Thread: running on hydrogen gas

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doubling your gas mileage running a home made hydrogen gas generator, has anyone heard of this yet ? My dad made one yesterday and is putting it on one of his cars today for a test run. The claims are very hard to believe, but he knows someone using it right now. And this person is claiming great results also. And for 50 bucks I will give it a shot also. Hey dont laugh it might be worth trying to double your gas mileage. And if it does work I guess some hired oil company assassin will be hiding in my bushes next week for telling you about it.

http://www.water4gas.com/2books.htm

looks very interesting. let me know how it goes with your dad's try at it.

I'm eager to hear of the results... seems more plausible than others I've heard of but I'm still in the "if it sounds too good to be true..." corner.

-Chris

Sounds like the great "Potato bug Cure" to me---

The law of diminishing returns will get ya! It takes more energy to break the water down into hydrogen and oxygen than you get back by burning it. If it didn't you'd be well on the way to perpetual motion, and we all know where that gets you.

Me and the wife have been doing some research on this, and most we have found sayes that it is in fact not a scam, but can be improved alot, there is no found evidence that it does not work. they also have ratings on the best kits to buy and that company comes in second, the first company is called "run your car on water" and if you check ebay, there is the kits cheaper than the fifty bucks.

Might be worth it just to keep our dollars out of the hands of our middle east friends.

"It must be true, I read it on the internet"

Listen to Pope, folks. Think about it. If it were as simple as a fruit jar and some hose, it would be a developed technology. There is no "forgotten patent", notice they didnt give the patent number. There is no miracle separation of water into its elements....it takes energy to do so. You will see an improvement in your mileage since installing snake oil products makes you constantly aware of your mileage so you drive more careful...which works.

These scams have been selling for years and seem to pop up in quantity when oil prices spike.

Tune up your car and lose 50 lbs at the gym...that will do a lot more for your mileage!

"Listen to Pope, Folks." Love it, haha.
The thing is, the hydrogen generator would help a bit if you set it up with a throttle switch, so it injected the gases on demand, such as climbing a hill, or passing. The power loss from the alternator would be small, over a long period, and the burst of power would benefit a smaller engine. But do you want to drive around with a quantity of highly explosive hydrogen/oxygen mixture somewhere on board? Not me, thanx.
Totally different from a hydrogen cell, btw. A cell contains no oxygen, and won't go BANG!

The power company here in our little town in BC (BC Hydro ) is using the water powered generating station to produce hydrogen and has a Suburban
work truck that runs on hydrogen. But until they get up and running (2009)they truck the hydrogen in.
I want to find out more about how they get the power- fuel cell or burn it in a IC engine.
Isn't hydrogen/oxygen what they power the booster rockets.
good power to weight ratio

I used to consult for a company that was developing this sort of process. There is an old patent by a guy named Richardson but I don't recall the patent number. The process could be used to convert waste paper or other carbon containing waste materials to produce methane as well as hydrogen, BUT there are many problems. First, as Pope says it takes energy to split the water and other complex organic reactions that form the methane also require energy. For sure you cannot get more energy out of burning just hydrogen than it took to separate the hydrogen from the water, but depending on what other feed stock materials are involved in forming the methane component as well as some carbon monoxide (CO will burn further and is a low grade fuel) there might be a way to gain some energy from consuming whatever waste material is in the feed stock. I saw several dramatic applications of such gaseous fuel BUT IT IS NOT FOR ME! I saw a demo of pumping this gas into a tank just like service stations use to inflate flat tires on the road and then this gas was fed into a fairly large lawn mower engine. In the demo the fuel gas was turned on and the starter was pulled but the engine did not start on the first pull, but the fuel gas was still flowing! Then the engine started on the second pull but by that time there was a lot of the gas coming out of the exhaust system and WHOOOOOM(!!!!) there was one helluva explosion all around the engine which rattled the roof of the Quonset hut garage we were in. I wonder what would have happened if the engine needed a third pull! So yes, there is some potential to use electrolysis of water based waste to form fuel gas but a sophisticated system like the propane-fueled fork lift trucks is needed to control the gas flow. Be warned that if you mess around with flowing hydrogen you are courting a dangerous explosion. My professional opinion is that this sort of mechanism using electrolysis of waste materials in water could be a valuable way to convert carbon containing waste to useable energy but you need a careful design of a fuel cutoff to control the gas flow; you cannot just generate hydrogen in your gasoline tank and use regular carbueration safely! I quit that consultanship because while I think there is a potentially valuable energy source there, the hype around the advertising is often misleading and such devices can actually be dangerous. One additional problem is that when you electrolize water it is likely that the gas will contain oxygen as well as hydrogen so you are dealing with a dangerous mixture of hydrogen and oxygen ready to explode!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

The comparison to propane brings up another point. The gaseous fuel takes up a lot of volume in the intake system, with a resultant loss of power. I ran a pickup on propane for a year or so. Even with raised CR, it was a gutless wonder with lousy fuel mileage. A little cheaper than gasoline, but not worth the hassle.

There seems to be a limited success with this so far. Even with gasoline, it's readied and produced on demand, from a stored liquid to an automized or vapour fuel that is burned. Hydrogen as produced, is a vapour, unless your using a membrane to seperate the ox and hydrogen, you will have both gases combined as stated earlier. And it will be an explosive mixture as such. I suppose the way around it, is to produce it on demand, instead of trying to store it. But the unit required using todays tech, would be a rather large one, and slow to meet the actual demands of todays vehicles, and consumer expectations. I have been gathering info on the subject myself. And so far, have items that cover the whole spectrum, from Billy-Bob in the backyard, to scientific experiments that are so far out there, that both are rather useless. This is the just the tip of the iceberg, as experiments and tests are performed, more and more is going to learned. Todays tech and computers will play a huge role, something that wasn't available when hydrogen was first discovered. Up until recent times, there hasn't been any push, or reason to persue hydrogen as a replacement fuel. High prices, projected shortages for gas has changed the thinking. And your right when you say, "you can't get something for nothing". Whether your refering to hydrogen production, or saying the "fuel" will be free. Nothing is free. I'm not ready to laugh this off, or dismiss it as a crack-pot scheme just yet. I think it will play an important role in the near future for everyone. Ok, getting off my soapbox now! Sniper

Yeah...,I am sure big daddy oil would just break his neck to tell us how to give him half as much money..........
Just like the phone company does not want you to know ,you can use your existing internet connection as a world wide phone for free .........
C-mon people your fools if you think any of this is for our benifit or what is being done is the best most efficient manner possible,thier out to get as much from you as possible........bottom line,end story.

Like TOWD sez, rockets run on the stuff. But it's compressed to liquid, and injected into the chamber as such. Now, if you injected liquid hydrogen and oxygen directly into your street rod engine, that puppy would FLY! But who wants to motor around with 3000 lb. pressure bottles tied to his butt? Not me, thanks.