Drivers Seek Mileage Boost From Hydrogen, Oxygen Bubbles

Newhouse News ^ | 6/10/2008 | Tim Knauss

[Incorrigible]

 

At least it's a practical way to generate hydrogen!

 

[Jeff Head]

Using a HHO (Brown's gas) generator works. I have friends getting 25-40% better milage with that alone. We are going to put one on my sons older PU truck before I try it on our newer vehicles.

[Ron Jeremy]

What a load of BS. If it worked, Ford or GM would have tested it a few weeks ago and already putting it into their cars.

[RightWhale]

This may be about the 20th thread, but it is the best explanation so far. This device will void your car warranty and your engine might be damaged, but it has potential. Burning characteristics of fuel with an unknown amount of added hydrogen are highly unpredictable.

[thackney]

At least it's a practical expensive way to generate hydrogen! Refineries are one of the largest users of hydrogen. (behind NASA). Electrolysis is very expensive (energy intensive) compared to methods like steam reforming of natural gas.

[FlashBack]

BKMRK.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I smell a Hindenburg coming on.

“Oh the humanities!”

[AmericaUnited]

The problem with some of these units is they might “work” as far fuel economy is concerned but also increase nitrogen oxide (NOx), a big no-no for a production, EPA certified vehicle.

A “private” person might not care...

[fproy2222]

Years ago,I talked to a friend that made the oxygen for atomic powered submarines. He said that the hydrogen and oxygen mixture, that that was made from the water was so explosive that extreme care was taken when making oxygen.

Anybody know if this is true or not.

I would hate to blow up my car while driving down the freeway.

[fproy2222]

I also wander what the computer that controls my engine will think about it.

[IamConservative]

So the first law of thermodynamics is no longer true? The perpetual motion machine is certain to follow..

[underbyte]

I was playing around with same kind of thing. I took a plastic tube and mounted some spark plugs, then to a distributor which was then hooked up by a belt to an electric motor.

I then metered some water in one end.

What happened was on the exit end of the set up was I generated some kind of plasma. I could hold my hand over the exit end and could feel a fairly strong force pushing upwards or even from the side, it had a fairly definite field. From my other hand a 10 in. spark leaped from my finger tip to ground. Largest spark I have ever seen next to lightening. I still have the set up in my office but have not had the urge to turn it back on.

[Jeff Head]

With HHO unit I am looking at, the output into the exhaust system contains no NOx.

[thackney]

Browns Gas is Oxygen and Hydrogen combined in the most perfect ratio for complete combustion. Hydrogen by itself is not combustible until exposed to oxygen like available in the air. A leak from a hydrogen tank can ignite but a sensor failure inside the tank cannot cause ignition until oxygen gets to it.

Browns Gas (the gas created by electrolysis if the cathode and anode are not separated into separate chambers) is highly explosive.

[thackney]

If air is brought in for gasoline combustion, you are going to produce NOx. Air is mostly nitrogen.

If you increase the heat during combustion due to adding hydrogen, you will increase the NOx output.

[AmericaUnited]

You would not be storing the H + O but so it would not be a problem.

[thackney]

Please report back to us on your results.

Please do any tune ups of the engine prior to adding the hydrogen generators. Then run it for a while and get a good gas mileage figure for comparison.

One of the scams is to take a car, badly in need of a tune-up, install some worthless equipment and perform a tune-up, and claim the results as from the equipment.

[fishtank]

Neat article.

As an engineer myself, this whole thing bears looking into.

[AmericaUnited]

Another scam is to measure the output under a steady state no-load condition. Yes, you might get great results but that does not translate into real world results.

[LeGrande]

Using a HHO (Brown's gas) generator works. I have friends getting 25-40% better milage with that alone. We are going to put one on my sons older PU truck before I try it on our newer vehicles.

Be extremely skeptical and cautious. I have a $200,000 engine dyno (I make airplane engines). I have tested Browns gas, it lowers the octane rating which retards the timing, not a good thing. If you accidently rev the engine you will destroy it. I have gotten good at destroying engines, lots of practice : )

What I have observed is that people who use these devices alter their driving behavior and tune up their vehicles. It is very easy to get better gas mileage simply by idling less, driving a little bit slower, not accelerating as quikly, etc. My dodge Cummins diesel pickup gets between 15 and 25 mpg depending on how I drive it. I think that driving into the wind as opposed to driving with the wind makes about a 2 mpg (10%) difference.

The bottom line is that gasoline is a very good fuel. Changing the composition by adding hydrogen and/or oxygen in any form has very marginal benefits, and a lot of potential bad effects. An engine is just a pump designed to run very close to the stoichiometric point, if you change the composition of the fuel too much be prepared to replace the engine.

I talk to these snake oil salesmen occasionally and I find the silence very telling when I tell them I would like to test their product on a dyno. More often than not, that is the end of the conversation, they lose interest in selling me the product instantaneously. I have even wondered if it isn't some kind of disproof of Einstein's theory of Relativity.