H2 generators

I don't know of any other proven method to extract hydrogen except by electrolysis. Extraction by chemical reaction may be another option but I don't know how.

I once watched a guy on TV who said that he uses high frequency pulse generators to speed up the electrolysis. I don't know if it's true but his demo on TV was quite impressive. Of course, it may be a hoax, since it's been several years since I saw that show and no one has come up with a production facility using the same technology. Still, if you're interested (and able) to experiment, why not?

There are at least three chemical methods that I know of, they may either require caustic or corrosive agents or produce them in the process.

Take an acid such as sulfuric - H₂SO₄ or muriatic aka hydrochloric acid and any metal above hydrogen in the activity series. Remember the phrase P.S.C. Mazintal, his copper men shall play god which does not contain all of the metals but in order of decreasing activity they are potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, aluminum, zinc,iron, nickel, tin, lead, hydrogen, copper platinum silver and gold (I know palladium and gold have been left out to name a few) but one is not likely to use them in any economical method of producing hydrogen unless it is as a catalyst which is not consumed.

A couple of reactions might be

2HCl + Zn -> H₂ + ZnCl₂

3H₂SO_{4 +} 2Al -> 3H_{2 +} Al₂(SO4)₃

Or you wish to use sodium or potassium and water

2Na + 2H₂0 -> H₂ + 2NaOH

Sodium or potassium will float on water and the reaction forming the H2 is violent enough that the metal will zip back and forth accross the surface of the water the Na or K will float on the water and ignite in the presence of air in turn igniting the H2. cover the surface of the water with a layer of oil light enough that the metal won't float in it and deep enough to cover the floating metal, or else you will have a metal, hydrogen and oil fire. Na and K come in containers of oil for just this reason. The sodium hydroxide solution is not wasted because you can use it in a third reaction.

I knew that aluminum and sodium hydroxide would produce hydrogen, but I Had to do a Google on aluminum and sodium hydroxide to get the following set of reactions.

Get some aluminum shavings, and a solution of NaOH (sodium hydroxide aka lye) dissolve the NaOH in water, if the lye produced in the previous reaction isn't strong enough and add aluminum. Normally aluminum by the very nature of its reactivity will form a thin protective layer of aluminum oxide or aluminum hydroxide from the oxygen and moisture in the air.

2Al + 6H₂0 -> 2Al(OH)₃ and 3H₂
Al + O₂ -> Al₂0₃

Note that the first reaction only lasts long enough to form a protective layer, no useful amount of hydrogen is formed. Sodium hydroxide will take care of that and you end up with the following series of reactions:

Al₂O₃ + NaOH +-> Na⁺ + [Al(OH)₄]^-

Al(OH)₃ + NaOH -> Na⁺ + [Al(OH)₄]^-

As the aluminum is cleaned so that it can react with the water to produce more hydrogen the negatively charged aluminate ion is formed. The purpose of the sodium hydroxide is to keep the surface of the aluminum free of its protective coating to allow the continuous generation of hydrogen.

You may have already done this. At least one popular drain cleaner that I know uses this reaction. The NaOH dissolves the organic material clogging the drain and it cleans the protective layer from the aluminum chips to allow the water to react with the Al and produce H₂ and the bubbling reaction then helps the cleaning process along.

Do you like the idea, electrolysis basic, in the sea there is wind, the salinity she is perfect and there is existing deuterium, the technology is easy and already this developed.

Won't electrolysis of a salt water solution result in the production of hydrogen and Chlorine? I understand that they often us NaOH to make water conductive just to avoid that problem. We ran into that problem with my son's science fair project.

Try googling on 'hdrogen production processes'

CQ back grandpa; I say the fcc forgot a letter on my call sign ,N9SHI you can look me up in the ARRL handbook. Have been on the net looking for about three weeks and keep comming back to the same few advertisers. Was hopeing to come by someone that is already playing with this and haveing some success. I to am retired and don't have a lot of money to be wasteing on stuff that doesn't work. I want to run a single cylinder engine turning alternators to charge the batteries in my electric car, without stopping at the neighborhood gas station for fuel. I have the engine/alternator part figured out ,just need to figure out the h2 part.

