogen is "green", and propane is not, you know, even though it's probably more efficient and cheaper to just use propane.
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about $.50us/gal to produce yourself
I would like to see where you came up with this number, if truckers could produce their fuel at 1/4 the cost, I'm sure we would see bio-deisel everywhere.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
Well, according to this company http://www.dieselgas.com.au/home.htm it's possible but it takes about 100000KM to break even. Not worth it I'd say seeing how the truckers are already seeing $700 per month per truck in fuel savings without having to buy any LPG. This company in the article seems like a pretty good trial to me and more trucks should get this system in the future.
Sure it probably wouldn't make much sense for a regular car unless you drive a lot or really care about the environment, but for trucks that can be driving 12 hrs a day or 24 hrs a day sometimes with 2 drivers it's worth it.
Some one did not read the article. The hydrogen comes from electrolysis. This is powered by the alternator on the truck and results in some pure O2 as a byproduct. The energy ultimately come from the diesel fuel but the net result is improved efficiency.