Hydrogen on demand system?

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Under very special conditions, like your extreme lean burn engine with heated intakes running stationary, a minute addition of hydrogen and ozone may have a measurable benefit.
As it apparently solves a problem with that process.
We never have found any proof that it works on an engine under 'normal' conditions.

You can lash ChazInMT for having a high school students viewpoint.
That just indicates it is time to ride this beasty back to where it belongs - the corral, where this subject has already been discussed over and over again.

No, it does not work as HHO scammers claim. But it can be made to work with caveats. Just because mason jars are ineffective on the common auto does not mean the science is bunk. Just because it will never be a market success, does that mean it has no value?

And I was very clear, ChazInMT, as well as others do not have the background to discuss thermochemistry and yet they do. Just because this forum is uneducated in a subject matter, does that mean it belongs in the Corral? Take the subject to a university professor or a specialist in the field and the subject is seen to have possibilities or at least is in need of more research. But, the effect to condense the pressure profile in the combustion chamber can lead to more power produced than the energy to make the HHO. That power comes from the WASTED energy always found in heat engines! For some reason this escapes comprehension.

[RedDevil]

Mmm. The inefficiency of heat engines is mostly due to thermodynamical limitations, not the combustion process itself. HHO cannot change that.

The challenge is to make the subject understandable for the audience you are communicating with. Unless you just want to make them believe you are right, not truly understand it.
I for one am interested but sceptical; I will not accept HHO does any good until I understand why - or see proof.

I have taken the subject to a specialist in the field, by the way; namely my physics PhD brother in law, who has been working on stirling engines and is now involved in a generator project.
Like many he thinks that small amounts of HHO cannot have a significant effect on the efficiency of an engine.
He is willing to discuss almost any aspect of combustion engines - but not HHO. He said it is just a waste of time.

[ChazInMT]

Again Rusty....Only a bunch of gibberish and NO NUMBERS!!!!!

EXPLAIN The High School chemistry to me!!! You say a few percent gain can be achieved when I show that it takes more than a few percent chunk of your fuel to create it.

Tell us how much water is disassociated to create a fuel stream?
What percentage does one get of your magic ozone in this reaction and what percentage of efficiency does it contribute?...A Number please. Not "Gosh it sure is significant!!"
Tell us WHAT PERCENT efficiency gain is achieved in the combustion?
How much energy is required to disassociate the amount of water you are talking about and where does this come from?
These are all legitimate questions I am asking you for answers on since you are an expert in this field, you can tell me. If they're not legitimate questions explain why and tell me how it works.

These are real numbers you can tell us, with your "Post Doctorate" level of knowledge on the subject, it should be like flicking a fly off your shoulder.

And quit accusing me of being a low brow academically, I'm able to understand and comprehend anything you can explain to me.
I'm just asking you to explain this so I see it works.

BTW, I am fully aware that the HHO may indeed improve the combustion....I have never said that it won't help a small amount, it's just that for all the trouble and energy you would have to put into it, not to mention again that it takes far more energy to create the fuel than the added output from it. I say under ALL circumstances, even under your ideal edge of the envelope of combustion conditions, the idea that you can create HHO on board and utilize it to improve efficiency to generate more power than you would have otherwise to not only overcome the energy required to produce the HHO, but have a surplus that finds its way to driving the tires is unabashed crap.

Other than tell me I am stupid, and you are smart, then spew a bunch of crap about how a small amount of HHO may improve combustion (which I concede it may), you NEVER show numbers.

Never Show Any NUMBERS.

Why Don't you organize these, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,., in such a way that they can let us all know that this can work.

You're good at saying we're all just too stupid to get it. Your good at throwing around a bunch of information on the intricacies of combustion. You really, really, suck at relating these improvements to NUMBERS that we all can understand that show how the

"Time is the other. During de-polymerization, highly reactive radicals such as H+, OH- , OOH, HOOH and so forth are created. Their existence was theorized decades ago and only in the last decade has instrumentation and detection techniques allowed us to verify them. These radicals are important in that they "rip apart" the long chain hydrocarbons into shorter species. By adding a small amount of H2 and O3 before the ignition point free radicals can be formed via the heat addition of compression, radiation and turbulence since the energy of dissociation for H2 and O3 is quite low. This rich cloud of active radicals is now ready to pounce on the long chain hydrocarbons and release even more hydrogen and form even more radicals in a domino effect. The seeding of the fuel mix with these radicals "railroads" some of the side reactions resulting in a faster flame front. No more energy is created in this reaction, but the combustion TIME is shorter." Effect

increases the efficiency of the engine using a NUMBER.

Do you get it Mr. Post Doc?
Numbers.
Show us NUMBERS.

Don't call me stupid anymore. I'm not.
Don't tell us about the whiz bang effects of 0³ & H² unless you are giving us...
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!

