Water Fuel?????????

It's Brown's Gas all over again. Take some science, electrolysis, and dress it up in pseudo-science, magnecules, and call it a discovery. I can believe a local news crew is gullible enough to fall for this, but if the military is indeed sniffing around this crackpot's ideas I'll feast on the litter box tonight.

The torch is nothing new. Take a mixture of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen and you get a really hot flame. Vary that mixture, say increase the oxygen percentage until there is barely enough hydrogen to keep the torch lit and you will have a cool flame that burns nearly anything. A high concentration of oxygen causes most materials to combust vigorously if there is any ignition source (see Apollo 1). Unfortunately this gas mixture is scary dangerous because all it needs is a teeny spark and the whole cylinder will explode. That's what you get for mixing fuel and oxidizer.

As to the vehicle: you can use a gasoline engine to create electricity to split water which gets recombined to run the motor, but thermodynamics says it's more efficient to just use the gas to run the motor.

"A Humvee that runs on both water and gasoline".

hmmm ... did that news reporter really think it was either one or the other?
How about runs on gasoline and water (water vapor, steam injection or maybe even HHO)

... the inference sure is on the former, reality the latter.

It sure is fun to watch a snake oil salesman work the crowd though, isn't it? :)
Reminds me of the Zero Point Energy post a while back.

... rising water prices, I wish, not something us Washingtonians lose a lot of sleep over with annual precipitation ranging from 60 to 100+ inches here.

With his envisioned setup, basically water would be transformed into hydrogen and the hydrogen would be used as a "battery": It's basically converting electrical energy and storing it as chemical energy(via the hydrogen). The water itself is not a "fuel" per se, as the energy is not coming from the water but the electricity, so the gaseous H2O would be instead a battery. The question then becomes, what's the potential energy density of HHO? If you were to compress it to increase the energy density(to something useful), the temperature would increase as it's compressed thus possibly igniting it: The main way to solve this problem is to compress it slowly so that the heat would dissipate but, the question then becomes, could people tolerate some significant amount of time to "fill up" their car? Perhaps over night charge, yes, but what about long distance trips? Eh. I guess there could be specially designed large compression tanks that would deliver the hydrogen at the desired pressure at the ambient temperature so there'd be no problem. Wasn't a hydrogen fuel economy already considered, though?

A few years ago I wanted to design a multi-fuel system for my car:

Not sure if it could actually work, but I thought it was a good idea.

arcticfox wrote

A few years ago I wanted to design a multi-fuel system for my car:

Sounds like a neat idea, it almost kind of sounds ilke a hybrid (half gas, half hydrogen half ethanol)

A few years ago I wanted to design a multi-fuel system for my car:

Errr, why exactly did you want to do this?

Also, regarding all the talk of HHO - there are lots of designs for cheap do it yourself set ups. See here for one: http://www.smacksboosters.110mb.com/. It's an interesting idea and it seems like it might work to increase fuel efficiency (as long as you take the extra step to "fool" the engine management system so it doesn't compensate for the lean burn). It's to do with the fact that HHO burns more efficiently than gasoline. When I say "it might work" I think it might give you a noticeable (say 10%?) improvement in fuel efficiency.

I have a colleague at work who commutes 80 miles per day and fuel costs are killing him. He was thinking of trying this out. Even a 10% savings would add up to real money for him.

Browns gas is very cool stuff. And very expensive stuff, since it's made of electricity. Just as soon as nuclear power is too cheap to meter we will all have browns gas generators in our garages. Hey wait a minuite, wasn't I promised electricity too cheap to meter by the year 2000? I can't belive it! I was lied to in grade school! And now that I think about it, where's my jet pack!

When liquid fuels evaporate into a gas, they have a MUCH greater volume. By introducing gasoline in tiny liquid droplets that then vaporise inside the cylinder (25 times a second) you can produce a lot of power in a small engine.

The gasoline to air ratio is about 14 parts air to one part gasoline by weight. Since H2 is less dense than gasoline and its used as a gas (instead of a denser liquid) running an engine on H2 means about 30% of the cylinder volume would be H2, leaving much less air (O2) for combustion than when using gasoline.

Burning pure H2 leaves no carbon to form CO or CO2, so Ford asked the question, What would it take to make one of our common 4-cylinder engines get 100 HP while using pure H2?

You have to compress three times as much H2/air into the cylinder to accomplish that. Using dry compressed H2 from a pressurized cylinder, when it is metered into the intake, its temperature drops, but compressing it enough to accomplish this goal still heated it enough to auto-ignite before the sparking event. Using well-established air-compressor data, the H2/air must be compressed in two stages and cooled in-between each.

