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Increasing Fuel Mileage With Hydrogen? 447

Posted by Cliff from the things-the-gas-company-might-not-want-you-to-know dept.
cr0sh asks: "I was recently looking into the costs and availabilty associated with small, hydrogen fuel cells (results: they are still expensive), when I came across this site about the Hydrogen-Boost [Warning: Pop-ups]. Looking at this site, it seemed like just another in the long line of scamming 'get more mileage/power' engine products out there, but it intrigued me enough to continue looking into it. I eventually came upon another site on hydrogen experiments. A little more searching revealed this one about constructing your own Hydro-Boost device, which goes into detail about how you would build such a system. None of these sites answered the big questions, however: 'does it work?', and 'if so, how well?'. I also wanted something a little more authoritative. So, back to digging...which came up with this paper from OSTI [PDF]. The very first line of the abstract of this paper reads 'It is well known that hydrogen addition to spark-ignited (SI) engines can reduce exhaust emissions and increase efficiency.' This paper seems to advance the notion that such a system like the 'Hydrogen Boost' system may actually work. Does Slashdot think such a system would work? If so, how it could be improved, especially given today's rapidly rising gasoline prices, here in America?"

"On the experiments site, via the link to 'Hydrogen Experiments Part 2', the author references the first site. He ultimately decides to 'home-brew' his own system instead, and gives enough detail for anybody to do so. I was hoping the author had more details on the effects caused by dumping hydrogen into his engine, but that doesn't appear to be.

A notable observation on the Hydro Boost Device is that instead of using a stainless steel mesh as the other guy uses (which would seem to be a superior material to use, though difficult to find), this design uses galvanized steel bolts for the electrodes, making it something that can be built from materials found at a local building materials warehouse."
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Increasing Fuel Mileage With Hydrogen? More

Increasing Fuel Mileage With Hydrogen?

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  • Hydrogen isn't ready... check out hybrids (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gortbusters.org ( 637314 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:24AM (#5550963) Homepage Journal
    I did some research [gortbusters.org] and ended up chosing a Honda hybrid. There just wasn't enough of an availability to the consumer to drive something based on hydrogen. At least not yet.

    My civic hybrid gets 45-47 MPG, is quiet as hell, and was fairly cheap. GM and Ford both have alternative fuel vehicle programs, but until I can go down to the local dealer and drive home with a hydrogen F-150, I'll be in a hybrid.

    • Re:Hydrogen isn't ready... check out hybrids (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is also that crazy VW concept car that got like, what, 190 MPG? Of course, it was only a one person car, but still. That's pretty amazing.

    • Re:Hydrogen isn't ready... check out hybrids (Score:5, Informative)

      by parc ( 25467 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:38AM (#5551174)
      Here, here!

      I've had a civic hybrid for almost a year now. Overall, it's averaging 41 mpg. Not incredible, but I live in a hilly, HOT area. A/C drags down the fuel effeciency considerably. I pull about 45 mpg without A/C. On long trips over relativley flat roads, I get about 47 mpg.

      And, just to contradict myself, I also own a 2000 Toyota Celica That get 28-30mpg in the summer (with A/C) and has gotten as high as 35-38 mpg on long trips.
      • My Geo Metro used to get 55 MPG. I would think that hybrids should be able to get more than that.
        • Your geo metro had about the same power engine as the Civic. The civic loses mpg because it's a much larger car than the metro was. I get my milage with an automatic transmission. The manual gets slightly better mileage(but not MUCH more, as the auto has a continuously variable transmission).
          • I think if I lived in a pretty much completely flat area, the MPG would be closer to 50. The need for lots of uphill acceleration drops the MPG pretty quick.

      • Sacrifice Power.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @03:37AM (#5552827) Homepage Journal
        Here in india we are not that power consious. So a 90-95mph top speed car(diesal) gives around 20Km/ltr on long trips, thats about 12.5 miles to a litre or more than 60 MPG!. So if you are willing to sacrifice power, its easy to get economy

        • Re:Sacrifice Power.... (Score:3, Informative)

          by DaoudaW ( 533025 )
          I've ridden in many an Ambassador taxi. I doubt all three figures. In my experience we typically went down the highway at 80-90 Km / H. They do get pretty good fuel mileage, typically 16-18 Km / l, thats about 10.5 miles per liter. There are about 3.6 liters / American gallon which puts us in the 37-38 miles per gallon range. Good for old technology but not that amazing today.
      • I own a daewoo matiz, not sure if you can get them in america, but it is a small european style mini city car.

