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Aye, there's the rub, as ol' Will S said. Until they come up with an alternate fuel that I can get a pailful of, and carry it home to my yard tractor, or whatever, I guess we're stuck with gasoline. Methanol might be practical, but the manufacturing process is going to need simplifying to bring the costs down. Hydrogen looks good, until you do the math like robot did.
I reread some of the literature from my old connection to a fuel gas company. The real hitch to the whole idea is that Browns gas and HHO contain oxygen mixed in with the hydrogen and that is an explosion waiting to happen. There needs to be some cheap way to separate the O2 from the rest of the gases. That is easy in low voltage electrolysis lab demos but not so easy when carbon containing waste is also used. O2 is magnetic while H2 and CH4 are not so maybe some sort of magnetic trap could separate out the O2 in principle but gases at room temperature are notoriously random so it would take a very strong magnetic field to separate out the O2. The bottom line is there there is no easy way a process can be set up safely with a cheap quart jar device. Overall I still like the idea of a remote nuclear reactor generating electricity with me plugging into an outlet to charge some batteries for a lightweight three wheeled two-passenger vehicle! Some of you younger folks missed out on the Saturday matinee movies that showed the burning Hindenberg over and over and over similar to the TV coverage of the 9-11 airplane crashes in New York. Anybody who saw that Hindenberg fire (over and over) fire will not want to mess with H2!
Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder
Well that's something that I wouldn't be going near. If it's just a matter of saving a bit of gas, what about adding acetone to your fuel. Has anyone ever tried this???
http://www.pureenergysystems.com/new...00069_Acetone/
Sean
Actually, Don, it's not hard to keep the two gases separate. With DC current, collect the gases from the Positive wire in one container and from the Negative one in another. One is hydrogen, the other oxygen. There'll be some impurities from tap water not being pure, but very little.
R. Pope, I have done that a number of times and that is what I meant by "low voltage electrolysis". As you say all you have to do is separate the electrodes and allow space above each for the bubbles. However with the higher voltage arc method using carbon-containing waste materials, the electrodes have to be immersed in the waste and so the arc just sprays across the mess and the resulting gases are mixed. I do not choose to say more.
Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder
Sean very interesting article. Anyone heard of using acetone in these small amounts? Any risk to engine or catalitic converter? o2 sensors?Quote:
Originally Posted by sgo70
From seans article it sound pretty safe and undamaging.
Might try it in the old truck, not much to lose if she dies(1993 toyota with 170k) since we will probably get a new commuter next year anyway.:3dSMILE:
Yeah, I think this topic has been flogged to death. Time to move on to other things!
What we really need here is a compact Flux Capacitor and a trunk full of fruit and veggie compost. Than the future will be ours.:D and the past too, if you want it.:eek: :LOL: :LOL: :LOL:
Until then don't throw away your gas can.:LOL:
Buckaroo bonzai? or Back to future? I know you can pick up those Mr. Fusions at the thrift store pretty cheap! :D
[QUOTE=stovens]Sean very interesting article. Anyone heard of using acetone in these small amounts? Any risk to engine or catalitic converter? o2 sensors?
I posted many many months ago that my dad has been using acetone for 2 years in his fuel, It got about the same replys as the hydrogen topic, as in no way it will work from alot who have never used it, but still are possitive it wont work. In his ford f-150 he gets an average of 3-4 mpg increase in highway mileage, as I also do in my f-150 for the last year. He gets the same results in his tahoe, But in my wifes jeep it is really not much difference. So it seems to work in some but not all. I will hear from him on the hydrogen this weekend and will post the results, you can either believe it or not.
Some one in a vintage car club I've had contact with worked in one of those corporate think tanks under government contract attempting to produce hydrogen at an economical rate for mass consumption. The problem was it took $1.10 worth of energy to produce $1.00's worth of fuel.
The few outlets that have hydrogen are not open to the public they are for experimental car fueling only. Now if this whizz in a jar dealy-o could manufacture hydrogen at an economical rate they would be doing it another way.
If one of you could invent an engine that ran on political crap, we would never run out of energy! Between now and November, there would be a surplus of fuel here in the USA.
Ain't that the truth.....Quote:
Originally Posted by robot
Hes still on his first tank of gas, no true results are ready yet to post. It seems everyone has turned this into a thread about converting you entire fuel system to run only on hydrogen, 3000 pound tanks and bombs and all. Remember this is only to assist your current feul being gasoline, to run at a better mileage rate. Anyway I will post the acurate results when I get them, until then we all remember about the Hindenberg, and oh ya, remember the days the wheel and the internet were invented, See where those stupid ideas went! Glass is half full here.
Im pulling for ya buddy! I hope it has good results, i need it.
The article on using small amounts of acetone in gasoline looks interesting but there are two cautions:
1. Acetone is highly flammable and the precaution to store it outside is a good idea.
2. Damage to paint may be the biggest problem, depending on where your fill pipe is.
Since this article is accompanied by other dubious advertisements, the idea of doing your own testing seems reasonable. 62 mpg in a Neon seems enticing but the effect may be much smaller in other cars. I may give it a try.
Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder
I have experimented with this in a lawn mower engine and it seems to work, I have noticed that I can mow a lot longer with same amount of gas with acetone added. I haven't got around to testing it in a car yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by stovens
since it takes energy from the fuel->engine->alternator/battery to produce the H2,
and this conversion isn't 100% efficient, claimimg to run more mpg
would be akin to perpetual motion.
maybe if the hydrolysis ran on solar cell mounted on the roof it would help mpg by a tiny amount? (.1%), but probably better to use the solar instead of alternator saving a touch of engine drag.
unfortunately, air drag from the solar cells on the roof and the weight of the cells probably way exceeds any gains.
The acetone was thought to solublize water in the gas, hoping to separate into h2+O and burn when it turns to a plasma.
Since combustion also produces water and it comes out the tailpipe as such, evidently this doesn't work?
acetone plays sheer hell on plastics.
Wow here is a blast from the past. I reread my posts and laughed at myself!
With the economy the way it is, no new replacement vehicles purchased, the Toyota Truck now has 187k on it, still chugging down the road, with new tires since that posting, but no other work besides oil changes!
TOol, dont forget that, until just the past few years, a solar cell's energy output NEVER equals the energy that it took to melt the sand to make the cell.....and solar cells degrade 10% per year so they never last long enough to pay for themselves....only a government handout (our tax money) makes them even close to viable (unless you live in a really remote place where solar is the cheap alternative).
mike in tucson