Diesel Power Magazine Disappointment.
 

Okay,

After a member here said that Diesel Power Magazine was going to have an article that was going to settle the hydrogen injection system debate I bought a copy. Inside the relevant article was a major disappointment. To sum up the article. These systems consist of electrodes in a jar of water and baking soda. Some people say it works. Some people say it doesn't work.

I know I was setting my hopes too high by expecting something really substantial from a mag that is primarily known for their pictures, however they are also known to do a lot of dyno runs.

I guess all I can do is ask for a follow up article and suggest a test procedure that can settle it once and for all.

list of materials for test.
One diesel vehicle with a mechanical injection pump and high output alternator.

One diesel vehicle with a computer controlled common rail injection system and high output alternator.

Optional third vehicle identical to one of the others.

Note: vehicles should be about the same HP.

2 eddy current dynos

Multiple hydrogen generation cells.

One high current switch.

One high current ammeter.

High current wire.

Procedure:

1. Place two vehicles on dynos.

2. Hook hydrogen generator cell(s) gas outlet to intake of one vehicle and supply the electric power to power the hydrogen generator cell(s) from the other vehicle through the power switch.

3. With the switch open (off) adjust both vehicles output to be roughly the same and hold the power output level on the dyno. For one test the power should be about 25%, one at 50%, one at 75%, and one at full load.

4. While sustaining the power level, Close the switch(turn it on) and measure power increase in vehicle receiving the gas from the hydrogen generator cell(s) and the power drop from the vehicle supplying the electricity. If the current drawn from the supplying vehicle exceeds the current rating of the alternator the test data is invalid because power is also being drawn from energy store in the battery and not provided by the engine. If the current drawn is not more than 80% the alternators rating add another hydrogen cell to the system and repeat steps 3 and 4. Note: the power drop should happen quickly after the switch is closed on the engine supplying the electricity and the power increase should happen with in a few seconds on the engine receiving they hydrogen.

5. After all output levels have been tested exchange connections on vehicles and repeat tests.



Note: since alternators are usually 90 to 95% efficient the power required to generate the hydrogen for the other engine should be statistically the same as if it was generated on the engine ingesting the hydrogen.

The reason for using two different vehicles was to eliminate arguments about the computer changing things (for better or worse)


Comments suggestions?

email your post to the magazine.

I didn't expect anything substantial to come of it. It's too touchy of a topic for a basic magazine to really handle. Kinda like whether or not airplanes will take off on conveyor belts. (They will)

I want a little more feed back and on my proposed test before I e-mail them. I want a solid experiment to propose with no wiggle room.

One problem I see is a 200 amp alternator will only put out about 2400 to 2800 watts and draw a little more than 3.21 to 3.75hp and theory predicts the energy produced by the hydrogen will be far less than this. This could be considered to be in the margin of error of a repeated dyno run although on an actively running test it should be sufficient to show relative change. This could be used as a means to argue against the validity of the test.

You run the engine at fixed rpm and load on a dyno.
You hook up the hydrogen generator to an external power source.
You vary the hydrogen input in the intake and you log fuel consumption.
Find out what hydrogen cell output you can get from the alternator power alone.
Plot it on the graph you had previously determined.

Might throw some real world driving in as well. Even if very small amounts of hydrogen are produced, here in a place like Los Angeles, where your average speed is usually "stopped" it might be enough to reduce the fuel that is being used at idle. Did the article give any concrete evidence? Nope, but it did introduce the concept of hydrogen to a large audience that is unfamiliar with its possibilities, which I think is very importaint. Our other editor is really into alternative fuels and such, so we're trying to do some more stuff with HHO, but the intent of the original article was to introduce hydrogen as a concept, which means that people who are already familiar with the subject didn't find the answer they were looking for. We're working on it though, and we'll try to do some actual testing here in the near future. I knew us not giving any solid results would open up a can of worms :D just didn't know how fast those suckers would travel.

Jason Sands
Associate Editor
Diesel Power Magazine

Driving tests are far too unreliable as there are too many variables that can effect things.

Also a worm just opened up a big can of whoopass
FTC Sues Promoters of Bogus Fuel Efficiency Device

I agree: "real world" testing doesn't produce credible data. Keep it on the dyno!

Hello Ecomodder
 

It is great to see a site like this. Very cool. I found it by doing a random search on the internet. I will have to check out all its nooks and crannies and hopefully we will get to bounce ideas off one another.

