Hydrogen generator kits
 

I have recently discovered the hydrogen generator kits that place hydrogen vapors into the intake air to increase power and gas milage significantly. One example of this kit is found at http://www.hydrogen-fuel.ca/. Although the design has been around since the fourties and many have even made a home made version with little skill involved; Im concerned this might harm my engine, any suggestions, stories, or experiences. I have e-mailed the above listed company regarding its use on the rotary engine i will post what they have to say when i hear back from them. :uhh:

There have already been several threads about this. so far is seems to be vaporware. Everyone always knows a friend who knows a person, who yada yada yada. You get the idea. No one has heard from an actual person who has had results with it. It's so simple to replicate what these online websites are doing. It's junior high science. Anyone can build it from random things around the house. If it worked so well, everyone would be using it. I have personally played with it for fun but no positive results ever came from it. Yes it makes gas. It's terribly inefficient at doing it though. While theoretically possible to run an engine on the gas it makes, there isn't enough of it to do it and it would take far more power input than you'd get out of it.

There are only a couple of real world ways to save fuel. Drive slower or drive less. Otherwise it's drive a more fuel efficient car.

It would work if you could make massive amounts of it, but is it worth a couple bucks to drive around inside a hydrogen bomb?

You do know that is not how Hydrogen bomb works right?:lol2:

well you already drive around in a gasoline bomb...but yeah dont waste you time with it.

i think a lot of people think that, the bad part about hydrogen is that you cannot directly see the fire.

It's just like a nuclear power plant cannot blow up like a nuclear bomb.

Yeah i see what you are saying. But from i have researched this kit is not intended to run the car off hydrogen vapors alone or to replace normal intake air, it's purpose is to supplement the air going into the engine so that when the gas and air are mixed the hydrogen allows the gas to combust more completely so that less is wasted and kicked out the exhaust. This theory is similar to how nitrous works but with a constant flow and less harmful to the engine, and im sure less powerful. I have been able to talk to a couple people at work who are currently ordering/trying the kit one their cars, so i hope to hear after awhile how well it works from some one who's actually trying it. Thanks for the replys ill post more info as i get it. I just feel that although this theory has been around for some time the issue of promoting a cleaner environment and gas prices is an emerging problem that is of higher concern that it use to be, thus increasing awareness about alternative fuels and fuel supplements. :)

If the forum allow, sure I'll post the pics that how a person die when the tank exploded. Happen in Malaysia.

Good luck and let us know how your friends' kits works.

On the other hand, perhaps some basic chemistry lessons concerning the combustion process are in order and would help you understand / conceptualize what you are talking about. Hydrogen in a combustion chamber is absolutely not similar to nitrious in a combustion chamber. One is a fuel - the other supplies oxygen and cools the charge. Reference http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question259.htm

I have a couple books/video by this guy:

http://www.knowledgepublications.com...etail_page.htm

He's a hydrogen advocate, but he was surprisingly honest about what you can and can't do with hydrogen.

Yes, H2 improves combustion characteristics. The flame speed is 10x that of gasoline. Which would certainly be interesting for an engine with such elongated combustion chambers. H2 supplementation was used to extend the altitude of the U2's that flew over Russia to 100k feet, above Russian rockets of the day (the U2 that was shot down had taken off with a H2 tank that was half empty, thus the engine stalled at high altitude and he had to land)

There's just one problem. According to him, you'll want to have 5%~7% of your mixture as hydrogen to get a noticeable effect. Too little and you won't notice a difference, too much and you start losing power.

Anyways, while he does support H2 supplementation as a means of making a CNG-converted car (or other alt-fuels) run even cleaner and more efficiently, he totally disagrees with onboard electrolyzers. And he back it up with calculations. Whatever fuel savings you'd see, they'd be negated by the extra drag of the alternator. Even using wildly optimistic assumptions--NASA quality electrolyzers and alternators--the numbers just don't work out.

