Slashdot Mirror
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."
I assume it starts like any diesel vehicle. You heat up the glow-plugs, and turn the engine over. Compression ignites the diesel fuel.
Removing the hydrogen shouldn't make the engine any more difficult to start.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Oh and don't forget the company's website. Under the technology tab they have some info as well.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
So by using diesel to power the vehicle's alternator, they can generate hydrogen and squirt it back into the engine.
:v)
Why does the cynic in me think it might be more energy-efficient to not load the alternator with a hydrogen generator in the first place?
Surely, if the alternator is not placing the additional load of the electrolysis equipment on the engine, the efficiency of the engine will go up?
Personally, if hydrogen does somehow improve things I'd suspect an even cleaner burn would result by injecting the oxygen from the electrolysis plant too...
Vik
http://www.physorg.com/news3700.html
Now that's what I'm talking 'bout
H2 is BS.
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
...considering where the hydrogen is produced, this fuel source may not be exactly the "less" polluting alternative as one may think.
I am so f sick and tired of gd SUV wanks and oil company astroturfers trotting this one out everytime someone mentions anything that sounds at all like it's going to challenge rotten dinosaur corpses as the fuel of choice.
RTFA numbnuts! The hydrogen is generated in the engine by the alternator. Despite the vast overhead of this electrolytic separation these guys are still saving 10 grand a year in fuel which easily pays for the simple bolt-on mod within a year or too. The source of the hydrogen is no more polluting than the engine it modifies because it is the engine it modifies.
Then I notice another equally brilliant mind observing the vast additional burden of 8 lb of water on an 80,000 lb truck. Grab a snatch of a clue as it goes over your head, Sparky. By my calcuations, the entire system, water and all weighs less than the fuel it saves every day.
For those who can't be bothered to RTFA and aren't completely offended, the system basically adds a small amount of hydrogen to the diesel. The effect is similar (though the mechanism may not be...IANACE) to adding a squirt of acetone to your gas tank.
I'll take a stab at this one...
If you think about the alternator that exists in every automotive vehicle with an internal combustion engine, it's probably reasonable to assume that not all of the power output from the alternator is needed at any given time to power the vehicle's components, especially at highway speeds, where the alternator is really moving along; why let that excess energy go to waste?
If my assumption is correct there (someonle please correct me if this idea is full of bunk), then this idea could be expanded even further by having a larger, yet more efficient alternator which doesnt take any more kinetic energy from the drivetrain, yet still puts out more volts/amps, which, since it isn't needed anywhere else at the time, can be used in electrolysis and saved for later use - or used on the spot - or slowly put into the engine at a controlled rate.
Just my thoughts, anyway.
People in the know: did I guess this right or is it just ignorant speculation?
Anyway it seems like an interesting idea to me. And no, I didn't RTFA, I admit it...
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
From the sounds of it
article: "Fuel efficiency and horsepower are improved because hydrogen burns faster and hotter than diesel, dramatically boosting combustion efficiency."
I read this as improving overall combustion efficiency. Although it's stretching their words alittle, what else could it be? The extra heat from the hydrogen must increase the efficiency of the diesel burning. It might be they spend %10 of the energy creating hydrogen (what is the efficiency of electrolosys?) and the little bit of hydrogen burning as fast as it does forces the combustion to reach an optimum temperature quicker. It can then spend more of the cycle in a more efficient state. Of course there can be other reasons that a different fuel mixture is better than others like the extra water produced by the hydrogen burning is acting as a catalytic for some chemical process.
The point being there could be some info out there that says that a 20:1 diesel to hydrogen mixture produces a 20% increase in combustion efficiency and something else that says a mechanical system is 50% efficient at producing hydrogen and that a normal diesel engine is %30 efficient converting diesel to mechanical energy then you email it to someone who's better at word problems than I am and you'll have your answer.
