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ttoyoda -

Originally Posted by ttoyoda

Here are the patents for the "Plasmatron" hydrogen generator from MIT.
Alexander Rabinovich - Google Patents
Rabinovich is a smart guy. This system breaks down a small flow of gasoline to make the hydrogen, plus some harmless but un-needed byproducts. The power needed is modest.

Seeing this makes me lose all interest in electrolysis to make the hydrogen for enrichment. No platinum electrodes. No corrosive solutions.

From the patent drawings it looks easier to build for verification than a serious electrolysis setup.

I never heard of Rabinovich. The name I was watching was Rudolf M. Smaling, also of MIT. He was working for Arvin-Meritor at one point. These were some of the articles that got me into researching hydrogen :

MIT's plasmatron cuts diesel bus emissions, promises better gas engine efficiency - October 16, 2003
MIT's plasmatron cuts diesel bus emissions, promises better gas engine efficiency - MIT News Office

The team is finding that the device could make vehicles cleaner and more efficient, with a potentially significant impact on oil consumption.

"If widespread use of plasmatron hydrogen-enhanced gasoline engines could eventually increase the average efficiency of cars and other light-duty vehicles by 20 percent, the amount of gasoline that could be saved would be around 25 billion gallons a year," Cohn said. "That corresponds to around 70 percent of the oil that is currently imported by the United States from the Middle East."

ArvinMeritor / MIT Plasma Fuel Reformer - 11 June 2004
Green Car Congress: ArvinMeritor / MIT Plasma Fuel Reformer

The team is finding that the device could make vehicles cleaner and more efficient, with a potentially significant impact on oil consumption.

“If widespread use of plasmatron hydrogen-enhanced gasoline engines could eventually increase the average efficiency of cars and other light-duty vehicles by 20 percent, the amount of gasoline that could be saved would be around 25 billion gallons a year,” [Daniel] Cohn [one of the leaders of the team and head of the Plasma Technology Division at MIT’s PSFC] said. “That corresponds to around 70 percent of the oil that is currently imported by the United States from the Middle East.”

ArvinMeritor Pursues A Different Hydrogen Strategy - 2004/08/xx
WIP - ArvinMeritor Pursues A Different Hydrogen Strategy - 08/04

"Plasmatron" is a name that smacks of the sort of advancement in technology that the unit that ArvinMeritor (Troy, MI; www.arvinmeritor.com) is working to commercialize really is. Although that name was used by the researchers at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, from which the auto supplier has licensed the technology, they're calling it the "Plasma Fuel Reformer," a more descriptive, if mundane, moniker. This system, explains Pedro Ferro, vice president and general manager, ArvinMeritor Commercial Vehicle Emissions, "produces hydrogen onboard and on demand from the vehicle's fuel." That fuel can be either diesel or gasoline. With the system there's no need for a hydrogen infrastructure, as the system does the job.
...
As "Plasmatron" implies, a plasma cloud of ionized gas is generated, through which atomized fuel is passed. That induces a partial oxidation reaction, which results in H and CO. The hydrogen can then be mixed in the vehicle combustion chamber with gasoline. As a result, says Garrick Hu, vp of Advanced Engineering, ArvinMeritor Commercial Vehicle Systems, "You're extracting more of the energy from the fuel than you do in a normal gasoline engine." He explains, "It gives you flame stability, so you have the ability to operate in a lean condition. Your lean limit can move. Your knock limit can move. You can go to higher compression ratios. Higher compression ratios give you more power." He adds, "Typically that yields a higher NOx production--but not in this case."

(WO/2006/099070) ELECTRODE ASSEMBLY OF A PLASMA FUEL REFORMER - 2006-09-21
(WO/2006/099070) ELECTRODE ASSEMBLY OF A PLASMA FUEL REFORMER

Hydrogen-rich gas generated by the fuel reformer 10 may be supplied to an internal combustion engine (not shown) such as a spark-ignited gasoline engine. In such a case, the internal combustion engine combusts the reformate gas as either the sole source of fuel, or alternatively, as a fuel additive to a hydrocarbon fuel. Alternatively, hydrogen-rich gas generated by the fuel reformer 10 may be supplied to a fuel cell (not shown) such as an alkaline fuel cell (AFC), a phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC), a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC), or any other type of fuel cell. In such a case, the fuel cell utilizes the hydrogen-rich gas in the production of electrical energy. The hydrogen-rich gas from the fuel reformer 10 may also be supplied to an emission abatement device such as a NOx trap or a soot filter to facilitate regeneration thereof. The fuel reformer 10 includes a plasma generator 12 and a reactor 14, as shown in FIG. 1. The plasma generator 12 generates a plasma arc using electrical power from an electrical power supply 16. A mixture of air from an air supply 18 and hydrocarbon fuel from a fuel supply 20 passes through the plasma arc and into the reactor 14 to reform the hydrocarbon fuel into a reformate gas. Electrical power is introduced into the plasma generator 12 by use of a power connector (not shown) which is advanced through an electrical power inlet 22. Air is introduced into the

However, I am almost positive that Arvin-Meritor has sold off this research. ... Google google google ... Here's some good news (to me) :

Smaling and de Weck Receive 2007 Best Paper Award from Systems Engineering - June 24, 2008
ESD News item

In the paper by Smaling and de Weck, the effect of infusing new technologies is captured using the concept of architectural invasiveness relative to a baseline system. The degree of invasiveness is related to the amount of design change required to accommodate the new technology. The technology infusion methodology is demonstrated for a hydrogen-enhanced combustion engine, where the effects of integrating a plasma fuel reformer are modeled in terms of fuel economy, NOx emissions, and vehicle add-on costs.

Dr. Smaling is Chief Architect for Hybrid Power Systems at Eaton Corporation in Michigan. Previously, he was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston, director of research at the Houston Automotive Research Center (HARC), and director of research and engineering for Arvin Meritor's Light Vehicle Systems division. In this capacity he was responsible for commercial development of the plasma fuel reformer for light vehicle applications. He holds two MIT degrees: a Ph.D. in Engineering Systems (2005) and an S.M. in System Design and Management (2003).

Here's the paper :

Assessing Risks and Opportunities of Technology Infusion in System Design* - 23 June 2006
http://esd.mit.edu/HeadLine/smaling-...ing-deweck.pdf

Please note that the plasma reformer is a "given" in the paper. The question the paper tries to answer is the economic viability of introducing new technologies.

CarloSW2