Homemade Hydrogen Fuel Cell

I know of no available blueprints or instructions to construct the size device you would need to run a furnace. However, I can offer some suggestions/observations that you may or may not have taken into consideration.

It sounds like you are looking to build an electrolyzer instead of a fuel cell.

You would be better off installing electric base-board heating or some other form of resistive heating to most effectively utilize the electric energy. The amount of energy you get from burning the hydrogen will be nowhere near the amount of electric energy you use to produce the hydrogen.

If you are proposing to supply the electric energy from photo voltaic panels, you would need a very large array to provide enough current for the electrolysis process. I doubt you could ever recover the capital investment.

Before investing a large amount of time and money, you really should do a detailed cost/benefit analysis.

But hydrogen's self ignition temperature is 560 deg C (but very sensitive to spark)

who cares about the temperature, it doesn't matter, it takes huge quanities of H2 to get enough energy to do the work required.

I have an easier way to get the power he will need.

1) Take a long chain similar to the heavy ones used on big tow trucks.

2) Put the one end in a 55 gallon steel drum, that is well grounded of the magic solution.

3) Toss the other end of the chain onto the high voltage line, and watch the fun.

__________________
Bob

Twice in one hour. This may be a record.

To: LockedUp - You should be!

Typical hydrogen fuel cell

Oh the humanity!

These flames appear to be of burning fabric, not the "explosion" posited by earlier posters for Hydrogen gas... Whenever I've burned Hydrogen it was a transparent blue "pop" not a prolonged ascending column of luminescence.

Just an observation.

milo

I would suggest that probably the explosion of the hydrogen occurred first and as a result of that explosion the pictured fire resulted. i.e. All the hydrogen was "consumed" in the initial explosion.

Agreed.

WHere have you been, have not seen you on the boards in a while?

milo

WHere have you been, have not seen you on the boards in a while?

Well Milo I retired last December, however they couldn't find anyone to replace me, so the boss asked me to come back on a casual basis (hahaha). With the exception of about four weeks, coming up soon, I will be working until mid December.

I did have a month on holiday in June before I started work............oh! Well, such is retirement. I enjoyed it while it lasted.

I suppose that having taught for so many years I felt a certain empathy for the students...........it certainly wasn't the boss......... here goes nothing!

Oh, I nearly forgot.........thank you for noticing that I had been miissing..........certainly a nice thought..........thanks.

That "casual basis" thing seems to get us every time...

Twofold congrats:

1) for earning your retirement;

2) for being valuable enough to have them want you and your gifts back.

milo

2) for being valuable enough to have them want you and your gifts back.

Someone did mention about returning my retirement gifts.............only joking, of course............I think.

I pointed out that it would be very kink of the to have a second round of gifts when I retire again.................if that ever happens!!!!!!!!

I don't know whether I mentioned it or not............this is my second retirement. The first one was from the government run TAFE.

The latest investigation showed that the coating on the skin was actually the same mixture used for rocket fuel. Analysis of the movie suggests that the skin caught fire from static and did most of the burning. The hydrogen burned rather slowly as it mixed with oxygen from the air, and appeared not to be much of a factor.

There was no explosion!!! It burned straight up. If it hadn't, everyone would have been killed instead of only a few people who happened to be on the ground.

This is a photograph of Hindenburg, just after she "caught fire".............by the look of the thermal near the mooring mast, to me it looks like an explosion.

Compare a BLEVE, as shown below, again you have a distinct thermal associated with an explosion.

I may, however be wrong...............it would not be the fist time I can assure you of that.

Your ancestors probably also encouraged Edison, the Wright Bros. and the inventors of the internal combustion engine. You're so brilliant; I'm sure and you try so many things yourself too, right? I thought so!!!!!

Our intent is to utilize and store 6months of solar energy to use for the colder months in our region. We appreciate everyones input. Thanks

If that is your intent could I persuade you to look at this book before you start?

