HHO Systems?

[JandKSunshine]

Hello! I've heard some people who work in sustainable technology fields say that there are some good HHO Systems (Hydrogen Injection) that will bump up your MPG's. Has anyone here had any experience with those? If so, what did you use and what were your results?

Thanks!

Johnny

[Sam_Spade]

Gdetrailer wrote:

But keep in mind that the OP WAS about HHO (generating Hydrogen from water using electrolysis via a car and running the SAME car from that) , and that HAS BEEN PROVEN to not work by Mythbusters..

Don't confuse me with facts; my mind is already made up.

Oh, and I like chasing rainbows too. :B

[MEXICOWANDERER]

There is little "surplus" H developed in oil refinery process because it is refluxed back into feed streams. And guess what, oil refining is by an almost insane percentage majority the primary source of hydrogen. Cryo refrigeration extraction USES MORE ENERGY IN EXTRACTION than the product contains.

Proponents of any idea, concept, product, or process manage to amplify (their) enthusiasm and somehow neglect or diminish negative or points counter to their enthusiasm. Human nature.

To manufacture, store, transport, and dispense such a gas reveals hidden costs that never seem to get included in many discussions. To divert billions of cubic feet of H from refinery process drastically reduces refined product outflow. Sixty to eighty percent. A typical refinery has a Hydrogen Plant, Gas Oil Straight run Hydrotreater, Lube Oil Hydrotreater, Cat Gas and Cat Feed Hydrotreater. These are not vessels, they are entire plant units consisting of columns, heaters, vessels and miles of piping.

Extract hydrogen from the process and much of the remains will consist of carbon. Carbon just itching to combine with a pair of oxygen atoms.

Rather than Dick & Jane this I'll encourage folks to look up the latent percentage content of hydrogen in the atmosphere. Hint: Don't hold your breath.

Hydrogen power is still a toy locomotive energy because of the stuff mentioned above. The realization of emissions benefits is actually ludicrous when compared to methane based natural gas. Uncurl your upper lip. Divert that energy into actually finding out the energy, money, and effort emissions needed to extract hydrogen. It comes at a heavy price.

[free_radical]

free radical wrote:
Heres something else for you technicaly inclined to ponder about..
Preheating the incoming air,fuel mix does increase burning efficiency making more power..

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrdp-1009-what-ever-happened-to-smokeys-hot-vapor-engine/

[free_radical]

Heres something else for you technicaly inclined to ponder about..
Preheating the incoming air,fuel mix does increase burning efficiency making more power..

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrdp-1009-what-ever-happened-to-smokeys-hot-vapor-engine/

[drsteve]

Gdetrailer wrote:

drsteve wrote:
We already produce large quantities of hydrogen for industrial uses. In 2006, the United States was estimated to have a production capacity of 11 million tons of hydrogen. 5 million tons of hydrogen were consumed on-site in oil refining, and in the production of ammonia. Hydrogen production is an estimated $100 billion industry.

Sure, we "produce" Hydrogen for industry, does not mean it is a GOOD fuel to REPLACE gas..

Do you not understand that Hydrogen contains LESS ENERGY CONTENT per lb than gasoline?

Do you not understand that it TAKES CONSIDERABLE MORE ENERGY (BTU OR WATTs) to produce a lb of Hydrogen?

Do you not understand that the energy must come from some other source to produce Hydrogen?

Hydrogen can be made from electrolysis of water or cracking methane or natural gas, any of these ways REQUIRES additional ENERGY from somewhere else..

Do you understand that Hydrogen produced for and by industry is used mainly for REACTIONS of chemicals or gasses to produce other products and such and not for the HEAT..

I have a refinery near me that that in a process of refining White Oils uses a hydrogen reactor as part of the refining process and nothing more.. It is used to break down the hydro carbon chains into desired chains for their final products.

That plant over the years HAS had a couple of equipment failures resulting in hydrogen blast and fire.. Yeah, those explosions have been heard as far away as 15 miles and the shock from the blasts felt better than 5 miles away..

From what I gather, it takes 1.3 gallons of Hydrogen to equal the energy content in gallon gasoline.. Sort of difficult to flesh out since pretty much all the discussions center around Hydrogen as a GAS VAPOR and not a liquid.

Most likely due to the fact that Hydrogen gas is easier to produce, liquifying it takes even more energy and industrial uses really don't use liquid but gas..

Hydrogen also burns COLORLESS which makes a Hydrogen fire extremely difficult to detect and therefore fight.