Anyway the only thing I found was that a 15:1 NOx mixture produces from 18% to 25%
Some news. It's amazing how we forget. A similar technique was achieved nearly 10 years ago WITHOUT the need for hydrogen --it just applied the electrolysis to the fuel itself. Our car engines could be 90% more efficient right now, but hmmmm for some reason the techonology never came about --oh, that's right, the problem was it offered no way to increase consumption addiction. Silly me V-8
My question, though, is why not just produce the hydrogen at a plant and enrich the diesel with it at the refinery?
Actually, Methanol/Water Injection on Diesel engines is like NOS on a gasser. The Methanol does make the diesel burn cleaner like the hydrogen in this article, and the water cools the EGTs (Exhaust Gas Temp) enough to keep everything from melting down. Virtually all race cars run on Methanol too.
Deuteronomy 13:06-9
The way they do this is actually much less efficent than it could be!
it should be performed similar to the way NO2 is used on sports cars with the trucker changing bottles when required and the injection controled by a new EMS it would work out signifigantly cheaper to buy and run and deliver more power and better milage
the truck isnt optimised to make hydrogen so having it do it instead is far less efficent than buying it made from natural gas by a gas company and means that benifits of using hydrogen as a catalyst are reduced
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own" - Adam Savage
As Carlin would have it ... the planet in no way shape or form is doomed by our actions. We however, are totally screwed.
Long after we kill off our ability to live here the planet will still exist. Organisms will adapt, and life will continue. Human life won't but life otherwise will.
Just make sure your lawn chair has a view when the world goes to hell in a hand basket.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The effects of hydrogen injection sound similar to the effects from water injection, except that it may work better without additional engine tuning.
Water injection (often mixed up to 50% with alcohol or methanol) has been used to improve the detonation resistance of combustion engines for many years. It was pioneered by WWII engineers looking to extract more power out of their engines during takeoff and landing, but now is typically only used by people modifying or racing their cars/trucks.
In your typical combustion engine, maximum power is very often limited by a phenomenom call detonation, also called ping or knock. What happens is that during the compression stroke, the air/fuel mixture overheats and spontaneously combusts which results in a huge spike in combustion chamber pressure. If it is bad enough, it can break pistons or damage rod/crank bearings leading to engine failure.
There are a number of ways to reduce the chance of detonation which primarily involve cooling temperatures in the combustion chamber. A very common way of doing this is to add extra fuel to the mixture, but obviously this is not efficient or clean.
By injecting a small mist of water into the air/fuel mixture, the presence of water will help cool the mixture and prevent detonation, letting you lean out the engine to where maximum power is produced as well as adding additional timing advance and/or add boost (if running a turbo or supercharger).
As a side effect, the water ends up "steam cleaning" your combustion chamber which keeps carbon deposits to a minimum and your engine running well.
However, water injection does nothing unless your power output is detonation limited. In fact, if you inject water with no other changes, power output will go down a small amount.
It sounds like hydrogen injection may improve power and combustion efficiency in all situations.
Since the amount of hydrogen generated can't be that large, I imagine that using hydrogen injection in addition to water injection for heavy engine loads would be a great combination.
Hmm, maybe I better patent that idea.
> ...hence it is producing (especially when the battery is full) more power than is
:)
> used, but still causing the same amount of load on the engine.
Oh God, what are they teaching kids in school these days. No. The more electrical load on an alternator the more force is required to drive it.
When a high load device, such as a high torque motor, starts up a generator will noticably bog down for a moment and the engine will rev to compensate. Trust me on this, I'm in Southwest Louisiana, Rita taught us a thing or two about generators.
Same thing on a rig with one of these puppies. If it is going to generate non-trivial amounts of hydrogen it is going to require a non-trivial quantity of energy in the form of electrical current and an alternator driven by an internal combustion engine isn't very efficient. Most use simple shunt regulators for heaven's sake! That means the power you get from burning the hydrogen is a lot less than what went into seperating it from water. So unless it makes the diesel burn a LOT better it won't be paying its way.
It will make the engine run 'greener' though, which is what this is likely mostly about.