For a "doable" off-the-shelf two-stage compression with spacing that allows cooling of both stages, a turbo-charger draws in the H2/air, and compresses it into a conventional air/air intercooler. Then, the H2/air is further compressed by a positive-displacement blower, and is then cooled by a air/freon cooler that is sandwiched between the blower and the intake.

The car has two complete and separate Air Conditioning systems, one for the people, and one for the blower.

Since you want to make H2 "on the fly" from liquid water, you must still use some gasoline to get it running. The more gaseous H2 you are able to produce, the more air/gasoline it displaces. As the H2 ratio increases, there will be a noticeable DROP in power. I suppose you could install a turbocharger with a variable wastegate to adjust the boost, but for all the money and trouble you just spent already, I would...

Buy an old 4-cylinder VW diesel, and run it off of free waste vegetable oil from restaurants, or...

Buy a 90's Geo Metro hatchback with fuel injection, 1.0L engine, and manual trans. Paint it, get some seat covers, new tires, new brakes. Rebuild the engine if neccesary, it gets 50 MPG...(or a new Yaris hatch?)

Buy a new 100 MPG scooter, or a large used scooter with a fried engine to convert to a lithium E-scoot...

$1500 will get you a SWEET E-bike set-up, and make your friends, co-workers and neighbors view you as wise and insightful...

PS, Jet-packs are OK (I guess), but when the weathers bad, where's
the plane/car I was promised to end traffic ??

Well,
I've made one of these "electrolyzers" too. I have my xb 600 modded to 60v for commuting to work, but when it's storming, I have to drive my Crown Vic which gets about 12mpg. AAAAAARRRGGGGHHH!!! As soon as my PWM arrives, I'm slapping my power tube on the Crown Vic. Hopefully, it will save me some gas. At $4.00 a gallon I need to save as much as I can. I say don't knock it till you try it, so I'll see what happens. Maybe the motor will blow up, so I'll have an excuse to make it an electric vehicle. LOL!

By all means try it! But it has been out there 2 years that I know of, and nobody has told me it worked, among my friends who did try it 2 years ago.

lets not be stupid, we have a shortage on oil prices going up, now people are into converting water into fuel...hey run out of water and then we are in real trouble, run out of oil well we have our electric bikes...and those who say when burning the hydrogen water comes out the tail pipe is full of something....

wolf3510 wrote

lets not be stupid......

Here ya go....

http://www.itt.com/waterbook/world.asp

(not sure how up to date all of this information is)

OK, so you're all going to call me crazy (and me trying to be a respectable businessman and all) but...

A friend and I are trying to recreate Stan Meyers "water fuel cell". There are a couple of folks who have apparently succeeded in replicating his work using low power electrolysis to get about 5 times Faraday's theoretical maximum of gas production for standard (i.e. high power) electrolysis of water. The "trick" appears to be some form of harmonic vibration of the electrodes (transferred into the electrolyte) that reduces the energy needed to separate H2O into hydrogen and oxygen.

Do I think Meyers was murdered by the bad guys? No. Do I think we can break the laws of physics? No. Do I think we can make one of these and slap it into a water powered car? No (at first I hope to run a very small Sterling engine).

However, it does intrigue me. Why would these separate folks (with videos posted on You Tube so, hey, it must be real right? ;-) ) go ahead and create elaborate hoaxes? Or, alternatively, where did they screw up? I think I've slightly better odds at succeeding with this than winning the lottery (but bear in mind I don't buy lottery tickets!) - but it should be an interesting project. I think there's something there - I'm just not sure what that "something" will turn out to be...

So if the men in black come to get me then you'll know why!

Uh.... John? These men want to talk to you about something?

thanks alias...good reading...http://www.itt.com/waterbook/world.asp

wolf wrote

thanks alias...good reading...

Not a problem ;)

I think if we ever could get more energy out of electrolysis than we do putting into it all of green nuts would have been modifying our Wankel Engines to run on hydrogen and oxygen long ago. Maybe what you need is a catalyst. I used KOH from crystal toilet bowl cleaner is the best one I know of.. Oh and John, make sure you use a water blubber for your experiments. The yahoo group watercar is filled with guys putting these contraptions in their car. One even put it in their BMW! Myth Busters tried one out and found a net loss in fuel efficiency.

If you put a Browns gas generator on a fuel injected car, it can throw off the air mass sensor and the oxygen sensor, leading to the computer enriching the mix.

Browns Gas is not a huge problem if you're only adjusted to get about 10% better gasoline mileage, But the more BG you add, the more gasoline/air you're displacing.

Since hydrogen is much less dense than gasoline, there will be a noticeable drop in horsepower. Get a very small light car. If it has two engine options, get the bigger engine.

Switching off the BG will get you more power when theres 2 or 3 people in the car, and switching it on will get you 10% better mileage when you're just cruising to work and don't need a lot of power.

