Tom Faust

"The idea behind onboard hydrogen generators for cars and trucks is that they use electricity provided by the car to electrolyze a small amount of water and inject the resulting hydrogen and oxygen gases into the vehicle's intake system. The hydrogen and oxygen displace some of the fossil fuels in the cylinders, help the gasoline or diesel fuel to burn more efficiently, increase power and decrease pollutants coming out the tailpipe."

That is a quote, so I have left "fossil fuel" in. There is significant doubt that petroleum is a "fossil fuel".<ul><li><a href="http://www.greentechgazette.com/index.php/hydrogen-cars/run-your-car-on-water/">http://www.greentechgazette.com/index.php/hydrogen-cars/run-your-car-on-water/</a</li></ul>

Tom Faust

I note that they speak of injecting the hydrogen into the intake manifold. Not so hard when it is pulling a vacuum. However, when the manifold pressure is positive from boost, you need a pump to overcome the pressure in the manifold.

boxerfan

the hydrogen from the oxygen.

Think of it this way... if you mounted a wind turbine on teh roof of your car to generate the electricity required you would agree quite readily that the drag would be significant.

Well... inside a generator there is a great deal of drag caused by the fields generated. Driving the system into negative slip means that energy starts being produced by the generator. Hook it up to power and run it more slowly and it eats power as an electric motor.

Anyway... the point I am making is that the extra drag on the electical system means that there isn't any net gain but rather a net loss as has been mentioned previously.

And again... the baking soda liberates CO2 and that isn't going to help much.

Tom Faust

I wondered if enough power was generated to create a surplus over the power consumed.

Sort of like the "plug in" electric cars, I wonder what the power actually costs to run one of those 100 miles.

boxerfan

Remeber the Hindenberg? How much energy was liberated when that sucker caught fire? Hydrogen is extremely flamabe and releases a heap of energy quite easily because it wants to oxidize. Going the opposite way means you need to put that much energy into the system.

X Joules to liberate the hydrogen.
X Joules released when it burns.

To create the X Joules for liberation there is increased fuel consumption due to genrator drag. Call that energy Y Joules.

So... to get the hydrogen you need X+Y Joules.

Now you want to burn that hydrogen in a motor. Volumetric Efficiency of 70%... ish? Call that energy lost energy Z.

So... you need X+Y energy in and you get out X-Z. The net loss is Y+Z.

This is a simplification but I think it illustrates the point.

HTH.

boxerfan

Hydrogen helps liberate more latent energy from the Petroleum?

Paging that Chemical Engineer... yoooooo hooooooo....

boxerfan

"We are we are we are we are are the..."

4000fixes

"youth of the nation?"

4000fixes

Hell I dont even know why im "arguing" about it...it honestly doesnt even interest me haha. It is kind of intriguing though to think about...even though im talking about better MPG...im always looking for more horsepower lol

Blewtoon

We are frequently using a great deal of electricity &amp; eneregy for things that have nothing to do with making the car go. if the surplus energy can be used to feed the lights, defroster, heated seats, air conditioning etc without any problems why not use it to suppliment the fuel? The issue I see is how much hydrogen can be generated by this system. electrolysis is a slow process &amp; I doubt that enough fuel could be generated to have any significant effect.