HHO and Regenerative Braking

[orange4boy]

Interested to see how this goes.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

It's obvious that you're not thinking about what "parts per million" really mean. It's the same as percent, except per million rather than per hundred. So you've got burned air:fuel mixture (14.7:1, roughly) coming out the exhaust, and so many parts per million of that are unburned fuel. So if your engine is moderately well tuned and emitting 20 ppm HC, then for every liter of fuel burned, you have (20 * 15.7 / 1000000) liters of unburned fuel, or about 0.3 milliliters. So burning that completely would increase your mpg by 0.03%. (Plus a bit for burning the CO to CO2, but still not enough to even be measurable outside the lab.)

I understand this, but without a reference point, you have no idea how many millions of particles you're actually talking about.

How can you be sure that engine is running at or approximately at stoich? How do you know it's not running lean or rich, or burning a different fuel, or any of a few other variables?

You still need a reference point to quantify a PPM count, no matter what it's in reference to.


If I said 7% of your breath is deadly gas, it means nothing until you know what volume your breath actually occupies, and then how many times you're taking a breath in a determinate time to calculate how much of that deadly gas you're spewing per breath/per time.

[bgd73]

Originally Posted by moonmonkey

if you could spin an alternator or two, you could hit the feild power with a switch for a "slowdown mode" it would present low drag until you turn the feild on ,but the friction losses from continually spinning them would probably be a wash, and i dont know how much power they would put out alot of them are 100 amp output on old v8's just a thought.

interesting.

Given what work brakes do, riding the engine braking, with even more drag of big alternator is bigger brakes...svae brakes while getting something in return.
I do not know this subject, only what I read here.

I do so much local, starting the old 23 year old airplane (subaru) with a carb is a long wait sometimes. It is way worth the value beyond injection pretending everything is ok to go right away , but, the electric stuff is interesting.
I am still mid 30s mpg even at 20 freakin below.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Christ

How can you be sure that engine is running at or approximately at stoich? How do you know it's not running lean or rich, or burning a different fuel, or any of a few other variables?

Because any modern engine has an ECU and sensors, that keep it in the proper range. If it was running far rich or lean, it would fail to meet its emissions standards.

You still need a reference point to quantify a PPM count, no matter what it's in reference to.

No you don't need a reference point. You know what goes in - air and fuel in a particular ratio - you know what comes out - exhaust gasses containing a certain percentage of unburned hydrocarbons - and therefore you know, from simple math, how much of the fuel is unburned. Remember conservation of energy? Well, this is just the compliment, conservation of mass.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Because any modern engine has an ECU and sensors, that keep it in the proper range. If it was running far rich or lean, it would fail to meet its emissions standards.



No you don't need a reference point. You know what goes in - air and fuel in a particular ratio - you know what comes out - exhaust gasses containing a certain percentage of unburned hydrocarbons - and therefore you know, from simple math, how much of the fuel is unburned. Remember conservation of energy? Well, this is just the compliment, conservation of mass.

This is going to be one of those times we're just going to have to disagree and get on with it.

[henry_rc]

Well I am pleased you all find this interesting.

Just a thought on the un-burnt exhaust fuel:

-Oh no, shot that idea in the foot, I was thinking about exhaust flamers but they actually send fuel down the exhaust.

Any other opposition to the initial idea?

[Christ]

henry -

It's almost a given for the time being that even exhaust scrubbers which attempt to salvage unburnt gasses from the exhaust (beyond what already exists) just aren't worth the production costs weighed against the gains they could see. Short of an afterburner (which, on a car, would do next to nothing), there isn't much capability to reburn those gasses and get any energy benefit from it.

[jamesqf]

But the initial idea, at least as I understood it, wasn't to reburn exhaust gasses, but to use energy from braking to generate hydrogen, which then gets fed back into the intake. So the hydrogen is essentially taking the place of the battery & electric motor in a hybrid.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But the initial idea, at least as I understood it, wasn't to reburn exhaust gasses, but to use energy from braking to generate hydrogen, which then gets fed back into the intake. So the hydrogen is essentially taking the place of the battery & electric motor in a hybrid.

It was - I was replying to his thought.

The idea would probably work, but the real question is a matter of efficiency, I think. Isn't it always?

If all the parts involved were very efficient, it would have a great chance at workout out to recapture a good bit of braking waste. Since most of the parts that are commonly available aren't very efficient (alternators, etc... as I know, are usually no more than 60%), and the hydrogen generator is of iffy efficacy to begin with.

I'd love to see some experimentation, but I doubt I would be willing to participate in any, short of thought and insight.

[naturalextraction]

Because I've ventured into the HHO crap many times from a chemical and scientific approach in many forums I've grown tired. There are many sound physics and other scientific methodologies applied that have more than proven that the many methods available on the net do not work regardless of the claims by many. Below are links to a engineering forum that have other links to such test. Dr. John Heywood from MIT has done such tests available on the SAE site (for a fee as all their papers are) that show all the test and the methodology. What cracks me up is the slyness as to how the "water for fuel" site lists his name (recognizing the clout Dr. Heywood caries in the automotive field of engineering) and an unrelated paper related to hydrogen in general as a fuel from some papers Dr. Heywood has written having nothing to do with HHO but the pure compressed gas of Hydrogen or hydrogen fuel cells. Here are a couple links to read that will carry the reader to many others:
CR4 - Thread: The Unlucky 13 HHO Lies
CR4 - Thread: HHO Update: Dennis Lee Out of Business
This video is based off what the basic principles of the I.C.E. functionality with the math involved. This is a ridiculously simplified method to get the point across, but you'll find it's validity if you have any understanding of basic physics and an base understanding of thermodynamics and chemistry.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Silverad.../5/dISUpy6uNHw
There are 5 or so in this series. Of course the true believers will always find a way to disagree with real math and science.