Cliffs Notes Version:

* On-board electrolyzers are not a good idea ever;
* Even if they were, you'd still need a way to adjust fuel and spark;
* On-board H2 from a tank only makes sense if gas is like, $10/gallon or more;
* H2 makes the most sense when it's premixed into CNG in small doses ("Hythane"). Especially since your converted car already has a high pressure tank on board.

I know, i was referring to how it is taken in. I know they have completely different characteristics and functions. Thank you though

If you research the kit you will notice that it allows for fine tunig of the amperage to produce the right amout of vapors for a particular engine. Also the kit on the web site listed above, in the first post, pulls less amps than most other kits out there keeping the amperage draw within limits of the stock alternator (15-20 amps). It even comes with an ammeter to allow monitoring of amps being used and allows for fine tuning. :eyetwitch

It will always take more power to split the hydrogen from the water than you will ever get from burning it, always.

Ergo, your fuel consumption will go up, it's bull.

Hydrogen as a fuel source will only work when we can model a system similar to a plant. It is called biophotolysis. Creating hydrogen by driving the system with electricity or petrol is inefficient.

^^ NOTE THIS ^^

If this is like the other kits I have read, it takes h2o and splits it to H2 and O2 where it will be recombined in the combustion process. So, your beginning and end products are H2O. If you end at the same state you began, your net power production is 0 under ideal effeciencies. Given the inefficient processes involved, you actually have a net loss of power. Making fuel and then burning it will not conserve fuel.

Put it this way - take everything in your house and move it to your front lawn. Then move it all back. The net change is 0 but you're still tired as hell, no? It would be interesting to see if someone could infact produce a short term gas savings (at the expense of battery life).

Yeah, but in all fairness, that's not the argument that any of the onboard electrolysis guys are making. That would obviously violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

What they're talking about is, adding small amounts of H2 to the mixture in order to improve combustion characteristics. Gasoline has a relatively narrow band it likes to run in, when you're talking about fuel : air ratios. Not so with H2. You can run it ridiculously lean and it will still ignite reliably.

Thus, the example of the U2 spy plane using small amounts of it, at high altitudes. The air is thin, combustion is spotty, and stalls are frequent without it.

It's like adding kindling to a fire. The kindling isn't adding significant amounts of energy, it's helping the fire get started quick and reliably. Just a little H2, and you can run lean, you can retard your timing, etc.

But there again, you can tell something is amiss. None of these companies include a means of adjusting fuel or spark. They just sell universal kits, with no mention of the rather critical step of adjusting your car's ECU. And they don't have specific data for specific models. And their kits cannot produce enough H2 to boost the mixture to 5%. Not without adding alternators, which add drag, which kills the MPG gains you got. Again, according to the guy in my link, who is an engineering professor iirc.

Supplementing H2 only begins to make a little bit of sense if the H2 is manufactured outside of the car, with a high pressure tank you refill weekly.

i absolutely have to start selling these kits.

Which will kill the catalytic converters on all cars bar those already fitted with lean burn systems - which can operate at 18:1 anyway, and you can only run that lean under very low load conditions.

It's ebay electric superchargers all over again.

one of the hydrogen RE rx8 in Thailand caught fire and blew up on the motorshow test, I think they have it on the internet.........gotta find the picture

If car companies could increase the efficiency of their vehicles by 10mpg or more just by adding a water filled tube with 2 metal plates inside of it, Don't you think it would be in use by every single car company in the world?

Don't be stupid.

True, but i recently found out in researching the kit that the original patent for the kit is owned by the Chevron gas co. and that they are not releasing it. Wonder why? Could it be that this might actually work and that they are afraid that it might drive down gas sales? Thanks for the posts every one, although they all are not in ageement with me i still appreciate the constructive criticism, keep it up:) Have a good weekend:lol2:

If there's a patent, then whether of not Chevron 'owns' it, you should be able to read it and decide for yourself about it and understand how it works, and as long as you don't sell it, build one for testing. Patents are public.