N9SHI N9SHI N9SHI DE VE6LDS VE6LDS VE6LDS

That is some call sign, all of the dits in the last three characters.

Look at this web site www.knowledgepublications.com They are into hyrdogen, solar, and a variety of biofuels. They sell a lot of books and DVD's on the subjects, they ocassionally have sales too.

After producing the hydrogen you will need to compress it into some suitable storage device. The prooject may not actually turn out to be economical but it sure seems that it would be a fun thing to do. Us ham types often tend to be hardware, technology, gadget junkies anyway. It would also keep you out of the XYL's (ham speak for wife) hair as well, something she might appreciate. They say that when a man retires a woman must get used to twice as much husband and half as much money.

73 de VE6LDS

After looking at the knowledge publications and running across the mention of producer gas I wondered if anyone had given any thought to it.

I remember from seeing scenes in movies that were about WWII occupied France where gas was made of unobtanium, the cars would have little stoves on the back bumpers. The stoves would heat organic materials to produce something that was called producer gas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, the gas was stored in a balloon on the roof of the vehicle, and the fed to the engine using the same techniques as one would use for compressed natural gas, or gaseous propane. I don't know how well it worked but there was a lot of it back then

Just a thought.

sums it up.

What is the purpose/need for the deuterium?

Hydrogen is apparently the only element that has different names for all of its isotopes, protium, deuterium, and tritium

Just for information a kilogram of heavy water deuterium oxide is worth $300 while a gram of tritium is Worth $30,000 (a bit over 7 litres at standard temperature and pressure) and it may go up to $100,000. A fission assisted fission bomb uses about 4 grams of tritium and it has to be replaced periodically because as it undergoes radioactive decay a bit over 5% of the remaining quantity disappears every year.

I have babbled on long enough!

Have you ever looked into the system used on the space station they are using the electrolisis for o2 production there are pics on the web. The russian system crashed last year and they had to send a new one up any one know who built the second one.?

No, the only thing I know for sure, is if it has to do with the government, it will be to expensive for any individual to acquire. Your comment was about O2 and I am shooting for H2.

Your quest is pointless because however you go about it the basic fact is it will cost you more than you can ever hope to save. Hydrogen is a lost cause. Until a major break through in both chemistry and physics comes about. We have had the knowledge to split water for over one hundred years and still it does not work out to be a worthwhile thing to do. Either you have to use dangerous chemicals or convert water to steam and use a catalyst. (you need consume energy to make the steam).

you need to generate electricity to electrolyse water. (consumes energy). So all round you lose. I am sorry to have to convey bad news but better you know now than after you have spent too much time and money chasing a spent dream

If one uses Solar PV panels and wind generators to provide the power required to do the electrolysis of water ( to produce Hydrogen and Oxygen )what might be the payback period and can one justify the cost?

I wonder If such a project and study has ever taken place ?

It's a hopeless situation bound up with too many questions.

The estimated period of pay back would be 25 - 50 years if ever.

The investment costs have been looked into, I for one have thought of solar power and or wind power. For the non commercial person who just wants some freedom from paying the utility companies their fat profits, for a typical house in the UK it would cost over $31,000 equivalent. and with no guarantee of any definite sale to the grid and an uncertain weather situation a (cold winless overcast winters day.) there is no certainty of even getting enough out to power the house hold essentials. Until the oil runs dry or solar panels reduce in price (there is a very real shortage of silicon wafers) the prospect of any such scheme paying back any time soon is never. I have spent many hours weeks months looking into the economics of these things.

Yes, there are methods to achieve what you're looking for but don't ask a trained engineer. I am currently in testing and anticipating running a small engine on only water within the next year. People have done it already and more are on the way. Some good pointers can be found on waterforfuel.com. This guy has alot of good info, but hasn't yet achieved it. One group took his electronics and did achieve it and have since become silent. They converted 2 gal/min of water without additive using 150 amps off an alternator to run a 90hp car (4 cyl) under full load. They also ran a V-8 using more amps. The key is using all forms of energy, not just DC electrolysis. Square wave, carrier waves, capacitance, sound, motion, ultrasonics...and tuning like wind chime all together over an optimal sized and specific area. I should have some results in the next couple weeks for volume output and energy used if you'd like to contact me personally. Consider when you start a fire with a match, you have a blazing fire from one match. You got more out than what you put in by reaching threshold points of energy conversion. Best of luck....eventually it will become the fuel of the future.