[acparker]

I did a google search using: introduction of hydrogen to enhance combustion

There is a wikipedia article, "Hydrogen fuel enhancement".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fuel_enhancement

I have included some articles from the search results below:

Effect of hydrogen-diesel fuel co-combustion on exhaust emissions with verification using an in–cylinder gas sampling technique.
Effect of hydrogen-diesel fuel co-combustion on exhaust emissions with verification using an in?cylinder gas sampling technique

Use of Hydrogen-Methane Blends in Internal Combustion Engines
http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/40243.pdf

Effect of Hydrogen Enriched Hydrocarbon Combustion on Emissions and Performance (The author, Jacob Wall, is an hho true believer and internet advocate)
http://pesn.com/2009/01/17/9501513_1...Combustion.pdf

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Mmm. The inefficiency of heat engines is mostly due to thermodynamical limitations, not the combustion process itself. HHO cannot change that.

The challenge is to make the subject understandable for the audience you are communicating with. Unless you just want to make them believe you are right, not truly understand it.
I for one am interested but sceptical; I will not accept HHO does any good until I understand why - or see proof.

I have taken the subject to a specialist in the field, by the way; namely my physics PhD brother in law, who has been working on stirling engines and is now involved in a generator project.
Like many he thinks that small amounts of HHO cannot have a significant effect on the efficiency of an engine.
He is willing to discuss almost any aspect of combustion engines - but not HHO. He said it is just a waste of time.

He was as adamant as others at the first. He absolutely felt it broke the laws of conservation and so forth. Until I mentioned those same laws of thermodynamics apply to the chemical world and what happens in the combustion chamber. Even there, HHO cannot work as a "fuel". It is simply an ingredient. And in that way it can affect combustion and it can contract the pressure rise. He is not a believer but he sees the possibilities. He is now retired from the University of California, but he provides contacts there.

I have presented the idea to chemical engineers with masters, and some think it is more than plausible. There is no reason it should not be. However, the idea of a contracted combustion caused by seeding is not a very heavily invested research field until the last couple decades. The idea of "railroading the side reactions" is a term that is my own and would need research at the university/government level. It is far from a simple.

And the idea is simple. HHO is not a fuel. It is not a catalyst. It takes part in the combustion. The combustion is accelerated a measurable amount thus ignition timing is able to be optimized closer to top dead center and pressure losses before top dead center (TDC) are transferred to pressure gains after TDC. Is this breaking any laws of physics. No. Do gear heads understand this? Absolutely. Do mechanical engineers know this? Yes. Brake-mean-effective pressure (BMEP) calculations show that a few pounds per square inch rise in BMEP results in horsepower. Can this gain in power overcome the losses to generated quite inefficiently the HHO. With caveats, it can.

Is the gain double or triple the efficiency that HHO scamsmen claim? Of course not. At stoichiometric fuel mixtures, the gain is minimal - in single digits of percentage.

Has anything I said in the above post broken any laws of science? No. And, we haven't even discussed the real DIY value of HHO in extending the lean limit for lean burn. That is where there can be some value to us here on the forum.

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by ChazInMT

Again Rusty....Only a bunch of gibberish and NO NUMBERS!!!!!

EXPLAIN The High School chemistry to me!!! You say a few percent gain can be achieved when I show that it takes more than a few percent chunk of your fuel to create it.

Tell us how much water is disassociated to create a fuel stream?
What percentage does one get of your magic ozone in this reaction and what percentage of efficiency does it contribute?...A Number please. Not "Gosh it sure is significant!!"
Tell us WHAT PERCENT efficiency gain is achieved in the combustion?
How much energy is required to disassociate the amount of water you are talking about and where does this come from?
These are all legitimate questions I am asking you for answers on since you are an expert in this field, you can tell me. If they're not legitimate questions explain why and tell me how it works.

These are real numbers you can tell us, with your "Post Doctorate" level of knowledge on the subject, it should be like flicking a fly off your shoulder.

And quit accusing me of being a low brow academically, I'm able to understand and comprehend anything you can explain to me.
I'm just asking you to explain this so I see it works.

BTW, I am fully aware that the HHO may indeed improve the combustion....I have never said that it won't help a small amount, it's just that for all the trouble and energy you would have to put into it, not to mention again that it takes far more energy to create the fuel than the added output from it. I say under ALL circumstances, even under your ideal edge of the envelope of combustion conditions, the idea that you can create HHO on board and utilize it to improve efficiency to generate more power than you would have otherwise to not only overcome the energy required to produce the HHO, but have a surplus that finds its way to driving the tires is unabashed crap.

Other than tell me I am stupid, and you are smart, then spew a bunch of crap about how a small amount of HHO may improve combustion (which I concede it may), you NEVER show numbers.

Never Show Any NUMBERS.

Why Don't you organize these, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,., in such a way that they can let us all know that this can work.

You're good at saying we're all just too stupid to get it. Your good at throwing around a bunch of information on the intricacies of combustion. You really, really, suck at relating these improvements to NUMBERS that we all can understand that show how the

"Time is the other. During de-polymerization, highly reactive radicals such as H+, OH- , OOH, HOOH and so forth are created. Their existence was theorized decades ago and only in the last decade has instrumentation and detection techniques allowed us to verify them. These radicals are important in that they "rip apart" the long chain hydrocarbons into shorter species. By adding a small amount of H2 and O3 before the ignition point free radicals can be formed via the heat addition of compression, radiation and turbulence since the energy of dissociation for H2 and O3 is quite low. This rich cloud of active radicals is now ready to pounce on the long chain hydrocarbons and release even more hydrogen and form even more radicals in a domino effect. The seeding of the fuel mix with these radicals "railroads" some of the side reactions resulting in a faster flame front. No more energy is created in this reaction, but the combustion TIME is shorter." Effect

increases the efficiency of the engine using a NUMBER.