Hydrogen is typically stored at high pressures, typically 3,000 PSI or higher.. That would make for extremely and insanely expensive "tanks" to be hung on a vehicle. Dealing with highly flammable high pressure tanks, DOT requires them to be disconnected AND to have the valves CAGED..

I own a Oxy-Acetelyne torch set, I would never consider hauling them on a vehicle without the regulators disconnected or no cage.. and acetylene is pretty mild compared to Hydrogen..

But keep in mind that the OP WAS about HHO (generating Hydrogen from water using electrolysis via a car and running the SAME car from that) , and that HAS BEEN PROVEN to not work by Mythbusters..

And yet, hydrogen fuel cell powered cars and city buses are on the roads in small but steadily increasing numbers. As for energy content, remember that a fuel cell is more than twice as efficient as an ICE. The car will go 60-80 miles on a kg of hydrogen. DOT seems satisfied that the tanks used on cars are safe. None have blown up. There are even hydrogen fuel stations.

Imagine that...

[time2roll]

IIRC Marai goes up to 10,000 psi if you want max range. The compression and cooling alone is a big energy overhead.

HHO is just nonsense BS. Always has been.

[Gdetrailer]

drsteve wrote:
We already produce large quantities of hydrogen for industrial uses. In 2006, the United States was estimated to have a production capacity of 11 million tons of hydrogen. 5 million tons of hydrogen were consumed on-site in oil refining, and in the production of ammonia. Hydrogen production is an estimated $100 billion industry.

Sure, we "produce" Hydrogen for industry, does not mean it is a GOOD fuel to REPLACE gas..

Do you not understand that Hydrogen contains LESS ENERGY CONTENT per lb than gasoline?

Do you not understand that it TAKES CONSIDERABLE MORE ENERGY (BTU OR WATTs) to produce a lb of Hydrogen?

Do you not understand that the energy must come from some other source to produce Hydrogen?

Hydrogen can be made from electrolysis of water or cracking methane or natural gas, any of these ways REQUIRES additional ENERGY from somewhere else..

Do you understand that Hydrogen produced for and by industry is used mainly for REACTIONS of chemicals or gasses to produce other products and such and not for the HEAT..

I have a refinery near me that that in a process of refining White Oils uses a hydrogen reactor as part of the refining process and nothing more.. It is used to break down the hydro carbon chains into desired chains for their final products.

That plant over the years HAS had a couple of equipment failures resulting in hydrogen blast and fire.. Yeah, those explosions have been heard as far away as 15 miles and the shock from the blasts felt better than 5 miles away..

From what I gather, it takes 1.3 gallons of Hydrogen to equal the energy content in gallon gasoline.. Sort of difficult to flesh out since pretty much all the discussions center around Hydrogen as a GAS VAPOR and not a liquid.

Most likely due to the fact that Hydrogen gas is easier to produce, liquifying it takes even more energy and industrial uses really don't use liquid but gas..

Hydrogen also burns COLORLESS which makes a Hydrogen fire extremely difficult to detect and therefore fight.

Hydrogen is typically stored at high pressures, typically 3,000 PSI or higher.. That would make for extremely and insanely expensive "tanks" to be hung on a vehicle. Dealing with highly flammable high pressure tanks, DOT requires them to be disconnected AND to have the valves CAGED..

I own a Oxy-Acetelyne torch set, I would never consider hauling them on a vehicle without the regulators disconnected or no cage.. and acetylene is pretty mild compared to Hydrogen..

But keep in mind that the OP WAS about HHO (generating Hydrogen from water using electrolysis via a car and running the SAME car from that) , and that HAS BEEN PROVEN to not work by Mythbusters..

[Sam_Spade]

drsteve wrote:
In 2006, the United States was estimated to have a production capacity of 11 million tons of hydrogen.

That sounds like a big number......until you find out how many tons of all fuels we burn every year...petro plus ethanol plus natural gas plus propane.

Look it up. I think you will be amazed; maybe even shocked.
A little math might be necessary.

[Sam_Spade]

Gdetrailer wrote:

At 10% Ethanol you get a 10%-15% LOSS of gas mileage!

Pretty good post.

Then you HAD to throw in this tidbit of bad information.

The "calculated" energy loss with E10 is about 3%.
Most people who try to verify that in actual vehicle tests come out about right there.

Saying the loss is 10-15% is inaccurate and irresponsible.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Most of that H is used in refinery reflux. Hydrotreaters, hydrocracking, etc. It is the primary element in Cat Cracker feedstock. Hot hydrogen is nasty. It burrows its way through plain carbon steel. Its cranky nature is one of the reasons fuel cells are not more popular.

