Hydrogen Generator Experiment

[rmay635703]

Since he is doing an EFIE I wouldn't mind seeing what his results are with and without the EFIE and also with and without hydrogen when only using the EFIE. A wide band on the tailpipe side (not controlling) would provide a small amount of insight as to if either situation is somewhat different.

I say let him run, its his money not mine.

[cfg83]

rmay635703 -

Yeah, one of my theories is that if the EFIE gives you lean-burn, then *that* *alone* will increase your MPG at the cost of emissions. A test of each scenario, EFIE-only, EFIE+HHO, and HHO-only would be great.

CarloSW2

[UFO]

Originally Posted by wolverine12

Hi everyone,
I am fairly new to hypermilling. I have a 2011 Ford Fiesta, 6 speed auto, cruise control, K&N airfilter and, nitrogen filled tires. I have over 12k miles already and with the tips I have picked up here I am averaging 41.3mpg (pre-booster) with a best of 45.3 mpg. I have found the Hydrogen booster principle intriguing. For the past year I have been researching this and have begun to build my own HHO generator/booster setup. I am using an EIEF controller for the O2 sensors to allow the ECU to accept a leaner mixture and a PWM (pulse wave modulator) to control the current draw so as to not put a great load on the charging system and get the best efficiency. I expect to have this installed and results within the next 2 months. I will post the real world results and pics here what ever the results.

What is the flow rate from the electrolysis?

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Nerys

My problem with HHO is not can it work but that it can not work efficiently and if you DO make a battery big enough to make HHO practical it will give you 3-6 times MORE RANGE if you just used it to run an electric motor.

IE its just not a good idea. but that does not mean it won't work.

Let's be logical then. How does a "big battery" electrolyze water into H2 and O2 give a better range than using the electricity directly to power a wheel? Rough efficiency estimates tell me for a 1000W input, you can put 800W to the ground using a motor, but splitting water (40%) to fuel an engine (40% at best) (a fuel cell?) puts 160W of that 1kW to use.

Let's define "work". Can you split water and burn it? Yes? OK, it works. Does it net work? NO, it is a LOSS.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by t vago

Okay, so instead of a two molecules of water, you get a molecule of diatomic oxygen and 2 molecules of diatomic hydrogen.

That's a whole world of difference

The point is, burning this stuff requires that you put in approximately 14 times as much power to generate this hydrogen gas, as you're going to get in return, by burning this stuff in an internal combustion engine.

I know it's inefficient when done this way.

You'd be better off introducing an equivalent amount of water into the engine, as you would with these fancy and dangerous HHO mechanisms.

All the HHO rubbish I've read about, do electrolysis, and inject hydrogen and oxygen - not water.

You won't see me using HHO as it's chemical nonsense.
I had never heard of Brown's gas either, despite being trained as a chemist and having worked in the chemical sector for most of my working days.
Obviously, it was named after a scammer

I know it as knalgas (exploding gas)
It's a common demonstration in chemistry or even physics class to produce some H2 and O2 and then blow it up.

You're introducing hydrogen gas that has an octane rating of 130, into a combustion chamber that has gasoline that has a minimum octane rating of 87. Of course, the octane rating of the resulting mixture will go up. Of course, the system will move away from detonation. Of course, that means you can lean out the 87 octane stuff as a result.

Sure.
The same with LPG and CNG - CNG is even better at preventing detonation so more can be added (70% CNG / 30% Diesel mixtures are running in trucks)

Again, how is this different from water injection?

It's not injecting water, but hydrogen and oxygen.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by cfg83

rmay635703 -

Yeah, one of my theories is that if the EFIE gives you lean-burn, then *that* *alone* will increase your MPG at the cost of emissions. A test of each scenario, EFIE-only, EFIE+HHO, and HHO-only would be great.

CarloSW2

Its not a theory, too bad there isn't an easy way to have your ECU which is much better than the EFIE simply go lean once you are up to your speed.

