Hydrogen car

At 6 gallons per ton of wood, not a very productive process.

Sorry about the units, but they're the numbers I found a few weeks ago when a friend was talking about needing methanol as part of the process for making proper biodiesel from vegetable oil...

The wood is burnt in a fire with a restricted grate. The result is that the gas drawn to the engine contains a high proportion of carbon monoxide. The engine performance seriously sucks. :-)

Just need something that you can unbolt the LPG mixer and bolt on the methanol carby and CO mixer... :-)

After all, nobody in their right mind would be running a vehicle on petrol! :-p

Reply to
athol
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On or around Thu, 8 Sep 2005 15:43:28 +0300, "Peter" enlightened us thusly:

different fuel, might need more change in the fuelling than a CNG system will permit.

FSVO "widely available". LPG systems are, but they're different as you're doubtless aware.

Methane generator might be a better bet. doesn't need power, just a supply of bullshit, should have 'em in the house of commons...

Reply to
Austin Shackles

On or around Thu, 8 Sep 2005 19:07:36 +0000 (UTC), Bela enlightened us thusly:

It's been done. Ford and BMW to name 2 have deomstrated H-fuelled vehicles; Ford's is a fuel-cell machine while BMW burn the H in an IC engine.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

Oxides of nitrogen can form at high temperatures and high compressions, as you see in gasoline engines. I dont believe you are likely to get those conditions in a hydrogen/air engine, but I'll research it a bit to make sure.

You can 'burn' air in a shock tube with nothing else present, and that makes me want to take a deeper look.

Reply to
<HLS

Once it is in the tank, fine. I was worrying about the system that takes gas at lower pressure, compresses it, and fills tank. If one has a home setup to make hydrogen from water, one has to have the whole system.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

No, you get regular water, two atoms of hydrogen and one oxygen per molecule, not hydrogen peroxide.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

That is why we burn gasoline in cars today. It is a marvelous substance. It IS possible to make artificial gasoline. I believe we should be spending more money on trying to make it in an efficient and environmentally friendly way, for the short term. That will buy us some time on finding a way to generate hydrogen economically. Hydrogen is reasonably efficient in compressed or hydride-solution storage, in terms of BTUs per cubic foot. Really good in BTUs per pound.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

The size is not the only criterion in determining diffusion rates. Helium, while a smaller molecule, diffuses much faster. Actually, hydrogen stores fine in metal tanks. Hydrides hold it very well. And gasoline, as in another current thread, evaporates. We live with that.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

Not much change from today. Major emissions from gasoline are water and carbon dioxide. Burning any hydrocarbon generates much water. The carbon dioxide is a much more important problem.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

I like engineering the bugs to generate hydrogen instead. That one sounds like a winner to me. Folks are working on it.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

No industrial electric process is 100%. Admittedly thermal generators are far less efficient. But you have joule heating in the conductors feeding the cells in electrolysis.

Problem is that since it is NOT 100% efficient, you can not use electricity generated by burning hydrogen to feed electrolysis plant. That is, the overall efficiency is less than 100%, so we still need another source of energy to feed system.

Reply to
Don Stauffer

It's more like 15% by the time you done getting the hydrogen into a workable form. Any energy you take by burning hydrogen reduced the efficieny further. There's no such as a pertual motion machine; trying to tie output to input

*always* reduced efficiency.
Reply to
AZ Nomad

It is amazing how many products can be made nowadays by bacterial processes. I visited an acrylamide plant in France not too long ago, and they presently make all their monomer by a fermentation process. They claim to get purity not possible by other methods.

Another way to get hydrogen might be to use the water gas reaction. Hydrogen, carbon monoxide,and a host of other things are generated. CO can be used in fuel cells, and hydrogen as primary fuel.

We did some work on this years ago and found that once initiated, the water gas reaction is self sustaining. It does not need air blasts to keep it going, and generates heat like crazy. Controlling it on a lab scale was a problem.

Reply to
<HLS

I think he's referring to water that has oxygen content. Oxygenated water is made when you diffuse oxygen into water. I thought the same thing at first and then did a search on super oxygenated water and apparently sports drinks are trying to market oxygenated water as being healthier and better for you. The fact is the oxygen doesn't stay in the water and it doesn't do anything for you if it could stay. It's like carbonated water. Water that has carbon dioxide *in* it.

Reply to
Bruce Chang

Yeah Great! The bugs get loose and all our water goes up in smoke!

Reply to
wws

DS> The size is not the only criterion in determining diffusion rates. DS> Helium, while a smaller molecule, diffuses much faster. Actually, DS> hydrogen stores fine in metal tanks. Hydrides hold it very well. And DS> gasoline, as in another current thread, evaporates. We live with that.

Sure, you can store it in liquid or gas form, but when it makes its way from the "tank" to the combustion chamber(s), there are valves, pumps (a distribution system) that need to be sealed orders of magnitude better than for gasoline, or even large-molecule hydrocarbons (LP, Nat Gas, etc.). Not saying it's not possible, we just don't have the technology yet. Maybe on Mars...

P.S.: Well, a He atom is indeed smaller than a H2 molecule ;-)

Reply to
Bela

compressions, as

conditions in

And don't forget what non-metal oxides in the presence of water produces.

So, so far we minimally have nitrous and nitric oxides, their acids, ammonium and it's hydroxide and hydrates...

Reply to
.

That might more correctly be termed EFFUSION rates.

Reply to
.

There are too many 'if's' to come up with a perfect answer. Hydrogen is a good reducing agent, so if run slightly rich, oxides of nitrogen would likely not occur.

Ammonia and its related compounds combust relatively easily to form nitrogen oxides. I don't think we are likely to get any ammonium compounds formed without catalysts, and if not added intentionally, there would be none in hydrogen feed stock or in a well developed engine.

Burning hydrogen in air doesn't bother me, and you get water... Exploding hydrogen/air mixtures under pressure is what I want to check on.

If I can access the information from the German busses, then we will know exactly what happens.

Reply to
<HLS

I found the Ford hydrogen combustion buses and the actual emissions are next to zero. Havent found the German ones yet.

London has these buses running, but they use hydrogen fuel cells. Again, next to no emission problems.

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Apparently my original statement is reasonably well supported.

Reply to
<HLS

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