That story's been around for years and it's still unproven.

Why would that group you mentioned suddenly go silent?

I don't believe in government or corporate conspiracies because the economics of it just don't add up. If such a technology had been developed, everyone will try to get it. The earnings from acquiring it will outweigh the losses from the abandonment of fossil fuels.

More likely, they found that it isn't feasible.

Making some assumptions and doing some calculations lets look at this:

Assume that a 12 volt vehicle system is really 13.2 volts

1 horsepower is approximately 750 watts

Assume that the alternator is 90% efficient

P=I*E

P means power
Hp means horsepower
V means volts
W means watts
I means current or amperage
E means volts
A means amperes
* multiplication
/ division
13.2V * 150A = 1980W / 90% efficiency = 2200W

2200W / 750W per Hp = 2.47 Hp

The question remains, how could 2.47 horsepower liberate enough hydrogen or whatever to fuel a 90 horsepower engine?

Thats stumped them. You just can't get round the basics.

Perhaps it is a 480V alternator?

Use the waste heat from your engine to provide energy to produce Syngas (H2 + CO) by reacting steam and Natural Gas (or fossil fuel) over a catalyst. Followed by further reacting the CO with Steam to produce CO2 and H2 over an iron catalyst. The carbon dioxide and other impurities can then be filtered through a palladium membrane (precious metal) and tanked. This has potential to increase fuel efficiency as the Syngas has absorbed energy in a endothermic chemical reaction. The catch is that to be compact enough for vehicles it would need to operate at supercritical pressure, the catalysts also require periodical replacement due to sulphur poisoning, this would not be a problem with synthetic fuels however. The process is expensive, however it will give a much further range than a battery powered electrical vehicle, mass production could bring down the price.

When Nuclear Fusion Power stations (no radioactive waste) are perfected, the carbon dioxide can be used to produce synthetic fuel, Syngas, Methane, Synthetic Diesel, Lubricants etc.

That way Carbon Compounds can be used as a dense chemical carrier for hydrogen and be decanted using existing infrastructure. This would of course mirror nature, where plants gain their energy from the Sun (fusion) store it as starch and sugars, animals consume the plant material and emit the carbon dioxide, which is then converted to Oxygen, Starches and sugars by plants using the Suns energy.

Of course we could also produce bio fuels, however humans are very wasteful and I don't think we can carry on using cars etc... We need to be thinking about better public transport, mass production of solar cells, subsidised by governments for installation on house roofs to be connected to the main power grid. We should also consider regulating air conditioning manufacturing cooling temperatures to reduce consumption. It's an unfortunate reality that there a too many people on the planet.

One more point, it is not the planet that will suffer as a result of greenhouse gasses, in fact long term life will benefit as CO2 has become depleted and life depends on it. (currently at 380 ppm, CO2 used to be 1600 ppm in the Carboniferous age, just before Dinosaurs) In fact it will be humans that will suffer any ocean level / climate changes due to our many coastal cities.

Climatologists & Geologists are now telling us that we have recently enjoyed an unusually stable climate.

Many have tried,& some claim to have succeded, in making H2 on demand to power ice (internal combustion engine)- my experiments show it is absolutely impossible- to generate enough H2, using electrolysis, would require a second engine to provide enough power to turn an 100,s of amps alternator- however, using exothermic chemical methods, it can be done- needs developement as to safety etc. A very promising technology is Hydrino, where the H2 atom is converted to a lower resting state, releasing 1000 times more energy as if H2 burned. I personally use a home made electrolyzer which gives me 7% more mileage on unleaded- to work, needs a heater in the H2O with exact add of catalyst sodium hydroxide( caustic soda) not lye(pottassium hydroxide) which may dissolve glass- the electrolyzer pulls between 3A cold to 9A hot, when maximum efficiency occurs- my alternator won,t allow any more amps without batt running down- as I don,t want to spend big money on a cheap car, I am happy.

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Fuel_Efficiency_Hydrogen_Injection

Try this link for a directory of products and % increase claims. Some have claims up to 100% improvement in mileage.

More than enough info to keep you looking,buying or experimenting for a year.