Hydrogen Fuel Technology

Generation of said Hydrogen and Distribution thereof!

Sleepy

I heard about Hydrogen generators for cars and trucks a couple of months ago and inmediatelly designed my own for my Ford Ranger . I was looking for informationd and reliability and its around 25% to 50% . My generator is now on fabrication process but is not going to be a simple generator . It will have a backup water tank with level sensors , automatic or manual mode to service , a delay on generation starting , delay on service and service presure regulation . I took the time to make a good and compact design , with great capacity of H generation as well .

I really trust it can work and give great results.

I will keep you posted about installation and tests.

You may consider doing R&D work on the following Topics: 1. Hydrogen Economy & Hydrogen as Energy carrier. 2. Hydrogen production methods & Storage 3. Fuel cells on Hydrogen. R&D Engineers are working round the clock with most of the Major Automobile manufacturers to produce environment friendly Hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicles. Hydrogen is certainly the fuel of the future. Distribution & handling issues also will have to be resolved. Do come back with your findings.Good Luck. Rangasamy

That would be carbon free fuel? The CO2 is a by product of burning hydrocarbons.

The gasoline that I burn in my car is still the best way to carry hydrogen.

What we really need is a cheap way to break the carbon-oxygen bond.

Kenevidson,

This topic was extensively discussed a couple years ago. You bring an interesting twist into the topic. Since storing the energy from solar or wind is difficult, perhaps the Hydrogen generation (via electrolysis at present) could allow conversion of the input energy into a chemical form that is later converted back (such as by a fuel cell). Granted, the efficiency would suffer from two conversion steps. But, that may be easier to engineer and deal with than other options of handling peak energy availability when the demand is less.

--JMM

Remember, the goal is to produce more energy than you consume in production of the "fuel".

I'd be interested to see how, "burning velocities measurement, pressure effects on turbulent premixed flame properties, knock tendency of the fuel and effect of the thermo-physical properties of hydrogen on its combustion properties" will produce excess energy.

VIP, you say, "I was looking for informationd and reliability and its around 25% to 50% . " What is around 25-50%. It sounds like you are saying that reliability is around 25-50%, is that true?

Good luck.

I was just talking about fuel saving when you mix the hydrogen with hidrocarbons.

I changed my mind, it's not OFF TOPIC.

I've discovered a few things, the space station runs on hydrogen, oxygen and solar. Hickham AFB in Honolulu has a fleet that runs on hydrogen, compressed from solar. I've heard lately that propane generators, water heaters and stove can be retrofitted for compressed hydrogen.

As for it's history, it's been around since the 1600's. Parisiennes flew pleasure balloons almost 300 years ago, in 1783 cities were lit with gas lights, in the late 1860's the Civil War was won with with air balloons filled with compressed hydrogen, shot from cannons into oak barrels stuffed with cotton wool. During WWII, military vehicles compressed hydrogen tanks, and I know a gentleman named Buckley who uses his small invention today, he makes hydrogen on demand. The first car in 1808 ran on hydrogen, hydrogen is what most of our Universe is composed of, including us, without it we'd have no water. We're a water planet, everything that has water in it has hydrogen. That's pretty simplistic, but that's all I seem to obsess about these days. Why haven't we gotten in right? In three hundred years?

It seems to me a lot of hydrogen technology has been buried, and people have been brainwashed with this, Oh no, it's not possible--too difficult, it will be many years before.........blah blahbby blah, blah BLAH! Give me a break. How long did it take before we went from big old apartment sized computers to tiny silicon chips? Twelve years ago we had no internet. Very few satellites. No CNN, hardly any cell phones.

Tell me it's not possible? I just don't buy it. It's out there, we just don't have the organizational skills apparently to get down to it.

I'm ready for a stirling engine the size of a washing machine, and some hydrogen to cook my food with. Where the hell is it? I'm not the inventor. We need to get rid of tyrannical ignoramuses who have no conscience whatsoever, CEO's at BIG OIL who continue to suck money out of consumers and oil from the ground to inflate their fat egos and bellies--with total disregard for human, or any other life on this earth....as long as they can 'hedge' and legally gamble against integrity and green tech success by creating catastrophes, and be rewarded. Wall street gamblers are rewarded, and inticed into sabotage--creating disasters.....they win no matter what.

I am so nauseated with multinational corporate control of the people of this planet. Have we all just become such bleary-eyed, dimwitted, drooling idiots , that we can't sweep away, push aside the obvious, insidious, dispicable filfth, and start over?

__________________

Babychick,

Welcome. A bit of a rant is possibly a breath of fresh air or a reasonable kick in our sitting parts.

