Hydrogen Injection !!!!!
Submitted: Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 13:15
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Member - John
G'day, I know I am opening a can of worms and all comments gratefully appreciated.
I have been told that Hydrogen kits are available that when used on petrol or diesel engines will give up to a 40-50% increase in fuel economy and also an increase in power.
Now I am sure that the claims can not be true, but does anyone have first hand experience with Hydrogen, good or bad. Thanks in advance.
Reply By: garrycol - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 14:58
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 14:58
Hydrogen suits internal combustion engines very
well and it runs
well - if you ran it like LPG it would be a great fuel.
The issue is where the Hydrogen comes from - at present it basically needs to be created by electricity. Hydro electricity or nuclear or solar/green - no issues however the systems referred to in the original post normal generate it by electrolyses with power from the car alternator and the hydrogen is fed into the engine like LPG fumigation with a diesel.
The problem is that physics laws means that energy cannot created or destroyed and as such the engine will have to burn more energy to turn the alternator (extra load) than will be released from the hydrogen when it is burnt - each process in the chain looses energy through heat which is lost.
However hydrogen fumigation with hydrogen stored in a bottle will work just as LPG fumigation works - the issue is where does the hydrogen come from - has to be made as it does not normally exist in a free state.
Garry
AnswerID:
481979
Follow Up By: Member - John - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 16:01
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 16:01
Garry, hydrogen fumigation is what I am referring to. The hydrogen is made from water and is not stored but injected as soon as it is made. Early days in the discovery process, I still think it can't work............
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Follow Up By: ross - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 22:31
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 22:31
John ,this is where it all falls to bits.You cannot make enough electricity on board the vehicle to make enough hydrogen to get any benefit.
If it was viable, all of the big car companies would have been all over it years ago.
The claims that it can bring 40-50% savings are a
warning sign.If they tell lies like that,then you cant believe anything else they say.
These kits and all other sorts of fuel saving devices are always trotted out each time the price of fuel spikes.
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757305
Reply By: murrayman - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 16:51
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 16:51
Hi
john, a few years ago i built a hydrogen system for my 80 series petrol gas land cruiser. It consisted of a 1 litre plastic container, a pair of extruded platinum plates inside the container wired through a switch to the auxillary battery. Add 1 litre of water, 2 tea spoons of carb soda and when you turned it on it looked like a glass of salvital it bubbled that hard. I then ran a hose to the intake just before the throttle body. My biggest problem was controlling the power consumption. It would start of using about 3 amps and after 10 minutes it would be pulling 20 amps. I do believe it made a difference to the performance and i would only turn it on when towing my caravan up a big
hill. i then bought a turbo diesel cruiser and went no further with it. I believe this technology should be explored further and i have heard of them being fitted locally to large semi trailers. Who would have thought when you spend 700 thousand on a brand new New Holland header it will run on chicken bleep . A mate just bought one and it has 2 fuel tanks, 1 diesel, one blue fuel which is basically liquid fertilizer. We need more people to think outside the square a bit. The govt will never support it because how do they tax water, if all the vehicles ran on water there would be nothing in it for them. I read that the first ever internal combustion engine ran on hydrogen, not sure if its true but who knows. cheers mm
AnswerID:
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Follow Up By: Member - John - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 17:32
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 17:32
mm, thanks for the input, from what I have read so far, 25-30 amps is all the power needed to get enough gas for injection. That doesn't seem to be a lot of power for a potentially large increase in engine power. I am not looking for the increased power, looking to get better fuel economy. Thanks once again.
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Follow Up By: Allan B (Member, SunCoast) - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 17:55
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 17:55
John, perhaps you should look at the maths
here.
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Follow Up By: Member - Chris & Debbie (QLD) - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 19:09
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 19:09
@ murrayman, I think you will find the New Holland is not running on two fuels.
From what I have read the blue stuff is basically liquid urea but it is injected into the exhaust system after the turbo and is used for polution control.
