Thread: running on hydrogen gas

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I used to consult for a company that was developing this sort of process. There is an old patent by a guy named Richardson but I don't recall the patent number. The process could be used to convert waste paper or other carbon containing waste materials to produce methane as well as hydrogen, BUT there are many problems. First, as Pope says it takes energy to split the water and other complex organic reactions that form the methane also require energy. For sure you cannot get more energy out of burning just hydrogen than it took to separate the hydrogen from the water, but depending on what other feed stock materials are involved in forming the methane component as well as some carbon monoxide (CO will burn further and is a low grade fuel) there might be a way to gain some energy from consuming whatever waste material is in the feed stock. I saw several dramatic applications of such gaseous fuel BUT IT IS NOT FOR ME! I saw a demo of pumping this gas into a tank just like service stations use to inflate flat tires on the road and then this gas was fed into a fairly large lawn mower engine. In the demo the fuel gas was turned on and the starter was pulled but the engine did not start on the first pull, but the fuel gas was still flowing! Then the engine started on the second pull but by that time there was a lot of the gas coming out of the exhaust system and WHOOOOOM(!!!!) there was one helluva explosion all around the engine which rattled the roof of the Quonset hut garage we were in. I wonder what would have happened if the engine needed a third pull! So yes, there is some potential to use electrolysis of water based waste to form fuel gas but a sophisticated system like the propane-fueled fork lift trucks is needed to control the gas flow. Be warned that if you mess around with flowing hydrogen you are courting a dangerous explosion. My professional opinion is that this sort of mechanism using electrolysis of waste materials in water could be a valuable way to convert carbon containing waste to useable energy but you need a careful design of a fuel cutoff to control the gas flow; you cannot just generate hydrogen in your gasoline tank and use regular carbueration safely! I quit that consultanship because while I think there is a potentially valuable energy source there, the hype around the advertising is often misleading and such devices can actually be dangerous. One additional problem is that when you electrolize water it is likely that the gas will contain oxygen as well as hydrogen so you are dealing with a dangerous mixture of hydrogen and oxygen ready to explode!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder