Hydrogen injection for diesel trucks
 

A friend of mind has worked at Lowes for a long time. He told me that all of their over-the-road diesel trucks have hydrogen injection; the result is a 15% increase in MPG. I have scanned the previous posts on this subject, and don't want to open a can of worms, so to speak. This modification may not work for passenger cars, but it does seem to work for Lowes.

Buddy -

Did he say which "model/brand" they went with?

Here is what I have read. Because diesel engines "go lean" (air/fuel ratio) by design, they are better able to exploit the hydrogen. Also, Lowes trucks are "doing hard labor" as opposed to our ecomodder/hypermiler driving styles, which strive to put as little load on the engine as possible. Lean + hard work engine loads is good for hydrogen injection.

The *other* argument I have read is that you also end up with cleaner emissions, which is a 2-for-1.

CarloSW2

It's an interesting concept. I work at Diesel Power Magazine, and one of our staff guys is going to fool around with some HHO on an old Ford 6.9L.

I'm a Ford tech,and was asked by a salesman recently about installing HHO on a diesel.
I don't know alot about either,but one thing to get by would be the pressure in the intake tract.
Diesel's are turbocharged,and from what I know of HHO your not producing it at a large enough rate to overcome manifold pressures.
I figured at the very least a check valve would need to be installed.
And my understanding(I'm not a diesel tech mind you) of basic combustion is that you need more fuel during hard engine loads-
I thought diesels ran leaner during idle and cruise conditions.
They are running compression's in the range of 18 to 1 and up also,running too lean under load causes more heat than it can handle which melts pistons.
Maybe lean with HHO is good during load as the HHO provides the displaced fuel and aids in cylinder/air cooling similar to propane/meth injection?
I've only got basic knowledge in HHO and diesels,but this sounds interesting.
I've been meaning to build and tryout an HHO system in my wifes car. I have the scantool and tuning software to try some experiments.
Haven't gotten around to it yet.

There is not one shred of evidence that Lowes uses these things on any of their vehicles.

First of all since Lowes has opperations in California they would have to install some device that was CARB approved. I was able to find only one such device from a company is in a dire financial situation. This company mentions nothing about Lowes using their equipment but does mention some small companies using it. Also note they have yanked their reports on CARB testing from their web site.

These things are a scam

Corvallis Gazette Times: Archived Articles

hydrogen injection
 

Diesel engines run lean & #2 diesel is an oil as opposed to a solvent as gasoline is a solvent. Gasoline will vaporize quickly which is why carborators have worked for years & years. When diesel is injected into the cylinders the injectors attempt to atomize the fuel as much as posible but it is still oil so it is important that there is excess oxygen for combustion to take place.
For more that 10 years propane injection has been on the market & has been proven to add horsepower, torque, & fuel efficentcy by taking advantage of the extra space in the cylinder to burn propane. As a bonus the combustion is more uniform, quicker, & more robust causing more complete burning of the diesel resulting in lower emisions.
Thre is no reason to think that a legitimate onboard HHO producer (from the electrolysis of water) would not work the same as they claim to produce about 5 liters of uncompressed HHO per minute for about 20 amps. I would have to see that demonstrated. ;)

No one was talking about creating HHO on demand but adding HHO to the mix like how propane is injected.

HHO is not Hydrogen
 

HHO is two atoms of hydrogen per each atom of oxygen. The obvious implication is that this is an onboard electrolysis of water. If you purchase hydrogen, any oxygen contained therein would be considered a contaminant. Pressurized hydrogen injection I have no doubt would serve to save diesel fuel though this may or may not be economically feasable @ this time. Of the former I just don't have faith that they work as well as they claim to.
More than likely the friend from the original post confused hydrogen injection with propane injection as it has been a proven technology & has been used for over a decade now.

If you could get electricity for free HHO systems would be viable to a certain degree. Unfortunately it takes energy to create electricity and when you get that energy from driving an alternator or generator with an internal combustion engine the losses far out way any gains.

The following link explains it by running the numbers and applying well understood science

Scientific proof proving that HHO scams are a fraud

Thank you for the informative redirect. As I stated in previous posts I had doubts about the ability of these devices to to produce the advertized volumes of gas, however the article glosses over the increase in efficiency when injecting a flammable gas into diesel engines. It is not so much the power produced by the injected gas but more the homogenious mixture within the cylinder.