I think if we ever could get more energy out of electrolysis than we do putting into it all of green nuts would have been modifying our Wankel Engines to run on hydrogen and oxygen long ago.

They were all killed/threatened/bought off by the men-in-black - I know it's true I read it in National Enquirer! ;-)

Maybe what you need is a catalyst. I used KOH from crystal toilet bowl cleaner is the best one I know of..

Yeah, for boring old, traditional "let's not break the 2nd law of thermodynamics" type electrolysis there's lots of talk of different catalysts, different operating voltages and the like. I've seen claims of 10% through 50%. The best freebie design I know of is "Smack's Booster" (google it if you're interested).

Oh and John, make sure you use a water blubber for your experiments. The yahoo group watercar is filled with guys putting these contraptions in their car. One even put it in their BMW! Myth Busters tried one out and found a net loss in fuel efficiency.

Yeah, I agree with spinningmagnets below - with a booster you need to make sure the O2 sensor doesn't think you're running lean and start pumping more fuel. Do you know (a) what car MB used and (b) whether they used an adjusted signal to be able to control the signal from the O2 sensor.

Bubbler, schmubler and boosters be damned - I want to create enough of this stuff to run a (very small) engine. Actually, I absolutely plan on using a bubbler - and also designing in lots of safety features (pressure blow outs etc.) - and experimenting outside (don't want it pooling up in the rafters of the garage!)

I hope you realize that the above is all meant in good natured jest. I do appreciate the input and I do realize that in essence this is all "crackpot" science - it's kind of like a modern day alchemy. However, there are a couple of things to consider:
- the signal to noise ratio is terrible. There are a lot of claims and counter claims and myths and lies on all sides from all comers. BUT there is a SIGNAL there if you can tune out the noise.
- if Meyer was a con artist he was a clever one because he surprised some very clever people (including scientists who visited him and saw his water fuel cell in action)
- there are three or four seemingly independent folks who have put together Meyer's work (which is now in the public domain) and appear to be getting "over unity" results. Yeah, I know, impossible - but something appears to be going on - the question is what!?
- the interesting things appear to be:
-- a reliance on a reasonably complex frequency wave train (forgive me if my terms are wrong it's not my field - yet!)
-- a potential differential with very low current flow - obtained after the cathode becomes coated in a non conducting-oxide
-- how does one keep it in tune and keep the gas production high?

Apparently the folks who have made this work have managed to get 5 to 8 times the theoretical Faraday maximum out of their bench top system.

Yeah it probably won't work at all - but at least it might be a nice project to look at!

And if folks want to see why sparc5 says you need a bubbler check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8UovQFDRco ;-)

- the signal to noise ratio is terrible. There are a lot of claims and counter claims and myths and lies on all sides from all comers. BUT there is a SIGNAL there if you can tune out the noise.

This has got to be one of the best quotes from anyone in a long time! It fits in so many different levels (eGrav included).

Kudos, John. :)

Why thank you Mr. Fox.

BTW, I spent some time on "the project" today. I call it "The Pasta Jar of Death":

Next step: Put the hydrogen in your fuel cell and power our toys for those long trips.

If my memory serves me correctly, Myth Busters used an old pre-EFI carburated car.

I tried to run the lawn mower on brown's gas once. It had a serious problem with pre-ignition and flashbacks. There are some youtube videos of people running motors on it with better results then me, but hot spots on the car's cylinder would be something I'd be mindful of.

I went to Poland last new years with my girlfriend. All the gas stations were pumping unleaded as well as AutoGas (propane). The propane was half the price. The kits are going on ebay for around $2000 shipping, and propane tank that goes in the spare tire well included. Some kits let you use Natural Gas as well, so you can fill up at home. For the guy with the crown vic, if you want to get the biggest bang for your buck, proven technology, I'd recommend that.

OK, so you're all going to call me crazy (and me trying to be a respectable businessman and all) but...

A friend and I are trying to recreate Stan Meyers "water fuel cell". There are a couple of folks who have apparently succeeded in replicating his work using low power electrolysis to get about 5 times Faraday's theoretical maximum of gas production for standard (i.e. high power) electrolysis of water. The "trick" appears to be some form of harmonic vibration of the electrodes (transferred into the electrolyte) that reduces the energy needed to separate H2O into hydrogen and oxygen.

Personally, John, I dont believe it is possible without huge amount of loss in electricity compared to gain of actual hydrogen produced, but here is some info of the frequencies of water and hydrogen known in the communication industry to block signal transmission. It is a NASA graph copied from a SATCOM book; maybe this will help. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v424/slodown27/Frequencyandatmosphericeffects.jpg

If Einstein could figure out relativity from how many air bubbles are possible in a colloidal solution before a cascade release(in laymans terms - foam on beer before it fizzles), I guess you might get lucky.