The pollution BS is just that, I on average get about 35-50% above EPA day in and day out, if I run lean and gain nothing additional FE wise and emit 25% more Nox, I am still emitting less NOX than someone who runs at stoich and less volumatically of pollution (aka I make less exhaust).

So I think the Nox arguement is BS when the person is emitting significantly less pollution than a normal driver in the same car, even if it is a little "dirtier" but then again a lean burn car emitts less particulate and less exotics.

Its too bad lean burn couldn't be LEGAL in areas where it would not affect the air quality (aka rural) with our level of tech I would think even the government could make a system so the cars emissions could run within the required limits of the region or city. Lean burn could definately reduce our overall use of gas.

SpyStar equiped vehicles could do it as could GPS vehicles. Move from an ECO programming to a Emissions programming based on region.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by euromodder

It's not injecting water, but hydrogen and oxygen.

Water is hydrogen and oxygen. And until I see actual studies that show that HHO really is better than traditional water injection at promoting combustion inside the combustion chamber, I'm going to continue to maintain that the HHO mechanism is just a dangerous and inefficient form of water injection.

[cfg83]

rmay635703 -

Originally Posted by rmay635703

...

Its too bad lean burn couldn't be LEGAL in areas where it would not affect the air quality (aka rural) with our level of tech I would think even the government could make a system so the cars emissions could run within the required limits of the region or city. Lean burn could definately reduce our overall use of gas.

...

The issue that this article talks about got me thinking :

The Ozone Weekend Effect — UC Berkeley College of Engineering - March 2009

...

This puzzling exception is known as the ozone weekend effect. In many urban areas, tailpipe emissions of NOx are lower on weekends because the roads carry less diesel truck traffic on those days. This translates into lower levels of airborne soot on Saturday and Sunday and lower levels of secondary pollutants like ammonium nitrate on Sunday and Monday. (There's a one-day “chemistry delay” as NOx, ammonia and other chemicals in the air react to form their smoggy end-products.) But for ozone, the levels are often higher on weekends, when NOx emissions are lower.

Ozone is the poster chemical for air pollution, linked to many respiratory illnesses. There are two main ways to control ozone: either reduce NOx emissions; or reduce levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as evaporated gas, cleaning product hydrocarbons and methane (responsible for the current controversy over a possible “cow tax” on farmers). NOx emissions have dropped steadily over the past 15 years, thanks to cleaner car engines. And, ever since people in the air quality field began observing the ozone weekend effect, some have wondered whether continued NOx reductions might actually be counterproductive. “There's a big debate,” Harley explains. “Some people say, ‘We don't want to do more NOx control. We should focus on the other precursors to ozone.’”

...

By examining the chemistry of ozone formation, Harley found that ozone is generated most readily in air that has a mass ratio of 2.4 parts VOC to 1 part NOx. If the NOx levels are higher than this, reducing them just slightly—as happens on weekends when diesel traffic is reduced—can actually elevate the ozone level. This explains the ozone weekend effect. But if you reduce NOx levels significantly below that ratio, ozone production falls rapidly. On a 3-D graph, it's like having to go over a ridge to make it down to the low areas. Harley argues that, because much of the VOC content in the air now comes from natural sources like vegetation, further reduction of NOx is the best way to reduce ozone.

In terms of policy, this argument has now prevailed, and diesel is the new target for emissions standards. Nationally, all new diesel engines with model year 2007 and later are equipped with particle filters to reduce soot and other particulates. California law will likely be stricter: the state's Air Resources Board is set to pass a rule requiring all older trucks that operate in California to be retrofitted with particle filters (or have their engines replaced) by 2012, and, by 2023, to add catalytic converters for NOx control. Roughly one million existing trucks would be subject to these requirements.

...

Let's say for the point of argument that emissions-sensor equipment is dirt cheap. In that situation you could have on-board emissions sensors dedicated to sampling the *external* atmosphere. In that situation the ECU/PCM could calculate that it is beneficial to "go lean" under certain atmospheric conditions.

CarloSW2

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by t vago

Water is hydrogen and oxygen.

