Hydrogen-Boosted Internal Combustion Engines -- Scam Or Not ???

No, not likely.

Modern systems already do a pretty good job of burning the fuel to near completion. There is little left over to recover.

Losses due to friction and unused heat would seem to be the biggest remaining factors which might be improved, and this hydrogen oxygen (Brown's gas) thing is not geared to help minimize those losses.

It is sort of like cost accounting...take into account all the factors, and this electrolysis bit doesnt really help the bottom line.

You still cannot get around the laws of thermodynamics.

Scam.

Think about it in these terms:

Gasoline engine bleeds power to battery for electrolysis to generate hydrogen which is fed to engine as fuel.

This would basically make it a perpetual motion device with no net gain in energy.

In fact there is energy lost in heat and friction to generate and burn the hydrogen which means adding such devices to your car would result in lower mileage.

That might not be the point. AIUI modern engines recirculate exhaust gasses to cool the flame and produce less NOx. It also reduces engine efficiency. Maybe injecting the mix raises the temp back up and increases efficiency (at the cost of more NOx).

Also water injection is an old technique of getting better mileage.

It is not claimed that all of the energy for the engine comes from the hydrogen. Most of the energy continues to come from the gasoline. The claim is that more energy is extracted from the gasoline by more efficient burning, due to the addition of the gases from electrolysis.

While you're out in the weeds, I lost a Frisbee out there. Could you keep an eye open for that? Thanks.

If there were no improvement in the combustion of the gasoline, that would be true. The claim is that the electrolysis gases improve the combustion of gasoline.

any car whose combustion can be "improved" to the point that you notice a difference needs a tuneup, not H2 injection.

nate

We have all read the claims, Mark. The science is bogus.

There we go again, folks.More Snake Oil! cuhulin

It is based on a myth. While it is well-known that the efficiency of the IC engine is around the 30-40% mark at best, the myth is that this is due to incomplete combustion, and that most of the fuel goes out the tailpipe. This is not true. Almost all fuel in a properly tuned engine is combusted.

The two energy losses are heat into the cooling jacket of any cooled engine, and the energy (heat and pressure) in the exhaust. While there have been attempts at building uncooled (adiabatic) engines, the biggest hangup so far is the lubricants. When internal temps get too high all existing lubricants break down.

Turbocharging does recover some exhaust energy, but we cannot take out too much exhaust energy, or it will limit engine's ability to breath, reducing horsepower for a given engine size. We can indeed increase thermal consumption by this road, but it results in a heavier engine. That is okay for a stationary engine, but any engine used in transportation, must be as light as possible. If a heavy but more fuel efficient engine is used, the total vehicle weight goes up, requiring more energy, so we end up still burning more fuel :-(

"D> It is based on a myth. While it is well-known that the efficiency of

hanson wrote: Don, you are kind but you won't change any minds in the Alternative- or Hydrogen fuel cults. They have their minds made up to get to their vapid heaven... with a religious passion. Whenever the fuel prices rise you see 2 phenomena emerging: (1) the compulsive savers who wish to beat the transportation game at any cost and hence believe anything. (2) the conning saviors who accommodate their fantasies with any scam the can lay on (1) Here is how the current dreams and schemes of (1) and (2) will end up, since these 2 cults reject not only the iron existence of the laws of thermodynamics but also refuse to believe in games that the powerful oil boys play: <

> < > < > ahahaha.... ahahahanson

Don Stauffer in Minnesota wrote:

That would be your myth. It is just a straw man for you to argue against. The basis of the theory of why mixing hydrogen with gasoline improves thermal efficiency is not that it results in more complete combustion. Nor is it that the laws of nature can be broken. The first study which was sponsored by NASA and involved airplane engines was done more than 30 years ago and they were able to achieve 20% improved fuel economy with hydrogen gasoline mixture. Do you think someone forgot to tell NASA about the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Several studies since then have also confirmed the original findings. The theory is that hydrogen mixed with petrol does 3 things. 1) under very light loads it is possible to efficiently burn extremely lean mixtures this has been shown to achieve 50% less petrol use at idle. 2) hydrogen mixed with gasoline burns much faster than gas alone. 3) hydrogen enrichment boosts octane. Engines can be designed to take advantage of these properties. The theory is that by combusting all the fuel earlier in the power stroke delivers more of the energy to the drive train. The gasoline that burns late in the power stroke may burn completely but because it occurs so late in the cycle the energy is mostly wasted. There is a Canadian company that that modifies engines at a cost $4,000-$10,000 that claims 20% improvement in mileage with no performance loss (they give a guarantee of 10% fuel savings). Needless to say that won't pay for itself until fuel costs go higher.