        This thing is great, will happly cruise @ 70mph on a motorway, and around town / my usual short journeys I get 40mpg, on a long run it can go as high as 45mpg.

        The key is that it only have an 800cc 3 cylinder engine, it's not the fastest car around but has all the toys such as A/C power steering etc. and is VERY easy to park.

        Best thing is that second hand you can pick a 2 year old one up for
    • Have you driven a Toyota Prius? If so , do you like the Civic Hybrid better? I've heard from some people that the Civic is supposed to handle better on turns, but other than that (and the fact that it looks more like a normal car), I haven't heard much pro or con discussion between the Civic and Prius...
    • I think you've got something a little confused. This isn't about alternative fuel or Hydrogen Fuel Cells as you are thinking. Because fuel cell cars are indeed what GM and Ford are looking to in the future. Fuel cells will eventually revolutionize the automobile.

      This story isn't about fuel cells. It is about using Hydrogen, which is very combustible to enhance your engine's efficiency. Somehow you put hydrogen into your engine, it ignites, and thus you can use less fuel to get the same power. aka a H
      • Ok, it's true... I saw the headline and scanned the links noting the feasibility of fuel cells as a technology.

        Creating a gas/fuel cell hybrid if you will. But most of my original comment still remains: unless I can buy it at a dealer, I probably won't void my warrant by "modding" it.

        In a geeky slashdot way, I can see the allure in modding up an engine with fuel cells. In a practical way, if you want better gas mileage, you're better off with the hybrid. Or maybe just a normal "lite" car.. ditch the SU
        • Well, I don't mind modding this into the engine - it isn't really that big of a mod, either - basically tee off the PCV valve and route the hydrogen down the vacuum line into the engine (the vacuum is created by the air intake manifold, and thus goes into the air intake). The tee would be easy to take off later if needed - besides that, I drive a 94 Ford Ranger 4-banger, 116K miles, long out of warantee...
        • Creating a gas/fuel cell hybrid if you will. But most of my original comment still remains: unless I can buy it at a dealer, I probably won't void my warrant by "modding" it.

          A bigger show stopper is likely to be "where do I refuel it?"
      • It is about using Hydrogen, which is very combustible to enhance your engine's efficiency. Somehow you put hydrogen into your engine, it ignites, and thus you can use less fuel to get the same power. aka a Hydrogen Boost.

        You are simply replacing some of the hydrocarbons in the fuel supply with hydrogen.

        This is talking about making normal cars better.

        At the expense of a far more complicated fuel system. Since one fuel is a liquid the other is a gas. So you can't simply pre mix fuel in a storage tank. A

    • Why would you drive a Hydrogen F-150 over your Honda Civic? The F-150 was built for work, often on conditions that require a little off-road. Great for light construction or farm work. The Handeling cannot be made as good as a car, (assuming the car wasn't baddly designed, a '30's car is likely worse than today's F-150 for example) and because it is designed to haul a load it has to use more energy to move. (Real output power, input power can be controlled to some extent)

      Mind you there are many goo

      • I just love the F-150, I don't really need it.. I want it. As a male in his 20s, I feel the need for large 4x4 power.

        But as someone who wants to help stop pollution, stop wasting gasoline, and such... I had to trade in my F-150 lightning for the hybrid. An alternative fuel F-150 would probably still be pretty wasteful, but hey... if it was clean / cheap waste, I'd be up for it!
    • My civic hybrid gets 45-47 MPG

      I drive a 1995 Mercury Tracer and I get between 30 and 35 miles per gallon. 10 more miles per gallon for a "modern" hybrid car seems utterly unimpressive. Basically as long as you're not driving some god awful SUV you should get about the same. My friend's 2000 VW Jetta gets almost 40 MPG.