Yeah I know. My friend is currently testing a home made kit on his friends mustang and he will keep me informed on what the results are. They are monitoring MPG changes mostly, but i will let everyone know when i get some info. So far he's been using the kit for awhile but i want long term use information on it. This company that i found sells a nice kit that looks better than the do-it-yourself kit which is based out of canada (does that have n e thing to do with the patent chevron has?). If n e one finds any facts about similar kits or knows n e one with first hand info, let me know. I will post more when i have information worth while.:Eyecrazy:

First off, I'd like you to post the actual patent. The united states patent office has a website, and it does have a search engine, so get cracking.

Secondly, a patent is not a monopoly. Even if Cheveron DOES have such a patent, it does not prevent anyone from designing, implementing, and even patenting, a hydrogen generation system of their own. Knowing this, I think that the reason that Cheveron isn't using the patent is because it doesn't work. Furthermore, if it did work, I think that every car manufacturer in the world would be extremely interested in any device that could dramatically increase gas mileage without sacrificing power.

I agree, but you can't tell me that there are not many things that would make life easier that have not been mass produced for what ever reason. But on a side note I received an e-mail back from the above mentioned web site regarding use of the generator kit in rotary engines. Im sure there will be many opinonated posts in lue of this post but here it is....

Our units work with all internal combustion engines, and therefore will work with your rotary engine since it is a type of internal combustion engine. The unit that would be best for your vehicle would be the AL-20, which is best suited for engines that hold up to 2.0L. For further information on this unit, you can check out the product page at the following website:
http://www.savefuel.ca/hydrogen/smal...id=carproducts
I personally don't know of any research that has been done on other vehicles with rotary engines but since it is a type of internal combustion engine, the unit should work the same as it does on all other vehicles with internal combustion engines. You can check out previous customers opinions about our units on the testimonial page of our website:
http://www.savefuel.ca/hydrogen/test...php?id=reviews
With use of our generators, you do not have to worry about any damage to the engine or surrounding parts in your vehicle. There is no water that will enter your engine to cause corrosion. Only hydrogen and oxygen gases are forced through into the engine's air intake.
Regular gasoline leaves behind carbon buildup in your engine, which decreases the power of the engine, causing the engine to generate less horsepower and torque. Higher-octane fuels help burn off some of this carbon residue. When you use a supplemental hydrogen generator, you not only increase combustion efficiency, but also raise the octane level of your fuel. A higher octane level means that the engine burns more cleanly.

Let's go back to simple physics.....

Anything 'generated' by electricity in your car is powered by the alternator, right?

Since we all agree with the law of conservation of energy, that states that "energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another."

Then it follows that any gains will come from the alternator, which uses the engine's power, and slows the car down........

Since no system is even close to perfect, you must put more energy into the process than comes out - so you will slow the engine WAY more than any gain you'll see from combustion.

There is no free lunch, unless you believe the oil companies also know how to bypass the First Law of Thermodynamics, but are keeping it secret......


S

Now that explanation seems understandable, factual, and agreeable. This question might seem nieve but when researching this kit i found numerous testamonials of how people have seen an increase in MPG's and have even noticed horse-power gains, although dyno tests are not avavailable. Am i just being gullible or is it possible to see this although there is more strain put on the alternator?. Also, is there a safe amount of amperage that can be drawn form the alternator with out causing so much strain that it would affect the performance of the engine. Further, If one were to upgrade their alternator to an aftermarket one with less drag and higher output would this make this idea/kit more feasable? :uhh:

The drain on the alternator is minimal. Most people are using less juice than a couple subs. I havent seen many people get over 12-14amps....not sure if this can really amount to much though. The correct way to do it is use a rectifier with adjustable voltage/amperage. When you do this, you can control it without making a bomb. The ideal set up would be computer controlled, monitoring temp, pressure, voltage, and amperage and adjust accordingly.

What needs to be done is, take a car that runs fine (non fuel injected is easiest). Buy the propane conversion for it, its proven reliable. Buy a tank of pure hydrogen, which is available everywhere. Tune till you have perfect set up, record pressure and flow. Then you can bench test to create the same flow and pressure.

