[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.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I smell a Hindenburg coming on.

“Oh the humanities!”

[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.

[fishtank]

Neat article.

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

[Centurion2000]

So you burn gasoline in the tank to turn the alternator which charges the battery which provides power to the Brown Gas Generator which gives Hydrogen to the combustion chamber and this setup is supposed to give greater mileage?

The question then is, is the chemical energy release of burning the hydrox mix greater than the electrical energy required to crack them? Somehow I doubt this is the case. I expect a lot of dead batteries in these cars' futures.

This also kind of strikes me as similar to the more complicated versions of steam engines like triple or qudruple expansion engines.

Now if you were generating electricity from the waste heat off the exhaust and using THAT to crack the water. Then you'd definitely be getting somewhere but even then you are just increasing the efficiency of the internal combustion engine.

[Mechanicos]

"A key component of the system is an electronic modulator for the car's oxygen sensor, Kushnir said. The device prevents the car's computer from injecting more fuel into the engine in response to cleaner exhaust produced by burning hydrogen ..."

Ding! Ding! They mechanically lean out the fuel mixture...

[N. Theknow]

My Son-in-law is going to put one in his Chevy SUV.

I now call it Der Hindenburban.

[AmericaUnited]

Anyone interested in this should read this first.
Some Energy Fundamentals
http://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf
...
There was a recent newsgroup flap over an individual who thought he was going to find an old solar panel scunging away at a yard sale somewhere, build up an electrolysizer out of scrap parts he had lying around, and then hydrogen power his Cadillac Escalade SUV by using "free" energy. Thus screwing the oil companies. What’s wrong with this picture? Or, for that matter, "not even wrong"? There seems to be an amazing amount of appallingly bad misinformation on both traditional and alternate energy out there. Driven by everything from wishful thinking to hidden agendas to hero worship to big business hatred to government stupidity to subsidy ripoffs to bad labwork to utter cluelessness to R&D funding grabs to outright scams.

[Doohickey]

When I was in the Navy, we had on board a rather large device known as an electrolytic oxygen generator. It generated oxygen using a process that is really no different from the device described in the article aside from scale.

There was a reason that we referred to it as the “bomb”.

[Right Wing Assault]

It's likely that hydrogen improves combustion

The modern engine running at constant driving speed is giving as close to 100% combustion as you can get. There is hardly any raw gas or CO coming out the tailpipe. There's nothing left to burn. How can you improve on that?

Since it takes energy to make the hydrogen, even if it makes a difference, will it pay back the energy lost?

[count-your-change]

“A key component of the system is an electronic modulator for the car’s oxygen sensor, Kushnir said. The device prevents the car’s computer from injecting more fuel into the engine in response to cleaner exhaust produced by burning hydrogen, which would negate the efficiency gained, he said.”
Simply leaning the engine fuel mix. Plug-in engine modulators can be purchased aftermarket to tune the engine on the fly.
Burning water, burning hydrogen generated from water, nonsense, past and present.

[naturalized]

Umm, pretty sure this was Mythbusted.

[Mr. Dough]

I don't believe this is a good idea on the surface. Electrolysis of water into Hydrogen and Oxygen is an endothermic reaction. It takes more energy to break the H & O apart than they give off when they are recombined by combustion. For this to work there would need to be a violation of the law of conservation of energy, i.e. a perpetual motion machine.

Now, that said, there might be an advantage actually caused by the free oxygen helping to efficiently combust the gasoline. If this is the case, the hydrogen is probably just getting in the way. That aspect may be worth experimenting with.

[RSmithOpt]

People who wish not to believe it can work forget the alternator of any auto / truck has a fixed amount of current it can deliver at 13.2 to 14.35 VDC depending upon make.

A lot of the output from the alternator is never used by the car in daytime driving; minimal use just charges the battery as you drive. Now, having the stereo on, the wipers going, headlights on and running the ac will consume most of the power from many makes of alternators.

Therefore, the alternator spins to produce voltage that charges the battery constantly whether that energy is needed by the battery or not. Power to run the vehicle's accessories is pulled off the battery.

My problem with the advertisers out there seem not to suggest reserve H2O tanks to automatically fill the electrolysis chamber as needed.

Also, if the system (Hydrogen Hurricane, etc.) cannot store small amounts of Brown Gas, then quick acceleration would be severely hampered.

My take is the units ability to supply the amounts of brown gas needed at a steady rate may be in question with respect to optimal combustion mix of octane and the brown mix.

It does not matter what kind of fuel an internal combustion engine burns as flex fuel vehicles are already demonstrating that capability.

Hydrogen burning in oxygen that is created from water using excess alternator energy is easily accomplished and feeding that gas mix to the air intake just in front of the MAFS is how it is down. One will have to change electrodes at times is my guess and the brown gas additive will tell the car's computer to lean back the fuel mix thus increasing mileage.