  • Well (Score:4, Informative)

    by nukey56 ( 455639 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:26AM (#5550997)
    If nothing else leads you to believe that this is a hoaxer site, follow the link to religion on the bottom, and notice the insane font sizes throughout the site.

    If you're going to sell a product, at least make it look semi-professional.

    • Re:Well (Score:3, Funny)

      by davidstrauss ( 544062 )
      follow the link to religion on the bottom, and notice the insane font sizes throughout the site.

      If only the site could be as sensible as timecube.com [timecube.com]

      • Glad to know there are other fans of that site. Sometimes when I find someone who hasn't locked their station, I'll open that up in a browser, and let nature run its course

    • Re:Well (Score:3, Informative)

      by cr0sh ( 43134 )
      I realize that, but the last link I posted basically says that adding H2 to the fuel mixture intake does work - all that other site is selling (and the other two sites show how to build - the option I would likely take) is simply a fancy water electrolysis unit, which supplies the hydrogen. Built properly, the amount they are asking for it is actually pretty reasonable (if you look into fuel cell/hydrogen production products, you would see this). Maybe the site and product is hosted by a couple of religious

    • I know this for a fact, because I was hired to perform research for a few months on the topic. We examined several different systems for reducing pollution and increasing gas mileage.

      The point of hydrogen boost is to add a little hydrogen to the engine as a catalyst , not as fuel. Since using if for fuel would require as much energy to generate the hydrogen as to burn it.

      After running tests with it, we found if anything Hydrogen-boost caused ~10% drop in mileage and did not affect pollution output (

  • Patriotism be damned (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:26AM (#5551003)
    I, for one, am ashamed to call myself a hydrogen cell on this day.

  • What about Ballard, et al? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:27AM (#5551013) Homepage Journal
    They've got PhDs working for them trying to find a way to bring affordable hydrogen fuel cell technology to the masses, but they haven't found it yet.

    But a website says you can build a unit yourself? Well, gawrsh Cletus, iff'n that doesn't give you some good idears, I dunno what will.
    • Did you read any of the websites? The system described is used for augmenting the existing fuel system, not for replacing it. It is meant as a way to supposedly boost efficiency (mpg) and horsepower, not replace the current fuel/engine. I am not looking for hydrogen-based fuel cell devices (I have looked for my EV project, and they are still too expensive - the cheapest type system I have found is an aluminium-air "fuel" cell - in which the fuel is aluminium, with a salt-water electrolyte - basically it is

  • Metho-Boost (Score:5, Funny)

    by raile ( 610069 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:28AM (#5551033)
    Maybe you'd be interested in my home-grown automotive methane experiments? A cheap hose from the driver's seat to the engine inlet is all that is required.

  • Not likely (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does Slashdot think such a system would work? If so, how it could be improved, especially given today's rapidly rising gasoline prices, here in America?"

    Probably not going to happen anytime soon. Automotive companies seem pretty reluctant to do anything but make petrol engines. GE just canned it entire Electric Car program after saying it would change the way the world looks at cars (or something similar).

    The problem is that research into alternate fuel techs is very expensive, and automotive companies j
    • I remember when I was researching [gortbusters.org] my hybrid. The Toyota dealer proceeded to tell me that Toyota had invested 40,000 in the development of the Prius. He made it sound like I was getting a bargain by them offering me MSRP price!

      I was much obliged when I went to the Honda dealer and made a fair deal.
    • I am not looking for the auto companies to do this - it is a simple device, and can be homebrewed - if they were going to do it, they would have done it by now. What I want to do (and probably will eventually) is to homebrew one myself. I am not worried about voiding the warranty on my 1994 Ford Ranger 4-banger - it is already gone and to dust (116K and counting!)...

  • Forget efficiency go with NOS (Score:3, Funny)

    by phelddagrif ( 643061 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:31AM (#5551067)
    Efficiency is for tree hugging hippies. You drive a car because you want insane power at your disposal. So you need a NOS system, not a hydrogen system. However, if you combined the two.. Imagine the possibilities.
    • I drive a modified 93 mustang with about 365 horsepower, and I enjoy it. I still get 22-25mpg on the freeway which isn't bad at all for what it is. People for some reason have come to the idea that performance=lack of gas mileage which is completely untrue. Just because more air is able to get into the engine does not mean that it has to. Basically what I'm saying is that you have still have a high horsepower car and not spend more money on gas than someone with the same car and less horsepower provided
      • You're correct more than you know. By nature, turbochargers, blowers, and the like all _increase_ fuel efficiency precisely _because_ they get their additional power out of a more effective burn.