Downside is, heat. Piston engines run very hot on hydrogen from what I have seen locally. Not sure if its just a lean mixture creating it, or the fact that gasoline cools the combustion chamber so effectively. My theory is 100% ethanol/ hydrogen mix will be ideal. Cheap, and the ethanol is much cooler than gasoline. (On quads we run alcohol and the carbs will form ice on them in 110 degree weather.....15hp gains on a 60hp engine, so you know its cold). So, ethanol may be the cooling factor needed. Plus, on a rotary, I would want some form of premix for good measure.

Alternators don't work like that.

The more current they generate, more load they put on the engine. The ECU will keep the idle steady, but the load is there.


S

Yes, thats for sure. The load on the kit shouldnt be constant, it should vary. It will put a load on engine, and in tern use more fuel. Complete conversion is the only way I think it will work.

Method 2, buy separate battery (with money you could use for fuel) and solar charge it. This would relieve stress from alternator.

dont expect miracles.

I'm so glad Outkast187 is here to lead us into the future of alternative fuels :)

Hydrogen isn't a very good solution, this is probably the best hydrogen kit I've seen switch2hydrogen.com , but it still isn't very effective.

The only hydrogen power that has anything promising about it is what Blacklight Power is doing.

There are much more mundane reasons for inreased MPG with a kit like this. It mostly has to do with people changing their driving habits to avoid the abject shame of wasting their money on a scam.

An RX-8 can do 8 MPG if you're driving it hard enough. If you go easy on the throttle though, you can get 20 mpg. Thats a 50+% improvement in gas milage Just by changing your driving habits. No hydrogen generator needed.

I suspect that after spending 250 to 1000 dollars on a kit that doesn't do anything, they begin to slow down. Coasting up to stop lights instead of drag racing to them, driving 65 instead of 75 on the freeway, Cutting out short trips that won't let the engine warm up, shifting earlier, etc, etc, etc. All 100% effective methods of saving gas.

Now there was one interesting thing about that website that caught my eye, and that was the page that talked about government tax incentives. I'm willing to bet that any smart person who's installing this kit is getting cash from the government for doing so, but I haven't the desire to figure out how to make the scam work.

8mpg --> 20mpg = 150% improvement ;)

Pardon. I failed math in high school. It's the reason my eyes glaze over whenever RotaryGod starts explaining things like volumetric efficiency.

I agree 1000% socket, I am sure the driving habits change drastically to improve mileage. Its not hard at all to change how you drive and gain 1-3mpg. Its even easier with an instant mileage calculator, I loved mine in the vette.....you could find the sweet spot and actually save some fuel.

Yeah i would have to go along with what Outkast was saying. A totally seperate system would work better. utilizing a PWM for the H2 Cell and a rechargeable Li-Ion or Li-Polymer Battery as Li-titanate are not really available. Another way to do it would be to have the H2 Cell run off of solar pannels on the roof of your house and into a storage tank that feeds into a fuel cell in the car (much like the small scale Simplicity 2 and like honda is doing with the FCX Clarity). Yet another way would be to run it off of your house electricty, but that all goes back to the efficiency if the H2 Cell. From what I have red and seen most are very inefficient.

Maybe solar to charge the battery that runs a PWM that runs a H2 Cell that stores in a tank to be fed to a fuel cell in the car or even a presuredized tank in the car (but this would need to have a compressor to pressurise either tank). when it comes down to it i would have to say BEV will win in the end.

ah thats my 2cents. the electrolysis cells dont really have names so i sub'ed in H2 Cell for simplicity and for a lack of a better word at the time ;)

Ok, been looking into this stuff for a while, this is what ive found to be amazing.

Ok, for the first video watch it all, it gets better

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9NvboKL43Q

After seeing that I found this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs-Uk...eature=related

After seeing that I looked into Stanly Meyers patents and found this one

http://www.primeideas.info/patents/PART57.pdf

With some more reaserch I started trying to figure out how to atleast try building a bench test unit. This is where ive gotten to in the build.

