HHO gas discussion

PSYKOSTEVO said:

Well, nuclear powerplants do generate their power from water. They excite the water molecules by controlled exposure to Uranium rods, and then use that superheated steam to turn turbines, which produce electricity. So I think they found a use for water as a source of energy.

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Nuclear powerplants do not generate their power from water they generate their power from the fission of uranium. The water is only a carrier fluid which transfers the energy from the fission process to the electrical generation process. Your argument is like saying that the power to the rear wheels of your car is generated by the drive shaft. Like the water in a nuclear powerplant, the driveshaft is not the source of the power it's only a carrier of the power.

Your HHO process CAN'T work - as has been pointed out, the water disassociation reaction takes more external energy than will be released when the hydrogen and oxygen are re-associated (combusted). If this wasn't true, someone would have built a perpetual motion machine ages ago. Many have tried - ALL have failed.

Do you think oil companies would spend millions on exploration for and production of hydrogen (technically hydrocarbons) if you could crack it out of water for free?

Snake oil salesman have been around forever - always promising the latest mileage miracle. For a few dollars they'll let you in on their secret. The real secret is that when you find out it's a load of crap, you won't bother to chase them for the few dollars you're out. If they can sucker enough people they make alot of money.

gtss said:

Separate the water, burn the hydrogen, assuming complete combustion--
H + O2 + heat = H20 I'm not sure if that is the correct stoichiometric formula but it sure sounds good.....

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The balanced equation would be (2)H2 + O2 = (2)H2O, doesn't change the point of your post, thought you may want to know. While on the chemistry topic, not all chemical reactions produce heat. While exothermic reactions produce heat, others are endothermic, such as the "ice packs" used in first aid kits--two chemicals are mixed and the reaction pulls heat from its environment, making them cold to the touch.

PSYKOSTEVO said:

Well I am trying to build a electrolysis hydrogen kit with the magazine I work for.

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After the testing is completed and the article is selected for publishing, would you tell us the magazine and the month of issue? I would be very interested to read the article!

klaw said:

Your HHO process CAN'T work - as has been pointed out, the water disassociation reaction takes more external energy than will be released when the hydrogen and oxygen are re-associated (combusted). If this wasn't true, someone would have built a perpetual motion machine ages ago. Many have tried - ALL have failed.

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Becareful what you say CAN'T work. According to physics, a bumble bee CAN'T fly, yet it does.

A perpetual motion machine does not exist because it cannot use additional energy from any other source. The HHO device DOES use additional energy from its environment, gasoline is that source.

If the gasoline internal combustion engine was 100% efficient, then the mpg would decrease with the addition of the HHO system as more energy is consumed to separate the hydrogen-oxygen bond than is produced combining hydrogen and oxygen to produce water.

But gasoline engines are not 100% efficient! I don't know the efficiency, but I recall hearing the efficiency is very low, below 25%. This means there is a lot of energy wasted by the system.

Additionally, the alternator is not 100% efficient and by this I mean it does not produce just enough energy to power the car. It produces more electricity than is needed and the excess is stored in the battery or bled off. If the alternator produced just enough energy, then underdrive pulleys would not work.

My theory on the HHO system is the alternator produces more electricity than it needs and the excess electricity (energy) is used to separate the H-O bonds in the water molecule. In this case, the energy put into the HHO system is waste energy from the gasoline engine. (an overdesigned alternator may produce the additional electricity needed, yet an alternator that barely meets the car's normal demand may not result in gains from the HHO system).

I am still skeptical of the process and am therefore very interested in the findings of PhychoSteve's article.

While it will be very unlikely I will add this system (if proven successful) to my 2005 Mustang GT, it will likely be added to my 90 Miata or my 93 F150.

I almost have first hand knowledge of someone using the HHO system. The brother-in-law of my wife's coworker has the HHO "contraption" added to his vehicle is he claims to be getting about 35% better gas mileage, from 25 mpg to almost 35 mpg. I know there are many variables that will change individual results but this is enough to get my attention and look for additional confirmation.

I will continue to monitor the HHO discussion (here and on the rest of the net)

The only way I see this working is if the Hydrogen turns out to be a significant knock supressor. As has bee discussed, the ennergy required to crack the hydrogen comes from the engine itself and can't be 100% efficient. So the burning of the hydrogen itself isn't the source of improvement.

At first I thought this was simply water injection, which is a knock supressor, so the engine could run at it's best timing and get the best result out of a given intake charge. Several Mustang drivers have seen ~1mpg in switching from 87 to 93 octane, and water injection should produce the same results.

If these systems are cracking the water into hydrogen & oxygen, then something else is going on. Hydrogen for burning isn't the only thing we're getting out of this; I doubt they are filtering out the hydrogen, so we are also getting oxygen, kinda like a nitrous system. However nitrous isn't fuel efficient; it adds in extra Oxygen so we add in extra fuel and get extra power. Instead of using electrolysis to crack the oxygen it uses the heat of compression/combustion to break the Oxygen free of the Nitrogen.

Since gasoline is a combination of dozens or hundreds of different hydrocarbons, in varying amounts, thre isn't an equation where adding H2 into the mix suddenly gets very efficent. So the only thing I can think of that can be improved here is two things:
1. Does the burn speed change? That *could* improve mechanical efficiency if it goes one way or the other. someone with better understanding of burn speed effects could tell us.
2. Is it a very effective knock suppressant? that could allow the car to run very lean, effectively improving mileage a lot. OEMs wouldn't do this, as running lean produces a lot of NOx emissions; more than the catalyst can likely handle. One of the reason diesel engines are soo much more expensive than gas engines are the emission control systems that are trying to deal with nitrogen in diesel exhaust. Those systems add ~$1000-2000 per car to the price.

A combination of those two could yield improvements; to what amount I don't know.

Good luck with the install PSYKOSTEVO, I'm lookng forward to the results.

Any update Psykostevo?

I'm sceptical but not totally closed-minded. Would like to see something like this work.

Sounds like my bachelor days! Keep us posted.