Seen on CNN: Hydrogen used to Increase Mileage

[SoobieOut]

The site has a few broken links. I am very curious on the 12 volt power consumption. Usually takes more power than you ever get out of the Hydrogen. I bet the alternator barely keeps up.

Shame on CNN for not vetting this story. It's been nothing but downhill for CNN since they dumped Glenn Beck

[UFO]

Originally Posted by MorphDaCivic

The site has a few broken links. I am very curious on the 12 volt power consumption. Always takes more power than you ever get out of the Hydrogen. I bet the alternator barely keeps up.

Fixed that for ya.

[Crazyrabbit]

This scheme is really easy to dismiss. Even engineers and scientists with lots of experience tend to want to throw it on the trash heap of perpetual motion machines. That said, I think it could be real, at least to some extent. It is hard to feature the claims made, but most of the informed skeptics start by pointing out the efficiencies in the process. First, car alternators only make about 50% efficiency, so the skeptics say even if everything else was 100% efficient you can only get back 50% of the energy you put in as fuel. And since engine thermodynamic efficiency might be about 30%, it is a losing proposition anyway you look at it. What these astute and informed critics ignore is the ways in which the combustion process itself works and the nature of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen will burn in air at a concentration of 4%. That is a remarkably low figure, and any hydrogen present could cause fuel which would otherwise go unburned to be burned. Added oxygen, would help as well. So I have stated this before, and I'll state it again, This scheme might very well work. I don't think it will work as well as the "inventor" claims. I don't think it is worth $1,500 by any measure. It will work better on a primative operating system like a carb vs. F.I. Remember, the Honda stratified charge lean burn scheme? It sought to reduce unburned hydrocarbons by eliminating hydrocarbons from the end gas which is quenched by the combustion chamber walls. This scheme seeks to reduce unburned hydrocarbons by promoting combustion even though the walls are trying to quench the flame. A secondary effect that will boost FE is an increase in inlet temperature. Smokey U., with his hot vapor engine, and others would chime in here if they could.

What is really needed is some objective testing, to get to the bottom of this.

The biggest laugh I got out of this was the anti-explosion coating. I am going to ask for that at the store next time I am there.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by Crazyrabbit

This scheme is really easy to dismiss. Even engineers and scientists with lots of experience tend to want to throw it on the trash heap of perpetual motion machines. That said, I think it could be real, at least to some extent. It is hard to feature the claims made, but most of the informed skeptics start by pointing out the efficiencies in the process. First, car alternators only make about 50% efficiency, so the skeptics say even if everything else was 100% efficient you can only get back 50% of the energy you put in as fuel. And since engine thermodynamic efficiency might be about 30%, it is a losing proposition anyway you look at it. What these astute and informed critics ignore is the ways in which the combustion process itself works and the nature of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen will burn in air at a concentration of 4%. That is a remarkably low figure, and any hydrogen present could cause fuel which would otherwise go unburned to be burned. Added oxygen, would help as well. So I have stated this before, and I'll state it again, This scheme might very well work. I don't think it will work as well as the "inventor" claims. I don't think it is worth $1,500 by any measure. It will work better on a primative operating system like a carb vs. F.I. Remember, the Honda stratified charge lean burn scheme? It sought to reduce unburned hydrocarbons by eliminating hydrocarbons from the end gas which is quenched by the combustion chamber walls. This scheme seeks to reduce unburned hydrocarbons by promoting combustion even though the walls are trying to quench the flame. A secondary effect that will boost FE is an increase in inlet temperature. Smokey U., with his hot vapor engine, and others would chime in here if they could.

What is really needed is some objective testing, to get to the bottom of this.

The biggest laugh I got out of this was the anti-explosion coating. I am going to ask for that at the store next time I am there.

...it's right there on the shelf, next to the Flux-gate Capacitors!

[Crazyrabbit]

In God we trust. All others bring data.

[ChazInMT]

Crazy Rabbit....Gasoline is hydrogen fuel....Look into it. It's science. Octane has 8 carbon atoms with 18 hydrogen atoms stuck on it, and when air with 21% oxygen mixes with it, the octane’s hydrogen combines with the oxygen. HHO is nothing other than more fuel for the car, which is already running on hydrogen & oxygen.
Make sense?
Hydrogen & Oxygen (gasoline) powered car, gets slightly more hydrogen & oxygen from HUGELY INEFFICIENT HHO GENERATOR.
Can't work to improve efficiency. It is chemical perpetual motion. That is why it is a unicorn, it is non-existent. If you were smart enough to type the drivel you did, you should be smart enough to come to this realization yourself.