        C//

        • By nature, turbochargers, blowers, and the like all _increase_ fuel efficiency precisely _because_ they get their additional power out of a more effective burn.

          Not necessarily. What a turbocharger does is pump more fuel/air mixture into the combustion changer. It's entirely plausible that the combusition is less efficient than a naturally aspirated vehicle. Not to mention the energy required to run the pump (though a naturally aspirated engine of similar power would have larger moving masses, more con

        • Uhhh... no. Turbos and blowers (superchargers to all you washed masses) put more air into the cylinder. While this may increase fuel economy and power slightly (due to a more complete burn), to get the most out of a forced induction system, you need to put more fuel in. The ideal is for every hydrocarbon molecule, you have exactly enough oxygen to turn that hydrocarbon into carbon dioxide and water. Thus, since more fuel is forced induction systems all decrease fuel efficiency and emissions, while incre
          • Uhhh... no. The forced induction system *does* push more fuel and air into the cylinders, but in doing so it raises the combustion pressure. So for a given *mass* of air/fuel mixture, you're burning it at a higher temperature and pressure, which is rather more efficient.
    • Imagine a Beowolf clus. . .never mind.
  • I heard that jet engines actually utilize (i.e. burn) the hydrogen in water vapor that comes through the intake. Any aviation experts out there care to confirm?

    I also heard cars get a little horsepower boost from intake of highly humidified air?

    Experts, please confirm or deny.

    • Re:Hydro boost from water vapor? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dark Bard ( 627623 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:42AM (#5551231)
      I think you are talking about water injection. It's been done since at least WWII. They use to use it on I believe Mustangs for added horse power. It isn't the hydrogen burning it's the fact water steam expands at a higher rate than gas vapors. There have been a few systems for cars. The downside is it tends to over heat the engine. I WWII they just used it briefly as an emergency measure. I don't believe there was any improvement in mileage or polution, just horsepower.
      • That's not how it works. Water injection by itself doesn't add any power at all, but rather acts to prevent detonation (you know, pinging). Most fighter engines in World War II had variable-speed superchargers, but they couldn't use max boost below the critical altitude because it would cause detonation. The Americans used a water injection system that could be used in emergencies to prevent that and allow a higher boost setting to be used, increasing power. The Germans used MW-50, a 50/50 mix of water and
    • You can get a minor boost in power from water injection. This happens in 2 ways. 1 the water cools the intake air, and cooler air is more dense giving you more power. The other way I've heard is the high heat splits the water and then the two parts burn. What water injection is really good for is it helps prevent detonation in high boost engines, and your pistons get a nice steam cleaning every cycle. Power gains are usually not worth mentioning 1-2% at best.
    • heard that jet engines actually utilize (i.e. burn) the hydrogen in water vapor that comes through the intake.

      It is unlikely, at least for cars. I assume you mean pure (if ionized) hydrogen that is not combined with oxygen. It is extremely rare for water to ionize on its own, and breaking the bond forcibly requires very large amounts of energy per atom. If you look at chemical reactions (esp. combustion) you see water is a common product because of its high bond energy. Also consider that unfiltered outdo

  • Why fuel cells are expensive. (Score:5, Informative)

    by barureddy ( 314276 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:33AM (#5551086)
    Most fuel cells that will be used in cars will be PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cells. The problem with PEM fuel cells is that it requires a platinum catalyst to remove the electron from the hydrogen aton. As we know platinum is one of the most expensive elements on earth. The key is to find a catalyst that is cheaper and just as noble as platinum. There are other hydrogen fuel cells out there, but they usually operate at high temperatures (the main advantage of PEM). It is not like you want to wait 5 minutes for your car to warm up before you leave.