This is not to say that the stuff now being sold on the internet is not a scam. Those do-it-yourself kits probably are all scams.

-jim

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"hanson" wrote in message news:Zvg%j.33067$3j.5246@trnddc05... | "Don Stauffer in Minnesota" wrote in message | news: snipped-for-privacy@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com... | > Mark Thorson wrote: | >> A couple years ago, there was a thread in rec.autos.tech | >> about devices to electrolyze water and feed the gases | >> into an engine, supposedly greatly increasing gas mileage. | >> | > | "Don Stauffer in Minnesota" wrote: | > It is based on a myth. While it is well-known that the efficiency of | > the IC engine is around the 30-40% mark at best, the myth is that this | > is due to incomplete combustion, and that most of the fuel goes out | > the tailpipe. This is not true. Almost all fuel in a properly tuned | > engine is combusted. | > | > The two energy losses are heat into the cooling jacket of any cooled | > engine, and the energy (heat and pressure) in the exhaust. While | > there have been attempts at building uncooled (adiabatic) engines, the | > biggest hangup so far is the lubricants. When internal temps get too | > high all existing lubricants break down. | > | > Turbocharging does recover some exhaust energy, but we cannot take out | > too much exhaust energy, or it will limit engine's ability to breath, | > reducing horsepower for a given engine size. We can indeed increase | > thermal consumption by this road, but it results in a heavier engine. | > That is okay for a stationary engine, but any engine used in | > transportation, must be as light as possible. If a heavy but more fuel | > efficient engine is used, the total vehicle weight goes up, requiring | > more energy, so we end up still burning more fuel :-( | > | hanson wrote: | Don, you are kind but you won't change any minds in the | Alternative- or Hydrogen fuel cults. They have their minds | made up to get to their vapid heaven... with a religious passion. | Whenever the fuel prices rise you see 2 phenomena emerging: | (1) the compulsive savers who wish to beat the transportation | game at any cost and hence believe anything. | (2) the conning saviors who accommodate their fantasies | with any scam the can lay on (1) | Here is how the current dreams and schemes of (1) and (2) | will end up, since these 2 cults reject not only the iron existence | of the laws of thermodynamics but also refuse to believe in | games that the powerful oil boys play: | <

> | < > | < > | ahahaha.... ahahahanson | I like the idea of hydrogen as a fuel, don't you? The problem I see with it is that it takes a lot of crude oil to electrolyze the water in the first place and you can't carry much hydrogen around in a compressed state without cooling it to way down low, which adds up to danger. What's needed is another Nobel, someone to come up with a way of making it as safe as nitro-glycerine in clay, there when you need it but safe enough to toss around. Don't you chemical whizzes know of something, a catalyst perhaps, that can do that? Perhaps if you bonded it with some inexpensive substance like carbon, there is plenty of coal still around... . . . . . . . . . . . :)))

hanson wrote: Yes, all the technologies for AF & H have been here for a long time. But the issue is whether they will catch on widespread and for good. I say no, because even after tapping and using up only 1% of all the existing C&CH reserves, the real "Peak Oil" is at least 1500 years in the future... See details of why in above links. The last time, in the

1970's when has we such an oil spasm... Prez Carted ordered the SYNFUEL project which the oil boys promptly bankrupted simply by dropping the crude oil price to $10 (ten)/ bbl... ahahaha... This time around it boils down to a contest of wills: ::: Is it cheaper to change the lifestyle of some 4 billion people ::: (EU, US, IN, CH etc) by green preachings.... or to force a ::: change of the behavior in a pitifully small fraction of 0.6% of ::: that 4 billion, in some 25 million Iraqis? ... ::: "Global oil demand has increased only by 1% last year, ::: So why has the oil price risen by 200% in that same time"?...