This is chemistry data. It's basic stuff.

YOU show US how adding a modicum of hydrogen and oxygen to the fuel mixture of an ICE will improve efficiency above and beyond the energy it took to create the hydrogen and oxygen. Blahdity blah blah blah about 4% hydrogen is not data. Tell us how much water you would need to turn into its constituent parts in order to generate a 4% fuel air mixture to power a car at 70 mph. Tell us how many amps of electricity at what voltage would be required to achieve this. Tell us how you intend to keep the water from boiling dry at this amp rate. Tell us how you generate the power (amps x volts = watts..watts is power...real actual power....it isn't just "spare power"...the engine really has to make this power) to make the volume of hydrogen required to go 70 mph. And for the Sake of Pete use real numbers and terms, liters per hour, moles, watts, volts, amps, & btu's.

You explain to us in scientific terms how this can operate and be a net positive. I then will personally pay for the airline tickets & accommodations for anyone who wishes to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo Norway in your honor, it'll be a great time in history, the dawn of energy independence for all the rest of time.

It isn't up to us to prove your stupid claims wrong, it is up to you to prove them right, that's science. Spouting catch phrases that sound scientific is called "Snake Oil Salesmanship".

Show us your "data", till then we don't trust your unicorn god.

I still can't believe you wrote, "In God we Trust. All others bring data."

[UFO]

Originally Posted by ChazInMT

Show us your "data", till then we don't trust your unicorn god.

I still can't believe you wrote, "In God we Trust. All others bring data."

I was having some trouble with that one too. Projection?

[ChazInMT]

I prefer "Great Minds Think Alike"!!!!

[Crazyrabbit]

Chaz you seem to comprehend the obvious: that you can not take power from an engine, drive an alternator, use the electric power to electrolize water to make H2 and O2, run the engine on that to make shaft power and come out ahead. There are too many efficiency losses along the way, the largest being the thermodynamic efficiency of the engine itself.

It seems as though you are fixating on that truth so intensely, that your mind can not grasp the bigger picture. That is not all that is happening. An automotive service tech. looks for a temperature rise across a catalytic converter as a sign that it is operating correctly. How do you think that temperature rise is possible? Its possible because even in a modern fuel injected engine there are unburned hydrocarbons and partial products of combustion like carbon monoxide that are oxidized in the cat. That is the opportunity for these devices to work. If you switch to an earlier more primitive system like a carb, the opportunity for these schemes to work increase. If you switch to a direct injected SI engine like we are starting to see, the opportunity is likely much reduced.

I did not say this scheme worked. All I said was that it might, and that before trashing it into the cesspool of rotting unicorn carcasses somebody ought to get some objectively measured data.

Please leave the intuitive thought process to women, no one can explain that anyway. For a little exercise in objective, and counterintuitive thought, check out "Wired" magazine Mar 2011 page 128 for an article called "Faster" Its about a guy who thought he could make a wind driven machine that could travel down wind faster than the wind. Of course we all know you can't sail downwind faster than the wind going downwind, so while everybody set around and accused this guy of harboring unicorns, he built a machine and proved it was possible.

For another exercise in counterintuitive thought, try reading HOT ROD magazine's September 2010 article on Smokey Yunick's hot-air engine as they called it. When he did it, they said it could not be, and it is still working. This really ought to get this group going because Smokey had some stuff that nobody on this site has. I am not saying it would be easy, but when you open your mind great things can happen. I remember people poo pooing Smokey's work when he was doing it. There were others too. If you heat gasoline to a great enough heat, it can go through some of the pre-combustion reactions, then the usual rules we all had pounded into us in Internal Combustion engines class about lean limit A/F ratios go away. But, if you want to cling to your comfy unicorn blanket, I can understand.

[gone-ot]

ANSWER: There are no Smokey Yunick "hot-air" engines powering any production automobiles today, tomorrow, or the next day.

...Smokey was very good at "...skirting the Rules..." via technical slight-of-handsmanship, and many people still believe he walks on water to this day.

...sorry, but "Hades" hasn't frozen over enough to "...walk on the water..."