  • Probably not a good idea (Score:5, Informative)

    by ishmaelflood ( 643277 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:36AM (#5551127)
    The energy required to break the water up into hydrogen and oxygen will be at least equal to, and in a practical electrolytic cell it will be greater than, the energy you get back by burning the hydrogen later on. Typical electrolytic processes are around 60% efficient, from memory. This energy comes from the battery, which is about 92% efficient, which comes from the alternator, which is about 60% efficient, which is driven by the engine. So I get a loop efficiency of about 30%.

    However, there may be some subtle advantages in adding gaseous hydrogen and oxygen to the fuel mixture. I doubt they would compensate for the efficiencies in the first paragraph.

    You should ignore this post, the oil companies are paying me $$$ to suppress these crazy inventions.
    • However, this system isn't meant to replace the gasoline fuel, but to supplement it, to increase mileage and (maybe) horsepower (I am more interested in the former, actually). I know that you can't get the same amount of energy out that you put in, and that electrolysis isn't very efficient (especially in a homebrew system). Now, that isn't the only way to generate hydrogen, either - you can create a lot of hydrogen via a water/aluminium/lye reactor, keep feeding in those ingredients for more hydrogen, and
    • > However, there may be some subtle advantages in adding gaseous hydrogen and oxygen to the fuel mixture. I doubt they would compensate for the efficiencies in the first paragraph.

      Possibly he's getting advantages from accidental water injection and the fact that he's trying to electrolyze it is a red herring.

      (I remember years ago reading a review of a water injection device. The testers found real measurable gains in engine power and efficiency.
      Those gains remained once they removed the device and put
  • .

    Small amounts of Methane can produce similar results. Sadly, there are a few show-stopping engineering hurdles left concerning the carburetor/cows-ass interface.

    Honest! It said so on a web site I saw.

  • Propane & Diesel Engines (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is similar to using propane gas [mrsharkey.com] to help diesel engines burn more cleanly, increasing power and mileage.

    A friend of the family uses it on a large tandem axel farm truck and claims it almost doubles his highway milage.

  • okay, so I can't spell :)

    I'm just curious - how is this technique achieving accurate control of the air/fuel mixture ratio? Can oxygen sensors still accurately determine if the burn is/was lean/rich ?
    • Can oxygen sensors still accurately determine if the burn is/was lean/rich?
      Why not? A small amount of oxygen should mean a slightly lean mixture regardless of what was burned. Sounds somewhat logical anyway...

  • another story of junk that might work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @12:59AM (#5551464) Homepage
    I once read a page containing a suspect method for boosting the power of a motor by adding water. I don't remember how I ran across the page, but it was full of rambling by someone who basically had no idea how chemistry works but who had done some experimenting and may have stumbled on something...

    The idea basically involved mixing water and gasoline before feeding it into the engine. A surfactant was used to allow the two to misch, so the engine was never fed pure water. The experimenter also bolted a hunk of platinum to the top of the cylinder, saying the platinum would be a catalyst and would crack the water into hydrogen and oxygen, producing more energy.

    Pretty funny, huh?

    Well, maybe not. I sent him a letter with an alternative theory; that the added water absorbed heat and evaporated, trading heat that would otherwise be wasted for additional pressure inside the cylinder. I also postulated that the platinum chunk wasn't taking an active part in the situation, but was instead using up space inside the cylinder and increasing the compression ratio; and that a ratio that would lead to pre-detonation in a pure gasoline engine might not do so in a system that ran at lower temperatures, thanks to the water's cooling effect. I suggested running a few experiments to find out, by measuring operating temperatures with and without the water, and by bolting in a hunk of steel in place of the platinum and seeing if it made a difference. I also recommended he try a dual injection system, one for fuel and one for water, rather than try and mix them.

    I did get an email message back from the page's maintainer, but I've no idea if the experimenter ever got the message. Oh well.
    • I've heard that the added water will raise combustion point of the gas and in some cars increase the percentage of fuel that is combusted. Pre-ignition is less likely to happen and the volitility of the gas is reduced requiring a higher temperature to ignite it.

      This is essentially what higher octane fuels at gas stations do except instead of water they use other additives.

