Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
The heat and pressure from the diesel injection burns off the propane.
Your propane A/F ratio is around 50:1.
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Ok. 50:1 isn't bad at all. I wonder how well a 20:1 or leaner AFR total of gasoline and propane, with less propane than gasoline, would work in a spark ignited engine. Hydrogen seems promising on that it can burn at extremely lean AFRs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSH
If you understand that you can't get free hydrogen from water you are way ahead of most HHO proponents.
It sounds to me like you looking to do something similar to HCCI. Lots of engine / automotive companies are working on that technology but none to date have been able to create a working engine that can run at various loads / RPM. Controlling the ignition process has proven to be very difficult.
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Of course you're not going to get more energy from the hydrogen. For every gallon of gasoline (131,760,000J) you only get around 19,764,000J of mechanical energy, which when conveyed to electricity in an alternator will be about 14,823,000J of electrical energy, which when used to make hydrogen in a homemade electrolysis device you get around 4,446,900J of hydrogen energy. Then when that hydrogen energy is burnt in the engine it will produce on its own about 667,035J of mechanical energy, which is about a 97% loss, not gain.
BUT, if this could help the rest of the fuel burn more efficiently then there could be a benefit. For an example an ignition system takes electrical energy and produces a sparks for the combustion cycles. Now the spark isn't strong enough to drive the piston. But it does help, or should I say cause, the fuel to burn. And even though there's already a spark in some engines adding two sparkplugs per cylinder increases overall efficiency, even though you're using twice the energy to fire two sparkplugs.
Now as far as sparkplugs go they've already been proven. What I've said about HHO so far is pure speculation and I'm not convinced it will improve efficiency. The only way I can see it improve efficiency is if it could help a gasoline engine burn super lean.
Here's kind of an idea. You have a gasoline engine that runs for the most part like any other gasoline engine. Then when cruising along at low loads it goes into lean burn mode by adding more air along with small amounts of a flammable gas. The flammable gas then propagates the flame caused by the sparkplug throughout the whole cylinder so that all the gasoline burns up.
From what I've read hydrogen would work well for such a system. The potential problem with HHO is whether or not it could produce enough volume of hydrogen without becoming to much of an energy absorber itself. And of course there are the challenges behind storing hydrogen so as to not have to produce it while driving.
Propane is an alternative, but how lean can propane burn in a spark ignited engine?