Regarding the topics in your post:

• A technical problem, but certainly not an insurmountable one, is the energy density of hydrogen gas. Per cubic foot of gas (or cubic meter if you are using metric units), it has a significantly lower thermal energy content than methane (at the same pressure). Therefore, for distribution or transmission of it from source to use, there would be a higher pressure loss for the same amount of heat energy delivered. This would require any of: closer spacing between source and use, higher transmission pressures, reduced energy consumption.
• Another technical problem, again not insurmountable, is the greater explosive risks of hydrogen. In air, the LEL (lower explosive limit) is 4%, while for methane it is 5%; the UEL (upper explosive limit) is 74%, while for methane it is 15% (source is CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics). Since methane and the other hydrocarbon gases all are denser than air while hydrogen is lighter than air, the wider range of explosive limits is modified by its dispersion. That can be a good thing because it will be more likely to leave an area, but could be a bad thing also.
• People get scared because of memories of disasters such as the destruction of the dirigible, Hindenburg. Good evidence exists to suggest that this was an example of sabotage, and certainly we have better ways to contain and monitor leaks today.
• You are right that it is very easy to convert an existing gas-fed appliance to use hydrogen as a fuel. Indeed, over 25 years ago, I knew a businessman who was installing dual-fuel carburetors on cars and converting them as this was being done so the cars could be run either on gasoline or hydrogen. He envisioned a future in which hydrogen was the energy medium of choice.

As I said in my earlier post on this thread, this topic has been the source of at least 1 or 2 previous discussions on CR4. Search and read them. I am prepared to agree with a switch to hydrogen as the primary fuel we use. This would be particularly true in terms of our eliminating or drastically curtailing our use of coal because of the "greenhouse gas" problems inherent with CO₂ from the burning of coal. Since methane produces much less CO₂ per unit of energy when burned than the pure carbon of coal, and since it is surprisingly abundant on this earth, I doubt that we will eliminate its use.

I say "surprisingly abundant" regarding methane because of the immense amounts sequestered as clathrate ices on the ocean floor and the arctic permafrost layers.

What will keep us from switching to a hydrogen-based energy storage/use economy? The will to do so. Not the technology. Not the availability. Not even the monetary cost. However, the mad hunger for profits and control in businesses and government might just keep us from such a switch. Such a switch allows production and use at the individual's own location--a democratic idea. But, democracy in its purest form is very dangerous to any organization or structure that is based on power or control.

--John M.

BabyChick-Hooray for you. You have indeed figured out what has been happening to us. I will share something with you that will bring the Nay-Sayers out of their slumber. Just finished installing a "Hydrogen On Demand" (HOD) system on a 2002 Buick Regal with a 3.8 L V6 gas engine. The base MPG (measured on level ground at 60MPH on cruise) was 19.6MPG. Now it repeatedly gets 41 MPG on level ground at 60MPH and 35.2 MPG average (city and hwy). Guess what, at the flip of a switch everything goes back to factory OEM condition. Maybe I am confused but it seems that our Gov't would want something that greatly increases vehicle mileage while lowering the emissions. BUT-- the EPA has actually told my mechanic friend that if he passes any vehicle that has any modification such as Hydrogen and they find it out, they will pull his permit for State Inspections. Oh I know---they would never do something like that ! Humm?

Hang in there.

AFarmer

AFarmer: It looks like it's been a couple of months since you posted that, how about some details and specifications on your h2 rig?

europus-- I did leave out one important detail. The Bench marks were measured with the windows closed and the air conditioning off. The A/C actually consumes 4 MPG. I controll every part of the system through a small project Box. One switch turns everything on and off. Designed an electrolyte level sensor and it was quite handy. This eliminated the need to check the liquid level so often. My liquid Tank holds 3 quarts and the level drops about 3/4" over 123 miles. Simple logic says it should get around 400+ miles before needing more distilled H2O which I don't see as a problem. Ignoring tooling costs etc. a larger tank can always be added but I am on a shoestring budget. Presently, I am trying to reduce the costs on every part of the system to make it more acceptable to the public. By the way a major breakthrough has been achieved by virtue of the ECM accepting the changes without throwing out a check engine light. I have established that most vehicles will not see a significant increase in MPG until you are producing a min. of 1 Liter per minute of HHO for every liter of the engine. ie: A 4L engine needs a min. of 4L of HHO. More HHO results in More MPG, if the alternator on your vehicle can handle the increased Amps. Hope that helps!

AFarmer - I do not mean to be rude but I think you're leaving out a lot of important details. For example:

• What is the physical size (or volume) of your production chamber?
• What is the surface area of your electrodes inside the chamber?
• What are you using for electrodes? If you are using stainless steel, how do you plan to deal with the hexavalent chromium issue later on?
• How many volts & amps do you run your production chamber at? Do you have control box circuitry to alter these values with RPM changes?
• Are you using a catalyst in the production chamber and if yes, what kind and how much?
• Where in the path of intake air are you injecting the HHO?
  