    • Using water to boost engine power has been a well-known trick of racers for a long, long time. It is no secret that very small amounts of water vaporized into the air/fuel mixture will increase horsepower. I have heard anecdoctal tales dating back to the 60's and earlier of home-brew systems for drag race cars, very similar to some current strap-on NO2 injection systems, which allowed the driver to apply short controlled bursts of water mist into the intake manifold.

      The primary benefits are in lowering i
    • Water injection is a very old method to allow higher boost on forced induction internal combustion engines. It was used in some WWII era figher planes, and is still used in some high performance engines. Basicly, the water cools the mixture, allowing higher boost without detenation. Try google (water injection power), or water injection [kennedysdynotune.com]

    • Water inject is a known way to improve performance and power. However it only works after the engine is warm, and only when you get the right amount. (More than about 5% water is worse than none at all).

      Combine water's tendency to freeze in winter, with the need to keep another consumable toped off, with a couple other disadvantages that I forget now, and water injection is not worth it.

      Some gas stations (used to?) mix a little water in with their gas, because they know that it is a cheap way to increas

    • Yeah, I have heard of this system, too - I think the Platinum thing is bunk, but the rest does work - however, I don't know if it can work in a fuel injected engine or not (it was typically done with carbed engines, and the feed was into the carburetor). Possibly could, but you would have to probably modify the intake manifold after the fuel rail input - not an easy or cheap job...
      • Nothing says that you have to inject the water after the fuel, nor do you have to inject the water in the same manner the fuel is injected.

        Note that some of the older fuel injection designs, instead of having multiport injection (one injector/cylinder), they used throttle body injection. (One injector at the throttle body). You could just add a water injector at the throttle body. One guy did it on his Dodge Shadow (http://www.karlsnet.com/mopar/) - There's a lot of info not on that page, he was an acti
    • I mentioned this same idea to Gharlane of Eddore [google.com] back in about 1986, after I got my first car. He told me that this very same water-injection technique is used for a short-term power boost in certain aircraft engines. I contemplated making a more rigorous calculation of the thermodynamic efficiency a few years later when I was taking P-Chem, but found that my attention was spread thin by my existing homework.
  • Is gasoline expensive in the US?
    I thought it was dirt cheap there!
    You should try paying around $3.7/gallon, like we do in sweden...
    And this has nothing to do with the US war threats. It's been like this for years...
    Once the US invasion of Iraq is underway, the price'll probably skyrocket. :/
    Luckily, I drive a diesel. That's "only" about $3.2/gallon. =)
  • A Hydrogren internal combustion engine would be great. In fact, many auto makers have prototype cars that run their engines off of hydrogen alone: such as this site explains. [colby.edu] Still, a normal engine will NOT work correctly with significant amounts of hydrogden being burned, as it changes the mixture too much, requires a different amount of compression, might not work with the injectors properly, won't get contained by the current fuel system, and so on. Bascially, because hydrogen burns so easily, it req
    • Yeah - the Ranger (and used to be the Taurus as well) could use E-85 without mods. However, that engine isn't a fuel-injected engine - I have the 2.3L FI engine on my 4-banger Ranger (94), and I can't use E-85 (probably will melt the injectors or something). I researched it after finding out about the 3.0L engine. As far as burning hydrogen, I am not interested in replacing the fuel system, but rather augmenting it (by dumping the hydrogen into the air-intake manifold, most likely via a vacuum line tee off
  • Well, everything I've ever heard or read about trying electrolysis can't produce enough hydrogen to fuel a car. Breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen and feeding just won't cut it. If it could, a more robust system should be able to power the car by itself.

    The theory does sound interesting though. I'm curious myself if it would work.

    After reading his text, I have to wonder about the author though. He says he has a background in chemestry (at least teaching it in hgih school), but then f
    • More than likely I'll say "that was interesting.", and pull all the crap off.

      Pretty much what I was thinking - it is an interesting "weekend" experiment, that doesn't cost much in materials or time - if it seemed to work, great (and I would be doing what you suggest, to get a better idea of mpg) - if not, then I would pull it off, and call it a failed (but interesting) experiment (actually, I would probably play around with filling balloons and such using it, maybe experimenting with other hydrogen systems

  • He seems to be implying that the hyrdogen gas produced by the decomposition of water reacts with gasoline to produce a different type of hydrocarbon, which burns more efficiently.