ahahahaha.. See details in the above links... ahahahanson

That idea has been played around with on this NG many years ago. Jed Checketts, a sincere, but misinformed inventor produced an encapsulated version of NaH or Na that could be crushed and dropped into water to produce hydrogen. He saw this a way to produce hydrogen on demand to feed an engine. However the dangers of hydrogen aside he was also transporting a dangerous solution for a passenger vehicle that was a lye solution. Can you see the hazard when a collision sundered the tank and a strong lye solution splashed out onto a city street? Also his processes for producing the NaH used some considerable chemical processes which produced the CO2 that he felt he was avoiding in such a process. He eventually left the field and sold his company for producing the process. We have heard no more of this and Jed has not been on this NG for quite a few years. I can see a couple of niche uses for such a system but not any wide spread use. Getting rid of the lye solution is one super problem. FK

Never underestimate the inventiveness of humanity, Fred. Not every idea works as it is first proposed but sooner or later an intelligent mind with the necessary experience will solve any technological problem the market demands.

Einstein saythe speed of light from A to B is c-v,the speed of light from Bto A is c+v,the "time" each way is the same?

The key is less petrol use. Of course there is less petrol use, another fuel has been added to the system.

It's like someone fills up their car with 15 gallons of fuel... drives awhile, nearly runs out of gas so they dump in 5 gallons from can... then they get to station and fill up with 15 gallons again... takes the miles driven and divides by 15 and gets an astounding fuel economy number... That 5 gallons of gasoline is like the H2 being pumped into the engine..

A bottle of H2 mixed with the gasoline is something entirely different than this nonsense of using a gasoline engine to generate electricity to make H2 and then mix the H2 with the gasoline and get a benefit. That just doesn't work.

I wouldn't be surprised if having H2 mixed with gasoline has a benefit on gasoline consumption. It's just not plausable when that H2 is created from water by the same engine that is powered by the gasoline & H2 mix.

If we had giant windfarms that powered H2 production processes.. that could actually save gasoline.

Well that is wrong. There have been several ways this has been done none of them involved adding fuel from an outside source. I think the NASA experiment used some kind of catalyst and the exhaust heat to extract hydrogen from a small fraction of the gasoline. Others designs use electrolysis. In any case, the fuel consumed to produce hydrogen is counted as part of the fuel consumed.

I don't know where you arrived at the fictitious bottle of H2, but again your conclusions are wrong. Hydrogen enrichment has been shown to work. What you seem to miss is that you aren't likely to see any benefit unless you design the engine around the fuel. Just adding some gadget on to a street vehicle isn't going to be able to take advantages of the fuel's properties.

Not plausible? Take a look at an idling gasoline engine. Most of the work the engine is doing is pushing air thru a very narrow opening (closed throttle). The reason it must do this is that gasoline alone just simply won't burn if there is to much air. A diesel engine is much more efficient when idling because it doesn't throttle the air flow. That throttling amounts to a lot of wasted energy in a gas engine. When you use hydrogen mixed with gasoline the mix will burn cleanly at much leaner mixes than gasoline alone. That means if you are idling at 30:1 air to fuel you can have much less throttling to keep the engine running at the same speed and lot less energy expended, The energy savings is more than what it takes to produce the small amount of hydrogen that is need to make the process work. Basically you aren't violating any laws - the engine is just running with a lot less wasted heat. What is not plausible about that?

That said - don't go out and buy one of these internet advertised kits. The engines that have made this work involve a complete redesign of both the engine and engine control units.

-jim

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Then why don't you make a proper cite then?

Well, maybe you should maker proper cites. Otherwise I'll fill in the blanks as I see fit.

Did not say it had not.

Didn't miss it at all.

*sigh* it's the energy required to make H2 from water that makes it not plausable, not the part about H2 changing combustion properties... geebus.

Absolutely, as these scams are presented, they appeal to the greed, and the lack of scientific knowledge, of the reader..

There is still no free lunch.