John, one of your favorite movies MUST be Astronaut Farmer?
My favorite quote form that movie:
"sir how do we know you are not producing a weapon of mass destruction?", "Gentelmen if I were building a WMD, you wouldn't be able to find it".

Also: "my sixteen year old son is perfectly capable of launching me into space".

The other favorite movie quote of mine is from the 1980's movie on the NASCAR driver Junior Johnson's story:
"Excuse me sir, but your evidence is on fire".

Just a few one liners you can use when the Men in Black come to the door. ;)

Famous words from Burt Monroe (Worlds Fastest Indian):
"If it blows up before the finish line, it's too hot, If it blows up after the finish line it's too cold. If it blows up on the finish line it's just right."
And that formula into the equation and your success is certain! ;)

I'll keep watching the national news for an outbreak of global thermal nuclear warfare originating from MI. Then I know your sneaking up on peak performance. :)

Be safe, keep us posted.

Hey! What happened to the updates?

I'm waiting for my amp gauge to arrive, then my "powertube" is going on the Crown Vic. If this doesn't work I'm gonna be mad! If it does, I'll make a bigger one and try running on water only. HEHEHEHEE! <--- maniacal laugh. Time will tell.

Which would be better: 1)adding more oxygen to the system, or 2)adding hydrogen? If we keep these two gases separate during production, maybe there's a chance for multiple uses. Oxygen for city driving, hydrogen for highway use...

Also, speaking about resonators, would nuking the water with a microwave beam during electrolysis help out in any way? Does it matter if the watter is cold or near boiling?

Just throwing out ideas.

Started trying to condition my tubes this weekend - the box of tricks isn't performing. It's supposed to be outputting a rapidly switching 12V square wave (that gates a high frequency wave) but I can't get more than a couple hundred millivolts.

So the "Pasta Jar of Death" is actually more like the "Pasta Jar with a bad headache" - not nearly as menacing!

Note that this is just a problem with the electronics - I suppose I shouldn't expect world domination to be THAT easy...

I'll be diving into the innards of the black box in the next week or so.

I just got back from HomeDepot with a small handful of parts. :) I figured I'd try this as well.

This is my first design idea:

Quarter inch all-thread, fender washers, bolted so that each washer on one side overlaps washers on the other (I don't know why). Secured onto a PVC cap, then inserted into the PVC pipe (estimating 4" dia.pipe) and filled with distilled water. I'm wanting to design this to be under no pressure, or a free-flow design.

This is the HHO system; another two-pipe design will be for separate H2 an O areas.

John:
- why do you use a glass container?
- square wave? At what frequency? I've a computer programme that can output sine/square/ramp/sawtooth at 0-20kHz... why would I use it and what's special about square wave?

:)

- why do you use a glass container?

I don't use glass - it's acrylic. I want something I can see the bubbles.

- square wave? At what frequency? I've a computer programme that can output sine/square/ramp/sawtooth at 0-20kHz... why would I use it and what's special about square wave?

There are two basic approaches to electrolysis. The first is the well understood form of "high power" electrolysis. This is what things like the Smack Booster uses. They pump anywhere from 120W to 480W (12V 10A to 12V 40A) through water with an electrolyte (often KOH). This power comes from the vehicle alternator and allows for better combustion of the fuel. Claims range from 10% to 50% fuel efficiency gains. This is what zerogas is doing with his crown vic.

The other approach is "low power electrolysis" (it's not actually clear if it really is electrolysis or "something else"). With this setup folks have managed to put in as little as 0.5A at 12V (6W) and get significant production of Hydroxy Gas. Do a google on "Stanley Meyers Water Fuel Cell". A key component of this approach seems to be the conditioning of the cathode with a highly resistive oxide which limits current flow and the pulsing of the electric current. There's a low (100Hz?) frequency square wave which gates a high (40kHz) frequency wave. Some have hypothesized that the resonant frequency of the electrodes might be important. There are two apparently successful approaches to this. Stan Meyers used concentric tubes with the cathode as the inner tube (this is the design we're following) - search for Ravi Water Fuel Cell to see a you tube of one in action. Bob Boyce uses a set of square electrodes (and an even weirder set of three frequency generators).

The freaky thing with the "low power" approach is that you can get "over unity" - i.e. you can get more power out (in terms of combustible hydroxy gas) than power in (in the form of electricity). Apparently Stan Meyers got 17 times the theoretical Faraday maximum where as Ravi has managed around 5 to 8 times (even 1.00000000001 "breaks" the laws of physics - obviously it doesn't really break anything if it works at all it's because of some misunderstanding in our current thinking).

For the best description google this stuff.

I'm not sure your design is very effective - is one column the cathode and one the anode? If so, only the overlapping part would be effective. If not and the anode and cathode alternate up each column then conversely you wouldn't want any overlap. But perhaps I'm missing something? (aside from a few marbles)