    However this seems like it would be easy to verify in a lab setting. Combine vaporized gasoline and hyrdogen gas under the pressures experienced in an average engine, and test how well it burns compared to normal gasoline.
    • Very true, and probably the smartest approach - however, I don't have such a lab available, nor the money to fund such an experiment. Maybe it already has been done (the last link seems to indicate something along these lines has been tested and found to be better), and I just have to find the results. What I was thinking of doing was building one, then testing mpg before and after (ie, add a switch to turn it off and on) - plus I would like to know how well it does emission-wise, so I would want to test th
  • Back in the mid to late 70's my dad had a Fiat sedan and being tinkerers (more people tinkered on their cars then it seems, and if you had a Fiat you pretty much always had to tinker with it :) we tried some of the water-vapor injection ideas that were around then (supposed to give a 10% boost in milage) - but it didn't really work. Then we got the idea: what if we electrolyzed the water into hydrogen & oxygen and sent the gases into the carburator. We tried it out, it's pretty easy to do (though I'm
  • How about looking at other ideas out there that are less radical and a whole lot more practical? I've been waiting for the 42V electrical system ever since the standard was hashed out way back in '95.

    Changing from 12V to 42V will be a lot easier than moving from gasoline to something else. Look what you get for going to 42V:

    • Integrated alternator/starter/flywheel. Instant warm starts-- no more idling while stopped.
    • Solenoid actuated valves. No more camshaft optimized for only a small range of RPMs.

  • No. (Score:3, Informative)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @02:32AM (#5552364) Journal

    This "hydrogen boosting" is just adding a different fuel to the mix. Of course the "mileage" will increase because you are getting more power from the other fuel. The other fuel is probably more expensive than gasoline, so why bother? Not only that, but you are "misfueling" your vehicle, so unless you really know what you're doing it could impact the performance and/or lifetime of the engine and it certainly voids your warranty.

  • Maybe someone can explain this to me better, but as I understand it -
    • Emissions result from incomplete combustion of the fuel. If this is true, how can adding hydrogen (i.e. more fuel) help the emissions quality when the limiting ingredient is oxygen?
    • NOx gasses are going to form as long as there's nitrogen present at high temperatures, pretty much no matter what you burn. So that's not going to improve emissions...
    • Where are we supposed to be getting the hydrogen from in sufficient amounts to make it wo

  • Dangerous nonsense (Score:3, Informative)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @04:16AM (#5553039)
    Apart from the fact that the article is utter nonsense ( energy is needed to split water to hydrogen, where does the energy come from? The engine...so there is a net energy loss as heat compared to running without the hydrogen generator) there are two other points to make
    First, an acid filled generator will produce acid spray in the hydrogen. Which gets into the engine...which is made of aluminum and iron. Instant damaging corrosion time.
    If you use the alternative electrolyte, sodium hydroxide, that just dissolves the piston.

    Second, it is possible that (assuming the article isn't a complete troll) the engine used was fouled up and the acid mist actually cleaned up the plugs a bit. Cleaning plugs on old dirty engines usually increases gas mileage for a short while till the thing starts poorly and fouls up again.

    I don't know why chemistry teachers bother, honestly. Conservation of energy, thermal changes in reactions, then their little charges grow up and forget the lot, and start believing in fairy dust.

  • I keep on getting spam about Fuel Savers that will increase the efficiency of my engine by 27%, 100% guaranteed, etc., etc. and now Slashdot is promoting them and the spammers!

    If somebody is saying that cracking hydrogen will increase the mileage on your car, they're full of crack. The only way that could occur would be if hydrogen was to act as a catalyst increasing efficiency of the burn in your car (You can't get more energy from a chemical reaction then you get from it in reverse. Burning oxygen with h
  • Pump a little water vapour into the cylinder with the air, you get a power boost[1]. But who's going to bother? It isn't worth the hassle, like these hydrogen bullshit things. You gonna carry a hydrogen cylinder along when you fill up your petrol tank?

    [1] Note, this happens naturally on cold and misty mornings.

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