• Do you have a plan to monitor or test for embrittlement in any cast iron or steel engine pieces such as valves, engine blocks or cylinder liners, shafting in throttle bodies, etc.

That is what I meant when I asked if you could provide details & specifications.

Then, since you mentioned it:How did you determine that 3/4's of a liter HHO per liter of engine size has negligible effect on mileage? Wouldn't that be RPM-dependent? I would expect that less than 1 liter gas per liter of engine size would have proportionally less effect at higher RPMs and be just fine at lesser engine speeds, not that some critical volume formula would not be met and that some lesser volume of HHO would be inadequate at any engine speed.

Europus- thinking back didn't I say "some" info? I am not wanting to be rude either. You do seem to be of the group of people in this world that ask a person who has spent 2 1/2 years of extensive research and development what they learned and what are their findings (spec's) whereas my experience has shown over and over again that they will run as hard as they can to try to beat you to the market place with a better mouse trap. You are smart enough to realize that a lot of info was missing but forgetting that even Companies such as Toyota, for example, have unforseen problems. Toyota will recover anyway. Wonder if the inventors of our modern vehicles experienced any problems or had anyone to ask? Why don't you ask Ford, GM or Chrysler what their spec's are and what their costs are and what is their game plan for marketing their products? They might share things such as Heat treating, stress relief, chemical properties, maybe even exactly how their equations for their 3D sensor map inputs really works in their ECM. Personnally I wouldn't hold my breath until they relent and answer you. Remember I am not trying to be rude! Is the American way of developing a better "Mousetrap and putting it on the market, going away, to become a socialistic mind set that everyone share equally on the things developed but don't ask them to share in the thousands of dollars of expenditures or especially the labor involved in research? The other group that wants to Develope something new will eventually get tired and quit too. It seems that history has a warning about that too. By the way, I didn't say "negligible effect".

You said: "I have established that most vehicles will not see a significant increase in MPG until you are producing a min. of 1 Liter per minute of HHO for every liter of the engine."

Mmmmkay. What did you think "not...significant" means? As for the rest? Perhaps I misunderstood and you meant every liter of air passed through the engine needs a matching liter of HHO, which would make demand from the HHO generator RPM-dependent. But the "1 liter per minute" part makes it sound like you are referring to liters of engine displacement. Which is another statement entirely and one that makes much less sense. Which is why I asked about that.

As for me, I'm a hobbyist who is considering such a device for my own vehicles only, I'm not someone who would attempt mass production and beating another product to market in the manner you described. I'm concerned with embrittlement in older, cast-iron engine blocks (also piston rings, valves, valve seats, cylinder heads, etc.). Also hexavalent chromium (Cr6+, aka Cr(VI)) which tends to get producted when stainless steels are exposed to electrolysis processes. If the product you imply you will be bringing to market will embrittle and destroy engines or produce highly toxic Cr6+ in solution, you should not be allowed to bring your product to market in the first place (and should probably be visited by the EPA now, assuming you aren't some industry operative who is sewing potentially hazardous disinformation).

Sheesh, I thought this was an engineering message board for sharing ideas and comparing notes, not some fora for testing marketing hype, working out business plans or sowing untruths. If you are really planning to bring a new product to market, you probably shouldn't be talking about it publicly until it is ready to go on sale. That is common sense that even children in primary grades can grok, a fair number of them will get it intuitively.

Frankly, I'm insulted by the implication that I am more likely a competitor than not. Any auto manufacturer you might care to name might not provide me with a schematic for their ECM but they will tell me the functions it performs, the engine displacement, horsepower, capacities, and a number of other specifications for the vehicles they produce. Most of that information is already published in Haynes and other repair manuals so I would not need to contact the manufacturer in the first place.

Finally, your claims of increased mileage seem extraordinary. Extraordinary proofs are needed to justify them. What I've asked about comes nowhere near extraordinary, it's basic info every manufacturer already addresses whether by published specifications in repair manuals, MSDSes or else. All of it could be addressed in general terms or descriptions without giving away the specifics you've apparently worked out over time and without questioning the motives of others.

Even if you do bring a product to market, I would not purchase it unless you could prove that it would not destroy my vintage engine due to embrittlement and that it would be environmentally safe (no Cr6+). It's one thing to decline answering technical questions on the grounds that they are trade secrets, it's quite another to get defensive and question motives in questionable ways. You might want to rethink your plan on bringing your product to market if you cannot answer those sorts of questions because you don't know the answers. So give up some general data, unless you want to be associated with the snake oil salemen of yore - or because you're a paid agent provocateur. Or have emergent health issues. Or blew up your engine, you also haven't said how long you've been running that setup (only that you've been working on it for 2.5 years). My car is over 30 years old and still runs great.

europus-- Thank you for a good laugh. Have you had your 30 year old car's engine verified that it is environmentally friendly? I thought it was understood by most, that HHO helps clean up bad pollutants in the engines! I wish you much success with your own system build. My son's next project request, is to outfit his 1958 Chrysler V8 with an HOD system. This should be interesting.