I'll take one of these. H from H2O that goes!

http://www.ronnmotors.com/cms/

Ive seen that before, im not sure if its using a generator. I think its a hybrid but its a nice car.

there may be more to this that i 1st thought. intriguing --i will watch this with a very interested eye.
can you are believing some are tuning to a 30/1!!!
a lot i know about engines may be changing.
olddragger

From their site:

"Produces hydrogen during vehicle operation through electrolysis of water using the power generated from the vehicles electrical system. A small amount of hydrogen added to the vehicles intake air/fuel mixture allows the engine to operate with less fossil fuel. Ronn Motor Company will use this technology in its revolutionary Scorpion to achieve lower emissions and vastly improved fuel economy.

There are two main kinds of Hydrogen Hybrid automobile. These are fuel cell vehicles and Hydrogen internal combustion engines, (HICE) like our first automobile "The Scorpion". Fuel cell vehicles are electric cars. Hydrogen is pumped into a tank in the car, just as gasoline. The hydrogen gas is then fed into the fuel cell where it is electrochemically converted into electricity--with no combustion, no moving parts and no emissions other than water vapor. The electricity is used to power the vehicle.

Hydrogen ICE vehicles use a regular combustion engine modified to use gaseous hydrogen instead of liquid gasoline (much like a natural gas vehicle is modified). They burn hydrogen or a combination of gasoline and hydrogen, but since there is no carbon in hydrogen, there are no or almost no CO2 emissions and only trace amounts of NOx (oxides of nitrogen). Hydrogen ICE vehicles are typically about 30-50% more efficient than comparable gasoline vehicles. "

Ill admit right now i almost gave up on this thread. However the last couple of posts have re-ignited my ambitions regarding the use of hydrogen injection via intake.

I really apreciated the quote on the web site regarding the scorpion vehicle:
"The Scorpion will feature our new and exclusive Hydrogen Fuel Injection (HFI) fuel delivery system. The system provides Hydrogen on demand, which is injected directly into the motor. This alternative fuel approach allows us to increase fuel mileage between 20-40 % and reduce CO2 emissions to nearly zero."

Also as spin9k brought out in his post:
"Hydrogen ICE vehicles use a regular combustion engine modified to use gaseous hydrogen instead of liquid gasoline (much like a natural gas vehicle is modified)."

Therefore this is starting to show some real world application. Although many are in disbelief of this idea we have to agree that it is starting to come out of the wood work and may some day soon be common practice among car companies. I don't know about every body else but this is exciting that it's possible to modify a regular combustion engine to perform better.

I've always been intrigued by things like this. Sure, the internet is full of "something for nothing" scams, but if you manage to sift through them you occasionally find little gems of wisdom.

There's no doubt in my mind that these hydrogen kits aren't doing anything. As everyone here has said, laws of thermodynamics blabbity blah blah... Having said that everyone is forgetting that it's not an "energy for nothing" situation we're looking for here. Gasoline is chemical energy storage and, as I understand it, reacting it as we all do to get energy is hugely inefficient. Only something like 3 or 4% of the chemically stored energy in the gas is turned into motion. If we can react the fuel with something first in order to achieve more efficient combustion, or even switch to a different fuel that burns more efficiently, we're already ahead of the game.

Is hydrogen the solution? Is the energy lost from generating it offset by releasing more chemical energy from the gasoline? I don't know. I'm not a chemist. I don't feel like generating the hydrogen onboard the vehicle makes a ton of sense though. At the very least you're carrying more weight, and exposing yourself to highly volatile hydrogen gas contained in a "roll your own" variety machine.

Smells like Darwin award material to me.

I read somewhere about a guy that increased the gas mileage in his engine by like 50% by using water injection. He basically recaptured a lot of the wasted energy (heat) by injecting water every other stroke instead of fuel.

This water turned into steam, which pressurized the chamber (not as much as the gas, but it doesnt matter) and gave the engine a free power stroke, essentially. He said the engine could run for a long time and still be slightly warm to the touch.

Now, I'm sure power went down somewhat from it not using all that extra fuel, but his gas mileage went up A LOT. Wouldn't you think the car manufacturers would try this? NO.