Too bad I have to start off with an apology to ConnClark. I agree the article mentioned was not that good. But like we said you got to start somewhere blah blah blah. And here's another excuse we here at Diesel Power are journalists not researchers. We just describe what we see. Yeah I'll hide behind that until my F-250 perpetual motion machine (as long as the sun is shining) is running.
Here is the article:

Anyways I think I have a solution to testing and creating enough electricity.

Testing: Brake Specific Fuel Consumption BSFC (I need to learn how to do this type of a test)

On-board emissions tester

Creating Electricity:
Waste heat generator=

Drive shaft alternator

Telescoping wind mill (when sitting in parking lots)

A few batteries

Solar panels

People power there will be pedals for the passenger

Black Soldier Fly hopper in bed to reduce garbage and create more biodiesel

Electricity generating shocks

Thermoelectric devices for more waste heat recovery

Algae growing in truck bed on a closed loop system connected to Mcgyan biodiesel generator

We now have 2 full page adds advertising on board hydrogen generators.

What about this.

The hydrogen fuel cells do not work.

Period.

it takes 50% more energy to extract H2 and O2 from water than you get when you burn them. Problem solved.

So you start with 100 watts use them all to make H2 and O2 from water. You get x amount of H2 and O2 and you burn it in the engine. It produces 66 watts. You lost 33 watts.

Unless you run the hydrogen generator off of something else that never touches the engine, drivetrain or anything along those lines you will never improve FE. period.

If its running off a solar panel(and you just wanted a way to make electricity into movement without complicated systems) or a stirling engine attached to the exhaust manifold. . .whatever. As long as its truly waste energy and not touching the alt or any of the accessory belts or anything you have to make the engine run harder to do, you will see small FE increase. But if its running on your fuel you are throwing fuel away. Period.

theunchosen,

I see your perspective and in it your right. Now let me unload some hydrogen propaganda.

The idea of getting your electricity from a source outside the engines crankshaft might help open up hydrogen generators. Considering today's engines produce just as much waste heat as they do work at the wheels.

First of all we need to get on the same page.

Most vehicles have only 25% thermal efficiency. Side note: I don't understand why people use MPG as a way to measure efficiency. You are making more work for yourself. Also I want to pick on ecomodder's mission statement. You guys are not concerned with power? Power is what does work. Fuel efficiency is a result not a thing.

So the unchosen, your example works if our engines were 100% thermal efficient. It is not so simple. Take today's diesel engines which have particulate matter filters. The engine dumps fuel to burn out the ash. A cleaner burning engine requires less fuel dumps. A gasoline engine uses fuel to cool combustion. So why not substitute water+methanol or steam? But I think for gas 3-way-cats to work they need rich 14.7 to 1 fuel mixtures. So leaning them out which you can do with hydrogen might make them not work?

I'm not saying go out and buy anything. It's kind of like this pretend on-board hydrogen generators are a rare species of ants. These ants secrete a liquid which cures cancer. Here I am on my hands and knees with a magnifying glass carefully working to not squish anything which might be under a leaf or twig. Here you are running around screaming at the top of your lungs looking towards the sky and truly believing cancer curing ants couldn't possibly exist.

Thats not really at all what I am doing. What I am telling you is just that. . .running hydrogen as fuel gets the exact same efficiencies as running gasoline. It doesn't change.

Its very easy to test whether the hydrogen does something. Put a hydrogen gas tank in your car and feed the line in after the throttle body near the intake manifold.

In that situation the hydrogen as far as the rest of the car is concerned is free. The result is minimal FE increase flowing enough hydrogen to maintain a pilot light(Good luck getting that out of any electrolysis system you can buy for less than 1 grand). If you twist the valve more and let it run pretty wide open FE changes alot.

Thats because you're dumping in sub 0F coolant and a ton of extra fuel.

Moral of all hydrogen testing is unless you've got a compressor that can handle slowly compressing the hydrogen to avoid detonation and you can do it for free(solar or whatever) running hydrogen in your car is pointless.

The only place anyone has encountered any FE improvement for fuel cost is in ultra-lean gassers running hyper 35:1 AFR. In that case it improved FE because it encouraged the flame front to travel faster as it hit the H2 pocket avoiding the flame dying out in the chamber(encountering pockets of 140:1 AFR when the chamber is running too lean the AFR is not homogenous by any means).

Once again unless you have "free" electricity that the engine is not using in any way shape or form using one of these generators is a waste of your fuel.

Alright sorry for saying you were an ant smasher. Clearly you are not since we are still talking, calmly. There are so many of those types around it makes me nervous to chat openly.

Ok now that we are on the same page lets get on the same text. What studies have you been looking at that prove small amounts of hydrogen injected into the combustion chamber don't increase efficiency?

Do you believe hydrogen does not reduce emissions?

