Hydrogen on demand system?

[spacemanspif]

Please link threads where this has already been discussed if this is not a new idea.

I saw on Facebook a video of some yahoo with a Mohawk and pony tail talking about "hydrogen on demand" by adding a teaspoon of baking soda to about a liter of distilled water, add electricity and boom! 50% better mpg, internal cleaning of the engine, more hp and torque and absolutely no emissions. Even says that the "engineers" will come out and install it on your car for you!

While i know the ad makes a lot of big promises it will never deliver, I'm curious if there is any merit to the idea

Not sure how to link videos thru Facebook, I'm sure it's nothing new but will try to find it on YouTube for reference.

[Gasoline Fumes]

Is this a late April Fool's joke?

[Frank Lee]

Come on, Man. You've been here a while.

Unicorn all the way.

[Xist]

Baking soda is an electrolyte, but that is about all they get right.

“More energy is needed to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds than can ever be recovered from its use,” Bossel explains to PhysOrg.com.

Read more at: Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense

I miss these guys:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhGmx7JM7Hw

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by spacemanspif

... adding a teaspoon of baking soda to about a liter of distilled water, add electricity and boom!

This describes a Browns gas generator. it can generate about 2 cubic meter of HHO, using up several liters of 'gas' (the liquid car food stuff) to produce the electricity needed...

You need a lot of current to produce just a trickle of gas. Hydrogen atoms are that hard to part from oxygen.
The boom is impressive though. Lighting just a liter of HHO is already quite dangerous. Storing the gas in a large container may be a lethal mistake.

[ChazInMT]

[Xist]

I read that hydrogen disassociates from oxygen when magnesium oxidizes in the presence of water. Back in Germany, I put the metal powder from ten or fifteen MRE heaters in a black garbage bag. It about half inflated, but then the hydrogen escaped.

Back home, I think I put the metal powder from two heater pouches in a jar with a hole in the lid, added water, and lit the gas. There was a small flame for a surprising long time.

[acparker]

From what I understand, adding hydrogen into the combustion mix aids combustion and emissions under some circumstances. Whether the energy required to produce the amount of hydrogen needed for any improvement would be worth the cost depends on the energy cost of current emissions controls.

While conventional hydrolysis is power hungry, plasma, in conjunction with a catalyst can be cost effective. The Plasmatron Fuel Converter research performed by MIT for the DOE proved the concept back in the mid-90's. The study was to reform diesel, but they strayed a bit and tried injecting water vapor into the system to see how it would do. Running a rich air/fuel mix through the plasmatron should provide the hydrogen needed, without the addition of water vapor. It is vaguely similar to the jet ignition systems being used in some Formula 1 engines.

To stay in unicorn territory, GEET claims to be a similar process. I think they are correct, regarding the reactor, but I don't support the rest of their claims.

[oil pan 4]

I love hearing about all this proven technology that you can't buy, can not be replicated and has never been seen by anyone.

[acparker]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I love hearing about all this proven technology that you can't buy, can not be replicated and has never been seen by anyone.

It takes more than proven technology to get a product to market.

A plasmatron reactor might be easier to replicate than a GEET reactor, which is pretty simple. Tweaking all the parameters to get best performance is where it becomes pricey and time consuming. Many inventors have a terrible time deciding to freeze a design for manufacture.