You're still being too secretive about inconsequential details, after being glib when you should have kept quiet. If you are really intending to bring a product to market.

The pollutants created by a 1970 gasoline engine that burns today's unleaded gasoline do not compare with Cr6+, I'd question whether the leaded gasoline of yore compares with it. I hope for your son's sake, you don't give him leukemia or worse because of it.

Living in interesting times is really a Chinese curse, I'll leave you to it.

@ the forum: Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm new here. I'm on a quest for facts about a specific technology, not dismissals based on tenure or other considerations immaterial to AFarmer's varied claims regarding that technology. It is not my intent to engage in ad hominem, it is my intent to shame Mr. Farmer by reminding him of his own actions and how he has benefited from this forum, a mutual assistance he now denies to the forum. In hopes that he'll straighten out and fly right in the future. Again: I did not intend to be rude, I asked for specifications. In turn, I was essentially called a competitor who was engaging in industrial espionage.

@ AFarmer:

I've reviewed your posts to these message boards, all 32 posts that are listed.

You've been hinting around about "eco-friendly devices" and mods for improved mileage, a product to be brought to market, since January of last year. In this other thread, it looks like you were accused of spreading manure when you mentioned your eco-friendly device:

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/32354/Massive-Discrepancy-in-Fuel-Economy

You did not engage the critic directly, you attacked his knowledge of animal husbandry instead. This is otherwise known as strawman argumentation, where a lesser or weaker point is engaged and the main or stronger one ignored.

I saw a number of posts where you asked for information on a couple of things, your questions were of intrinsically similar nature to the ones I asked you(1). I saw where you acknowledged benefit from answers to your questions(2). The words "one-way" come to mind.

I have just one question for you now: what is the (intended?) name of your company, the one that will or might someday produce these eco-friendly devices?
-

1- http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/505636
http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/48808
http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/45259

2- http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/472063
http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/442549
http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/442958
http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/442617
http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/442615
http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/442396

Guys from Sleepy,

Hydrogen seems to be the all important fuel but it is NOT fuel, merely an inefficient transport mechanism.

Even as a transport mechanism Hydrogen suffers from the inefficiencies of H2 production, transmission and it's eventual conversion to energy via something like a fuel cell.

H2 production has presumably to come from electricity which is produced by whatever means. coal, solar power, oil, nuclear power etc This will have a finite efficiency.

H2 has to be transmitted & distributed to wherever it is required. Whatever the efficiency of a transmission media for, say, methane, H2 will have much higher leakage due to its tiny molecular size which means tha it will leak at every joint much faster than the equivalent methane sysytem. Hence H2 will be a less efficient energy carrier. I have not entered into the energy carying capacity of H2 vs Methane as this is beyond my current capability, perhaps someone can start to put some numbers together?

And then we enter the distribution network. If we are to emulate the Oil distribution system then we have to find ways of distributing to as many stations as can emulate the current oil distribution system - I do not percieve this to be an easy problem to solve. The leakage issue alone will become more complex as the distribution system gets more complex and the losses will mount.

Finally we have to turn the H2 into Electricity for the vehicles or to something else that can power the vehicles. Yet more losses.

I percieve that there is some way to go before we can have a Hydrogen system that will emulate the current Oil system. Maybe this has to be,maybe we have to utilise the biofuels, maybe we have to find yet another fuel source.

We must tackle the issues, one at a time and get closure on each one before we can say that we have cracked H2 as a fuel, nay, an energy transmisson system - it can only be fuel if a large natural storage system for H2 can be found which can be utilised world wide.

Please, please let us get our heads around this issue; we can only get a cheaper fuel if a) it is abundant; b) it is readily transmitted and distributed and c) it can be turned into energy efficiently to power vehicles, motors etc.

I am not saying that these things cannot be done but a lot of work will have to go into each facet of this problem before we can say we can have a Hydrogen network that can power vehicles and motors.

Sorry to be the messenger, but do not shoot me, someone had to say it!

Sleepy

================================

Sleepy,

Valid questions. I wonder how many of your points could be successfully resolved if Hydrogen questions were to receive the same financial stimulus from government funds as nuclear power has in the last 60+ years. Certainly, the technological problems are no worse (and probably much easier) for Hydrogen. Also, the long-term environmental problems relating to storing radioactive byproducts or decommissioning plants will be less. Some early research suggests that biological processes can be adapted through DNA manipulation to directly produce hydrogen from sunlight and water, instead of indirectly such as through photovoltaics and then electrolysis. But, don't get your hopes up--nuclear is the "darling" today, and governments will only promote solar when they find a way to tax sunlight.

--JMM