[drsteve]

We already produce large quantities of hydrogen for industrial uses. In 2006, the United States was estimated to have a production capacity of 11 million tons of hydrogen. 5 million tons of hydrogen were consumed on-site in oil refining, and in the production of ammonia. Hydrogen production is an estimated $100 billion industry.

[Gdetrailer]

drsteve wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:

drsteve wrote:
It's not inefficient. It's actually 2-3 times more energy efficient than an internal combustion vehicle--it's just currently expensive.

Well, not really, but you are more than welcome to believe it is.

Making "hydrogen" is actually really difficult, the bond between hydrogen and oxygen is very strong (which makes water very stabil).

Takes a lot of ENERGY to break that bond.

That energy must come from somewhere.

So, you must PUT energy INTO the process in order to get hydrogen.. That is nothing more than converting one energy source to another (IE LOSS)..

Sure, running IC on hydrogen may turn up the efficiency of a IC engine, but because of the huge input of energy that was used to get the hydrogen it ends up as a total loss, more energy in the end used to make that IC engine pure than if you used good old fashion gas from a well..

Man has tried for many years to make things run on nothing, but it cannot be done.

Those devices are called perpetual machines or OVER UNITY machines..

HHO is bunk, it take huge amounts of energy to net a small amount of hydrogen, a 12V battery cannot provide enough energy to make enough HHO to make a engine cough..

As far as practicality of running IC vehicles from hydrogen, price out the cost of a hydrogen cylinder.. Then consider how many cylinders it would take to drive several hundred miles.. Then try to figure out just how you are going to get them filled when empty..

Then consider just how dangerous that would be in a accident..

Yeah, lets all strap a few hydrogen tanks to our vehicles :E

Not practical on so many levels but yet folks gravitate to junk science.

My comment regarding efficiency that you are replying to, was in response to time2roll, who referenced the Toyota Mirai, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. These vehicles extract 50-60 percent of the energy contained in the fuel (hydrogen) as opposed to the 20-25 percent typical of an IC engine.

I agree that the HHO thing is perpetual motion nonsense.

Correct.

My point was to the entire process which includes the process of extracting the Hydrogen.

The energy it takes to extract enough Hydrogen in order to make a IC engine run enough to be meaningful will be far more than the 30%-35% increase in IC efficiency!

To make this easier to understand you almost need to talk in WATTS of energy..

It takes a certain amount of work (in Watts) to produce gas, it takes MORE work (in Watts) to make Hydrogen.

IC engine on gas converts 20%-25% of watts input on gas into useful energy on the output and 50%-60% of watts input on Hydrogen into useful energy on the output.

The problem starts with the fact that getting gas is far more energy efficient AT THE BEGINNING when it is extracted from the earth and processed to a motor fuel.

This gets even more apparent if you also consider that gasoline is just ONE byproduct of extraction of oil and gas from the earth! You get other things like diesel, kerosene, motor oils, greases, waxes, plastics, methane, propane, butane and many other carbon products that make our lives far, far easier..

Making Hydrogen gives you two products, Oxygen and Hydrogen and noting else and takes vast amounts of energy to do that.

Running a IC engine from Hydrogen is a fools paradise..

Adding Hydrogen to a IC engine as a fuel additive to make it run more efficient is also a fools paradise..

If you want REAL significant increase in fuel mileage, you NEED to remove most of the alcohol that is in the gas..

At 10% Ethanol you get a 10%-15% LOSS of gas mileage!

At 1%-2% Ethanol which is what you USED to get back in the '60's up to the late '70's there was virtually no mileage penalty..

10%, not so much.

Low percentages of Ethanol can be beneficial as a "oxygenate" which helps with making a more complete burn in the cylinder.. Too much percentage of Ethanol however and the low energy content of the Ethanol dilutes the energy content of the gas..

In reality, IF you cannot afford 8-10 MPG or less, you should rethink owning a RV..

[Sam_Spade]

drsteve wrote:
It's not inefficient. It's actually 2-3 times more energy efficient than an internal combustion vehicle--it's just currently expensive.

You sir need to look up the word "gullible".
And then look in the mirror.

[Sam_Spade]

Tom_M wrote:
HHO involves injecting hydrogen and oxygen gas into the intake. The gasses will not combine into liquid water.

And all that means is that it is a bigger scam that water injection.

What exactly do you think it created when hydrogen and oxygen burn and combine ??
Hint: water