Do you get it Mr. Post Doc?
Numbers.
Show us NUMBERS.

Don't call me stupid anymore. I'm not.
Don't tell us about the whiz bang effects of 0³ & H² unless you are giving us...
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!
Numbers!

You see, I don't disagree with anything you said in your original post. It is all correct. But, you cannot discuss anything greater than that it seems.

Can you not see that there is a great amount of wasted energy in an internal combustion engine? Fast burning fuels can minimize the wasted pressure rise before TDC. I am sure you know this as this is common knowledge. Are you familiar with BMEP? A common term and calculation done by mechanical engineers.

HP = BMEP x (displacement / 12) x RPM x power-pulses-per-revolution / 33000

A good discussion and derivation of the above formula can be found at

Brake Mean Effective Pressure (BMEP): The Performance Yardstick

Using the 2.4 liter engine I mentioned in an above post, our engine would need 75 psi of BMEP to output it's 20 HP cruise rating. If we could use no more fuel but use it to produce just 5 more psi of useful pressure, our output jumps to just below 22 HP. You can now lift off the gas pedal to maintain your current speed.

That engine needed 230 cc of HHO gas to produce that 22 HP along with the attendant fuel. That 230 cc of HHO was produced by running 10 amperes through a 4 cell series electrolyzer. At 14v alternator output, that represents 140 watts. Even with gross conversion efficiencies as low as 33%, you would spend 420 watts to produce a gain of 1490 for a net gain of 1070 watts.

I explained the thermochemical pathways to improving combustion via seeding and you could not understand the undergrad dialogue.

You may not be stupid. But your lack of understanding means this discussion will end at your level.

I simply say, HHO affects combustion. There are so many parameters to take into account that giving percentages gain without discussion of Arrehnius rate equations and free energies and so forth is pointless.

[acparker]

HHO is a fuel. When it burns it creates heat or power. It is an expensive fuel, mainly because we must consume another fuel or other sources of energy to create it.

There is a lot of embodied energy in all fuels, but much of that energy is "free" to us, so we discount it when comparing to hydrogen and HHO. In most cases, it makes little sense to convert discounted energy into hydrogen or HHO when we can get desired work from the cheaper source directly.

An exception is when hydrogen or HHO can increase (cost effectively) the efficient combustion of discount fuels, and/or decrease (cost effectively) harmful emissions. Most of the mainstream (non-techno-evangelist) research is in those areas.

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by acparker

HHO is a fuel. When it burns it creates heat or power. It is an expensive fuel, mainly because we must consume another fuel or other sources of energy to create it.

There is a lot of embodied energy in all fuels, but much of that energy is "free" to us, so we discount it when comparing to hydrogen and HHO. In most cases, it makes little sense to convert discounted energy into hydrogen or HHO when we can get desired work from the cheaper source directly.

An exception is when hydrogen or HHO can increase (cost effectively) the efficient combustion of discount fuels, and/or decrease (cost effectively) harmful emissions. Most of the mainstream (non-techno-evangelist) research is in those areas.

. . . HHO's fuel contribution is insignificant.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

And the idea is simple. HHO is not a fuel. It is not a catalyst. It takes part in the combustion. The combustion is accelerated a measurable amount thus ignition timing is able to be optimized closer to top dead center and pressure losses before top dead center (TDC) are transferred to pressure gains after TDC.

Strictly speaking HHO is a fuel, even providing its own oxygen; but its contribution as a fuel is just a fraction of the cost of splitting it through electrolysis, so I get your not counting it as fuel.

The challenge is to prove that a small amount of HHO does indeed speed up the combustion.
Now that should be doable with a modern car engine and an ODB2 device,
driving at a constant speed, flipping the HHO supply on and off and watching the effect on timing retard and instant fuel consumption.
Am I right in that?
Someone must have tried this already?

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Strictly speaking HHO is a fuel, even providing its own oxygen; but its contribution as a fuel is just a fraction of the cost of splitting it through electrolysis, so I get your not counting it as fuel.

The challenge is to prove that a small amount of HHO does indeed speed up the combustion.
Now that should be doable with a modern car engine and an ODB2 device,
driving at a constant speed, flipping the HHO supply on and off and watching the effect on timing retard and instant fuel consumption.
Am I right in that?
Someone must have tried this already?

And the results are erratic. Software has a lot to do with this. Short term fuel trim is the best indicator. Using a variable output electrolyzer is imperative. Use too much HHO and the engine bogs if timing is not adjusted and the engine computer does things to compensate. Use too little and nothing happens. There is simply too much going on to even begin to "tune" for HHO. The work of pfgpro and others who have the ability to control their engine tune may answer more than simply dumping the gas into the intake of the common car.