Gasoline engines always run homogenous unless they are direct injection right?

Diesels are heterogeneous meaning they burn fuel in a diffusion flame (like a candle) except when they are running Low Temperature Combustion right?

A guy told me this. Hydrogen acts as a sledgehammer and smashes the fuel apart giving the flame more surface area to bight. Since diesel fuel only burns on the edges of the mist and drops don't burn at all it seems to me diesel engines would be able to benefit from hydrogen.

Sandia National Laboratories has a machine where they can actually look inside the cylinder when ignition and all the things that follows takes place. If the flame is blue or whiite that means hot. Red and yellow =cold and incomplete. I don't know this for sure I just built a lot of campfires.

Have you ever seen a hydrogen flame in person? That is what made me believe.

It was a published PR report from Honda so I'm hesitant to buy it as science(the hydrogen lean burn in their GDI test-bed).

The problem with hydrogen as a fuel for your engine and specifically DI engines, is it sucks up the same amount of O2 that Diesel or iso-octanyl does. The downside is its got alot less energy of combustion. So you burn 28 grams of air with 2 grams of fuel and you get 2x the combustion energy of your fuel. If instead you burn 1 gram fuel and about 6 grams of hydrogen you get about the same amount of power, but you had to burn 6 grams of hydrogen opposed to 1 gram of fuel.

Obviously there are advantages to strictly hydrogen engines because it burns cleaner(by itself) than most other compounds and its get a better fuel-air ratio(less air to burn hydrogen), but it takes alot more hydrogen to equal the kick of gasoline or diesel.

I have a 97 Del Sol and a 93. Both have CAI and new intake manifolds. Both have a secondary port that allows for gauges or whatever to be installed into the manifold. Instead I just piped H2 into that vent. Nothing noticeable with a laptop running diagnostic and watching the fuel consumption. Cranked the H2 up alot, AIT dropped from slightly above ambient air temps(68, AIT was 80) to much colder(50), and O2 began howling that the engine was running very rich. Threw CEL, alternated to ignoring MAP and following O2, ran lean, power drop non noticeable fuel consumption drop.

You burn alot more H2 in 28 grams of o2 than you do with fuel, but it produces alot less power. ECU decided to run somewhere leaner, power dropped noticeably and engine went into fast idle to maintain battery charge and warm engine, fuel consumption dropped but just barely.

You can susbstitue H2 for fuel . .. but. . . H2 tanks don't hold much fuel, they are heavier than gasoline and much more dangerous. A large large canister will hold about 112 CF of H2 or enough to run your car at very low load for half an hour. It weighs easily 60-70 lbs. For an equivalent 30 minutes I need 1 gallon almost 7 lbs. If you could haul hydrogen in a liquid state it might be more competive, but it has to be chilled and then you are using fuel to maintain cold fuel. . .Think space shuttle 80% or something ridiculous like that of the fuel is used to lift the fuel you need to get you from atmo to orbit.

Interesting. I need to have more 1st hand experience with this stuff. My only test came from me buying an overpriced underengineered unit and then strapping it on my Jeep (not diesel yet). It has a stripped interior, no air conditioning and lexan windows except the windshield. It now weighs 3360 pounds. Anyways the unit's glue gave way and it started leaking a brown (toxic? I think you need to bring the used water to a hazardous waste site) liquid. I sawed the thing in half so I could see what was going on in there.

My other truck is a 1987 Ford F-250 diesel. I think it will be easier to experiment on this truck since it is all mechanical (fuel injection and transmission). I finally got it running well almost.

This company sells spark ignited hydrogen engines.

This company sells Cryogenic Natural Gas Storage Delivery.

CNG is CH4 pretty much hydrogen. Its easy to make a diesel CNG hybrid. Hopefully its easy to make a Diesel Hydrogen hybrid.

I wonder what the difference is between burning diesel/cng and diesel/hydrogen?

Having hydrogen stored as water is so tempting. The holy grail.

This is just a regurgitated scam.

(15A x 24V) = 360 Watts

all for just 4 liters of hydrogen and oxygen gas a minute.

You would get a better return using that electricity to drive an electric motor to assist the engine.

As pointed out by others, the problem is not burning hydrogen in a ICE. That has been proven since the 1920s. Hydrogen-fueled ICEs make power as efficiently as those using other fuels.

The problem is the amount of energy required to generate the hydrogen from water.

A couple of other unsolved problems. It rapidly diffuses through everything so there is always leakage loss. A 3000 psi metal hydride tank will bubble when soaped. Hydrogen will even sneak through U-238.

Hydrogen embrittles everything it touches.