Who wants to have to fill an extra tank with distilled water every time they fill up their car? Would you honestly buy a car that could get 3 more mpgs, if you only dump some distilled water and table salt in a tank every 100 miles, and have to clean out the tank every 1000 miles? Oh, and what about if the salesman told you your car was generating explosive gas under the hood, and, while it's mostly safe, there's a teeny chance it will explode.

I wouldn't be surprised if this system works. Not on the premise that the gas generated in splitting the h2o is producing more energy than it took to split it. However, interesting things happen when you start mixing things together and lighting them on fire. A tiny bit of h2 in the combustion chamber might cause the combustion to be more complete. Forget about the energy that the explosion of h2 itself makes. How do we know the small amount of H2 added wouldn't make the air a better catalyst for combustion, increasing the efficency of the explosion of the gasoline? Then, gas mileage and power would go up...

^^Just my thoughts on it

911, What happened to "your friend" with the kit? You've gotten very quiet about the massive MPG gains he's supposed to be getting.

Wheres your data?

this may not be "poppycock" folks. Some VERY reputable folks I know are activly pursuing this. Jury is still out there but there had to be pretty good potential present for these people to get involved.
Wouldnt this be one hell of a note.
olddragger

With all due respect to those who love this idea...
 

...it is just a load.

I have degrees in Physics and Mechanical Engineering, so I'm not just talking through my hat here. It's already been said by wiser but sadder folks (and earlier in this very thread) that there is No Free Lunch. This is a cute but accurate restating of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which states quite simply that Entropy is positive throughout the universe.

That means that things tend to "run downhill" or "degrade". In other words, energy seeks it's lowest state (which is heat). When acted upon (transformed) or "used", energy will always degrade to a lower state, all ending in heat. In the (very) long run, the universe is expected to devolve into a bunch of cold ash floating randomly in a large bath of tepid space (pretty depressing, huh?... Don't worry, that's not due for several billion years yet.)

Yes, you can take advantage of the abillity to transform energy from lower forms (like heat) to higher forms (like electricity) using mechanical devices, chemical reactions, etc (which is how every living thing survives). Unfortunately these transformations are not very efficient (most of them are not even close to 50%), and so the cost of transformation is yet more heat (just at a lower level or temperature than what you started with). The "good" energy thus generated ALWAYS costs you (and the universe in general) more heat energy in the end.

All that is just another way to restate the 2nd Law.

Apply this to our hydrogen generator and you can see that whatever extra energy you divert from the alternator to produce the hydrogen must be itself generated by gasoline going through it's own conversion to mechanical energy (via chemical combustion, pressure expansion and so on), which drives the belt that drives the alternator that produces the hydrogen. Each step of that process creates its own extra heat due to the inefficiency of the conversions. Thus those of you who have actually read this far :Eyecrazy: can easily see that we must use gasoline to create our extra hydrogen. Those with a tad more insight and a tad less wishful thinking should also see that the conversion process is very inefficient, which means actual MPG MUST DECREASE using this device, assuming everything else (driving habits, braking styles, etc) remains the same.

Sorry about that,

d_of_e

...unless the hydrogen acts as a catlyst causing the gasoline to combust more efficiently, resulting in a more complete burn, less soot coming out the tailpipe, and more pressure (read power) exerted on the chamber surfaces.

If you can honestly say that adding an external chemical (aside from an inert gas, which hydrogen most definitely is not) into the combustion process will do precisely zero to the rate of combustion, efficiency of combustion, completeness of combustion, then maybe you need to go back to school and re-take chem and thermo. I'm not saying that it will definitely do something measurable in MPG's, but it will definitely have some effect, however miniscule, on the combustion process.

And yes, I'm an engineer.

As i mentioned in previous posts, Im waiting on definitive data from his trial. I not going to take information from the first few weeks of use of the kit and completely rely on it as a final say in how the experiment turned out. I will have info posted when it has proven to be trust worthy, whether or not it is positive or negitive. Although im an optimist i will acknowledge the facts as long as they are provided as facts and not opinion. Also i never claimed he was getting masiive MPG increases, i claimed that the kit mentioned online claimes to have major gains.:lol:

is it the electricity doing the converting or is the electricity just a catylyst?
olddragger