Direct Use of the sun's Energy by Farrington Daniels

http://tinyurl.com/6kwl9u

milo

Cost of the tanks isn't an issue. We have plenty of 500 gallon 3000psi tanks on hand. I appreciate everyones concern on my finanical well being but in order to reach new heights some sacrifices must be made. Besides it's just money. If you had an oppurtunity to ride on the Space Shuttle would you take it or would you stay home because you didn't want to pay the 10.00 cab fee to get to the launch pad?

wow 30,000 pounds of steel in each vessel with what 3in wall thickness, you must be rich and famous to afford such luxturies. Each of those tanks will hold the equivalent of 33 gallons of propane in energy. you will consume 25 kW of enegy just to fill one up using a 75 HP hydrogen hyper compressor. so you will spend millons on the compressor. and use up about 5% of the energy that you have stored.

Are you out bragging today! if you were a research scientist with real ambitions, you'd already know the answers to the questions.

If you are considering using a wind generator to power your electrolyzer, have you considered running a set of resistive coils directly from the generator? When the cold wind blows, it makes the house warmer!

First off, as so many others have commented in one way or another, if you value your life, your family and/or your home, don't make your fuel cell. Even a professional would keep one far from his own home and with your question, it is obvious you're not a fuel cell professional. Besides, it is probably not legal to build bombs or build and launch rockets in your neighborhood. One of those two is the most likely end result. Either way, if you're still alive - big trouble!

Since you made no particular description of your situation, I will assume that since you read and write e-mail and you also have a furnace, you are living in a home with electricity and natural gas and I will direct my comments accordingly. Let's assume you build the fuel cell. You need hydrogen so you use your electricity to do electrolysis on water to get hydrogen. You collect this incredibly dangerous gas and store it (IN YOUR HOME!!!!) and then burn it to provide energy to turn a generator that in turn will generate electricity. Wait a second, why in the world are you going through all of this just to use electricity that you already have coming into your house?!!!! Hopefully this is sounding a little silly by now. (This subject has been so overworked at this web-site, but I will remind you once again...) You will use far more electricity to produce the hydrogen than you will EVER be able to get out of the fuel cell. Every time we transfer energy or transform it from one form to another we loose energy because no process is 100% efficient. In this case, you will loose a very large fraction of the initial electrical energy. You are FAR better off energy-wise, expense-wise, and safety-wise to directly use the electricity already coiming into your house to run your furnace (just like it probably is right now).

Since you have a furnace, running that furnace is far more efficient for heating your home than the electric heaters suggested by others. It will also cost you a lot less in most places than the electricity required to do the same heating job with resistive heaters.

Since you mention modifying a gas furnace, you apparently want to burn the hydrogen as a fuel. Hydrogen has less energy per unit volume than coal or oil and it costs more. It takes a lot of electricity to make H. You can buy the electricity, but it would be cheaper just to use electric heat. You can buy solar photovoltaic panels at a whopping cost, so you can make the H using solar power. The investment will take many years to pay for itself and by then you are replacing the panels so it never will pay for itself and may cost more than electric heat or using oil, gas or coal.

If you have enough land you could grow a fuel crop, make a solar still and burn ethanol, but steer clear of the ATF, the "revenoors".

A fuel cell uses H to make electricity. You need to check the price of the number of fuel cells needed to make enough electricity to heat a house and how much H is used to make it and the price of the H. You may find it more costly than you think.

I think that in the future the cost of H may go down or that other sources of energy may become cost competitive with oil, gas, hydropower and nuclear. I have not yet seen a cost-effective way to do as you want.

Hello,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vel9LH57RII

here is a link for you explaining hydrogen storage that a guy did for an off the grid home on You tube. His is large scale but might be helpful to you to scale down for your needs or for cost reasons.

If you don't want to run a fuel cell you can do a search on You Tube for running a gasoline generator on Hydrogen as well to produce AC and running some sort of AC electric heater.

Never get discouraged, I'm running my house on solar panels and wind for electricity, a home built indirect evaporation cooler for cooling, 12 volt. wood for heat, and cisterns for rain water collection, "No utility bills". With cap and trade around the corner we have to do something, right.

I live in Texas with high humidity, my current project is extracting water out of the air to water my garden instead of using my cistern water, basically the way an air conditioner does.

Good luck