Democrat delenda est
If you go read the manufacturer's web site they don't claim that the introduction of hydrogen itself will increase the fuel efficiency, but that the hydrogen will clean out the carbon deposits in the engine.
.001% hydrogen to air ratio in the cylinders during combustion.
The process will take "from 0 to 9 months" depending on the type of vehicle, amount of build-up, the weather, the speeds driven, the idling time, start/stop driving, etc. Once the engine is cleaned you can see up to "40% increase in fuel efficiency".
We're talking about some insanely small amounts of hydrogen here.
The standard kit holds about 4 liters of water and will run for about 12,000KM. If 2/3 of the water is converted to H and captured for use, that means there's 2,261 liters of hydrogen extracted.
I randomly took a Volvo VE D12 395 engine for specs:
12.13L displacement and 1500RPM suggested cruise RPM, I'll guess 95Km/h is "cruise".
12,000KM / 95KM/H = 124.3 hours
Hydrogen is produced at 18 liters per hour
124.3 hours * 1500RPM = 11,187,000 revolutions
11,187,000 revolutions * 12.13L = 135,698,310 Liters of displaced air/fuel mixture
If my conversions and guesses are close, that means there's
I say scrap the entire thing. Don't hack in to your electrical system and don't carry around the extra weight of the machine and water. If you want to reduce operating costs, increase fuel efficiency and reduce pollution then BURN BIO-DIESEL!! Bio-Diesel has a net zero effect on atmospheric carbon, is low cost (about $.50us/gal to produce yourself), and is a tremendously powerful solvent that cleans engines of deposits like nobody's business.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Nitrous Oxide in of itself is not hard on the engine. What makes it hard on the engine is the amount injected into it. Being that speed and performance is an addiction most street racers, they often get greedy on the Nitrous shots. Ever more and more, they crank up the mixture. And for the really clueless idiots, burn a fucking hole in the piston head.
Point being, it can be safe for everyday use so long as its computer controlled automatically. But, let the user control the amount injected...and you will end up with a short lived engine.
Life is not for the lazy.
On the downside, the alternator is now constantly loaded, which is an unusual situation and does require additional power.
Apparently the increase in overall combustion efficiency from the addition of H2 and O2 more than offsets the additional power requirement for the electrolysis. So in the end the engine is more efficient and saves money. Cleaner combustion should also lengthen engine lifespan.
It should be possible to do the same thing easily with most automobile engines. The only problem I see is ensuring that the alternator is not overloaded, which is primarily a function of the electrolysis electrode size.
This should also make automobiles easier to start, something useful in wintertime in high-altitude regions such as California where CARB gasoline is a requirement (and is a poor starting fuel).
Why are they getting the power from the distributer when there is all that lovely heat comming off the engine/exhaust that could be used to make electricity?
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Virtually all drag cars run on nitro methane, including Monster trucks, top fuel and funny cars and the like. I have a feeling that's what the GP was refering too. It's the same fuel that runs little gas RC cars and planes.
Not exactly. Diesel engines cause ignition through compression; this is why diesel engines don't use spark plugs. Because they use compression to fire the charge (air mixed with fine particles of fuel oil) and the compression only rises to its peak for a short period, at high rpms some of the fuel particles are left unburnt because there isn't enough time to burn it completely before the exhaust valve opens and compression is lost.
And since horsepower is torque (twisting power) expressed through time (work), greater horsepower requires more rpm, all other things equal. Which makes the above situation worse.
This works because compressing a gas (the air in the mixture) causes the temp to rise (First law of thermodynamics) but only near the top of the stroke. Adding hydrogen causes the mixture, apparently, to fire quicker (at a lower temperature) so it can burn more completely, producing more power (efficiency) and less polluting compounds and unburnt fuel.
So it is not exactly a catalyst in that it has no part to play in the *chemical* reaction process. But it helps manage a diesel's combustion, appartenly, in a way that otherwise could not be accomplished.
I'd like to see an organization like Anandtech do a piece about this....