Std car Lead Acid Battery: Hydrogen to intake..?
 

An normal Lead Acid car battery produces HHO when being charged,(which normally happens while driving thx to the alternator) with the amount increasing a lot from around 70% charged and up.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/qu...ed/39571#39571
I haven't done the (linked) maths yet, but as we are going for "every bit helps" here...:

Std batteries have a little vent nozzle to which a small tube is attached when fitting a battery, that normally vents under the car.
Making said tube vent into the intake is a very easy/simple mod.

Why car manufacturers DON'T make the vent that way:
If the engine backfires you would light the mixture in the vent tube, which having the perfect mixture of H and O burns/explodes instantly!
Much too fast for any type of mechanical spark arrestor (as used in cutting torches) to arrest, resulting in the car's battery blowing up!

The only effective Spark Arrestor for HHO is a bubbler.
Bubblers are simple to make:
https://za.pinterest.com/pin/602004675175536243/
If the HHO does catch fire the tiny explosion just POPs the lid of the bubbler.

But a bubbler makes a car high maintenance, which is why they aren't already in all cars:
You need to be sure it always has water in it.
One may want a water level monitoring device that went as far as preventing the engine from starting if there isn't water in the bubbler.

You would also need hop out to refill and re-close the lid on a bubbler if the car backfired.
(A hinged and spring loaded lid might automate this process)
It may be necessary to add a spark arrestor or one way valve anyway to minimise the POP and to stop water from being drawn into the 1st cell of the battery..?

As I said: Just a simple idea to easily get every bit of economy out of a std car.
There is no need for the std "HHO generators are a scam" type comments as we are talking about a process that happens anyway in just about every car. (fancy batteries excepted)
The bubbler (and one-way valve and level monitor) would need to be small, light and cheap to make the tiny economy improvement worthwhile.

Thoughts?
Anyone done this??

Dont forget you also get a small amount of Vaporized sulfuric acid in that stream. Not much but enough to start corrosion. Definitely enough to mess with intake sensors.

Might that cause problems? Maybe, maybe not

Also Sulfur Hydroxide IIRC. (rotten egg smell but highly combustable IIRC)

I think maybe the bubbler will help with this. Especially if the bubbles are kept underwater for a while with baffles of some sort or those stones used in fishtank bubblers.

Also there is no reason one couldn't inject the gas after the airflow meter.
Especially as you don't want to be metering fuel into a gas that already contains fuel...

The fact is I don't know. Which is why I hoped someone here might be doing this!? :)

I hadn't considered anyone might try to make use of the hydrogen gas released. However, I don't have any more vented lead acid batteries. I tend to either use sealed, or lithium.

I'm trying to imagine the benefits. How many MPG would be saved? Probably not a lot. On the other hand, LA batteries love to be charged up as much as possible. Higher voltages that bubble and mix the electrolyte can be beneficial as long as you don't start running dry electrodes.

Very interesting idea.

Apparently:
"...The maximum rate of formation is 0.42 L of hydrogen and 0.21 L of oxygen per ampere-hour a overcharge at standard temperature and pressure..."
https://savree.com/en/encyclopedia/f...d-acid-battery

It seems most batteries are charged at around 5 amps.
So a MAX of around 2.1 Liters of H and 1.05L of O per hour, or nigh on bugger-all! :)
But because doing this is so easy, light and cheap; whyTH not!? Every bit helps! Waste not want not n all that.

(As voltage per cell is above 2.075V per cell, a lot of the Oxygen should be Ozone molecules which helps too.
https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/40143
If you have an old engine with a distributor as I have; piping the O3 from it into the intake too should also help a bit)

I'm thinking a deep, thin bubbler is a good idea:
It will need checking and filling less often and should get more of any acid fumes/mist dissolved into the bubbler water better.
I don't see evaporation losses in the bubbler being much an issue however as any gas from the battery should be pretty much saturated with water etc vapor.

As the water ends up with a tiny bit of battery acid in it; one might use battery water in the bubbler and then use that to top up the battery before topping up the bubbler.

Calculations in cubic feet per hour:
https://support.rollsbattery.com/en/...er-ventilation

Because 2.1 liters of hydrogen is something like 6 Wh of energy per hour, then you lose at best some 60% of that, so now we're at around 2Wh of energy. I mean, sure, every bit helps. But even though this is so easy, light and cheap, it would seem to me that most any other eco-mod that is just as easy, light and cheap would yield better results for your time and money. Not to mention that there's energy lost to making the tubing and such. Would 2Wh per hour of recaptured energy, driven an assumed few hours a day, ever make up the lost energy for making and shipping the tubing?

You do whatever you want, that's just my two cents.

I don't even remember when was the last time I saw a car with a battery which wasn't sealed. Even most trucks in my country, nowadays I see them mostly with sealed batteries too.