Chris
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Reply By: The Bantam - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 19:16
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 19:16
Yes this has been discussed in various
places, my understanding of the issues are thus.
Yes there is the problem in the net loss in energy due to the energy required to generate the hydrogen.
What we need to understand is fuel is an energy storage medium, it has to be generated, most of the fuels we now use were generated over a long period and are very energy dense...any way.
There is the problem of generating sufficient hydrogen on a continuous basis to be usefull in a reactor small enough to be practical....remember the water needs to be carried too
There is the problem of despensing the hydrogen and metering it.......to be of any real use the hydrogen needs to be generated in a consistent way and in volumes that meet needs.
This is all very problematic in the simple systems, because they run at very low preasures and have no capacity for storage.
If the hydrogen generated is controlled by varying the plate currents, the generation and passage of the gas is not immediate and thus it will lag demand.....and people complain about turbo lag???
The coal/timber/rubbish gasifacation systems used during the war are a very different prospect....during the war they were very crude.....there has been a lot of work done on them since, If done well it is a very very clean and efficient way of burning stuff, particularly waste.......but they are not all that well siuted to mobile use.
What we should be doing is using waste gasification to burn all sorts of rubbish and generate electricity.........but no one in government seems interested.
cheers
AnswerID:
481992
Follow Up By: Member - Jerry C (WA) - Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 23:50
Saturday, Mar 31, 2012 at 23:50
Hi John,
A couple of years ago there was an article in one of the weekend papers in
Perth that talked about a QLD transport firm running either a double or triple Semi on a weekly round trip from
Brisbane to
Perth bringing fresh vegtables west and picking a load of seafood from Esperence on the return trip to
Brisbane. The article went on to say that it made a difference of about one gear in performance and a cosiderable fuel saving over one year.
The trucks used a Hydrogen injection system produced by a company in
Adelaide,
I enquired about a system for a Prado D-4D which at that time was about $3000.00
A colleague of mine has built a Hydrogen generator himself which he then fitted to his wife's small Hyundi sedan which she drove from
Melbourne to
Meekatharra. After acouple of years in Meeka it is currently running around
Perth. I believe that it is now about version 3.
Cheers,
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Follow Up By: The Bantam - Sunday, Apr 01, 2012 at 08:51
Sunday, Apr 01, 2012 at 08:51
Yeh there are plenty stories about....but a conspicuous lack of well documented sucesses.
The issues remain.
Even if a system is "proven to work", is it realy cost effective, in comparison to more conventional alternatives like "diesel gas", " water injetion" , various fuel suplimentations or simply not bothering.
cheers
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757332
Reply By: Whirlwinder - Sunday, Apr 01, 2012 at 18:48
Sunday, Apr 01, 2012 at 18:48
Hi John,
Now that all the "experts" have had their say let me give you the facts.
I have a hydrogen system on our 1HZ with an aftermarket turbo in our 80 series and have had for about 18 mths. It was sold to me as an experimental set up, not "plug & play" and it took me a while to get it figured out.
On the first trip, day one, I got an improvement of 17% and that continued for 3 weeks. I even did one day with it on and followed the next day with it off then back on the following day. I continued to get almost exactly 17% improvement.
BUT, it is something that you must be prepared to fiddle with to keep it performing well.
In the last month or so I noticed the 17% become 5% so I flushed the set up according the instructions and I expect it to return to 17%. I also have hope to reach 20% on our next trip in September.
It is true that the alternator producing 30 amps uses more power than the hydrogen produces but that is irrevalent. It is the presence of hydrogen (and a bit of extra oxygen) that causes more complete burning of ANY fuel in the internal combustion engine. It is visually evident on the back wall of my garage. Prior to the hydrogen generator I had circle of soot about 1m in diameter. When I fitted the generator I cleaned the wall and now have soot in about a 400mm circle. Smaller circle = less soot = less unburnt fuel !! It DOES work.
If you would like more factual detail email me at "toian@spin.net.au".
AnswerID:
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