It is a chemical combination of both, but it isn't either.

And until I see actual studies that show that HHO really is better than traditional water injection at promoting combustion inside the combustion chamber, I'm going to continue to maintain that the HHO mechanism is just a dangerous and inefficient form of water injection.

It's inefficient because of the way the hydrogen is being generated, but it has advantages over injecting water in that the hydrogen can be combusted whereas the water cannot be.

Gasoline and diesel are harder to get burning, and because of their chemical complexity, are harder to burn completely, especially at high flow rates / high rpm. That's why you get more black soot out of a diesel at high load - more fuel is being added, but it can't get burned completely.

The gains of adding LPG, CNG to diesel or H2 to gasoline engines, is that like water they reduce combustion temperatures (good for reducing NOx), but unlike water they also replace part of the chemically complex liquid fuel by something that burns more easily. This in turn helps the combustion of the reduced amount of gas or diesel, which becomes more efficient, leading to less emissions - beyond what is achieved by substituting the simple additional fuel.


The idea of mixing in an easily combustable gas definitely has merit.
The way the H2 is generated, less so.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by euromodder

It's inefficient because of the way the hydrogen is being generated, but it has advantages over injecting water in that the hydrogen can be combusted whereas the water cannot be.

Traditional water injection is a mechanism by which you inject a mixture of 50% water and 50% methanol into the intake manifold. The methanol is added primarily to sure that the mixture does not freeze up at colder temperatures, and it also serves as an additional fuel source.

This mixture is injected such that you'd get anywhere between 30:1 to 60:1 concentration in the intake manifold. This is then mixed with gasoline in the usual way, and the resulting mixture is then sucked in and burned as normal. Both the water and the methanol perform very well in their task of cooling off the combustion, and the methanol is also combustible. It has an octane rating of 100, IIRC, and it requires about 1/3 as much spark energy to ignite, compared to gasoline. Finally, last time I checked, a gallon of methanol costs somewhere in the range of $1.50.

So, you have this mixture that moves combustion away from detonation by virtue of cooling off the combustion chamber, and you have something that allows (almost necessitates) a leaner-than normal gasoline combustion. The only thing you have to do is periodically provide a 50/50 mix of water-meth solution. Of course, in some peoples' eyes, that itself was too much to ask.

Energy consumed by the water injection mechanism itself is limited to the pump, solenoids, and whatever control electronics you care to install. Much less inefficient than electrolyzing water.

Thus, I again maintain that HHO injection is simply a dangerous and inefficient form of water injection.

Originally Posted by euromodder

The gains of adding LPG, CNG to diesel or H2 to gasoline engines, is that like water they reduce combustion temperatures (good for reducing NOx), but unlike water they also replace part of the chemically complex liquid fuel by something that burns more easily. This in turn helps the combustion of the reduced amount of gas or diesel, which becomes more efficient, leading to less emissions - beyond what is achieved by substituting the simple additional fuel.

Hydrogen actually burns hotter and faster than gasoline at stoich, it burns much faster than gasoline at a wide range of lean concentrations, it tends to have a much thinner boundary layer than gasoline (meaning it is much more likely to combust right at the surface of the combustion chamber and melt that surface), and because its molecules are much smaller than gasoline molecules, it has this annoying tendency to leak past intake and exhaust valves as it burns. This is in addition to the HHO electrolyzing chamber and plumbing necessary to carry HHO from the chamber to the engine, which is going to be very leak-prone due to the nature of hydrogen. Not sure I'd want to have HHO...

Originally Posted by euromodder

The idea of mixing in an easily combustable gas definitely has merit.
The way the H2 is generated, less so.

So there are probably good engineering safety-related reasons as to why hydrogen-assisted gasoline cars have not been introduced, then. This is in addition to the reason why water injection never really caught on, when it was actually introduced by GM way back when.

I'm not saying that hydrogen assisted gasoline engines don't have merit. Heck, NASA experimented with hydrogen assist and found a benefit. I'm just saying that HHO is rather dangerous and rather inefficient way to implement water injection.