Hydrogen combustion motor.

[elmerfud]

Hi all zoner's,
Guy I know (shanus) is getting me to make up a gas carburettor conversion for an 80cc generator.
Eventually, he would like to have a self contained system where it splits the hydrogen to run itself.
I have seen it done on the net before, apparently the cocktail left over from the water tank is a toxic sludge which defeats the purpose entirely.
I am setting the motor up to run on propane and LPG for now.
Unpressurised hydrogen would require completely different mixing to pressurised natural gas, I am hoping there may be somebody who has ventured down this path who can help.

[DSL PWR]

What you speak of isn't possible. In order for the generator to run itself by splitting it's own hydrogen you would need 100% efficiency in the entire system.

[elmerfud]

Well, my friend is an electronic engineer and seems to think it possible.
He says that they use denatured water, a special salt of some kind and metal shavings. (aluminium, I think)
He supposes that it works but produces a toxic slime after electrolyte is spent fuel.
I am really a hired gun to put hardware to his requirements, but it is not common knowledge to convert a 4 stroke motor to hydrogen. (compression,timing,temperatures,mixtures,upper lubrication)

I do realize the pure water option is not possible. (100% 'over unity' as you say)

[Geof]

That does work, with the aluminum that is; the system is decomposing the aluminum and generating hydrogen gas.

Essentially what you are doing is using aluminum as a fuel for the engine. Not really cost effective and not energetically efficient because it takes a lot of electrical energy to refine aluminum.

[D.L]

Thanks for clarifying that geof, take's a lot of power to smelt aluminium.
So really we only 'move' the carbon emission, not eliminate it.

[steedspeed]

Originally Posted by D.L Thanks for clarifying that geof, take's a lot of power to smelt aluminium. So really we only 'move' the carbon emission, not eliminate it.

Yeah but its already been smelted. The best way is to mix a bunch of aluminum with Lye and water and the chemical reaction will make a ton of hydrogen.

After all, what else are you going to do with all those metal chips? They aren't worth anything at the scrap dealers these days!

[dufas]

Another problem with using hydrogen in a combustion engine is 'hydrogen embrittlment'... Hydrogen, when burnt or heated under pressure, [combustion chamber], combines with the heated metal surfaces and these surfaces eventually fail due to the embrittling process introduced by hydrogen migration. In tests, the only material that seems to hold up for any reasonable length of time is ceramics, a very expensive alternative...

[Geof]

I don't think you don't have to worry about hydrogen embrittlement in an internal combustion engine. It is correct that hydrogen can migrate into the crystal structure of metals and cause micro-fractures; this is why welding electrodes should be kept dry and why low hydrogen electrodes should be used on medium and high carbon steels. Hydrogen migration can also occur during electroplating which is why whenever medium and high carbon parts are zinc plated they should be baked at a few hundred degrees. In an engine the parts are getting 'baked' all the time.

Another reason I don't think you need worry is because BMW introduced their Hydrogen 7 car a few years ago which has a more or less standard engine that can run on gasoline or hydrogen. I would imagine the engineers at BMW do know about hydrogen embrittlement and must have figured it was not a concern.

[dufas]

Originally Posted by Geof Another reason I don't think you need worry is because BMW introduced their Hydrogen 7 car a few years ago which has a more or less standard engine that can run on gasoline or hydrogen. I would imagine the engineers at BMW do know about hydrogen embrittlement and must have figured it was not a concern.

I should have been more clear. I was speaking in regards to "do it yourself projects" and the resultant disappointment that some may be facing. I am in no means telling anyone that they shouldn't experiment. I just would advise them to use some other car than the one that they depend on every day...

The use of hydrogen to fuel cars has been around a long time. Back in my youth, this was a high school science project, [1949 Ford flathead coupe], and the method was much the same as it is today with the only differences being a 6 volt source [cars were 6 volt in the 50s]. The other difference is that we found that water has a resonant frequency where it accelerates the H O splitting thus requiring an adjustable frequency generator to be feeding a bridge rectifier to get a DC output to the cathode and anode. The frequencies were between 55,000 and 65,000 Hz. The adjustment is needed because there seemed to be a resonance depending on the size of the the container [cavity] holding the water.

The first thing that always broke and kept the engine from running at all was the rings. The first time our rings broke, we kept trying to run it anyway which caused the rings to disintegrate more and messed up the cylinder walls to the point that we had to rebore the block and put in bigger pistons. After that, the first sign of failure, the engine was checked for problems and it was always ring destruction due to hydrogen embrittlement. Full Circle chrome vanadium racing rings lasted the longest.

There probably are advances in metallurgy that allows BMW to achieve some success, but I would like to see some high millage statistics before giving a thumbs up. The silicon/aluminum engined Vega that Chevy announced to the world is the first long range failure that pops into mind.....

[elmerfud]

That's right dufas, my friend did the same with a briggs stratton in the mid 1990's. He used the the bridge rectifier of of 240v mains (dangerous) with two carbon cores from D size batteries as electrodes. He got it working well, but after ten minutes of running he broke the rings as well.
We were going to revisit the idea, but in the light of having toxic sludge left over from the aluminium we have now looked at other ways of splitting hydrogen and storing it at low pressures. The 1100watt genset was sold and we are back to the drawing board.

[dufas]

Originally Posted by elmerfud That's right dufas, my friend did the same with a briggs stratton in the mid 1990's. He used the the bridge rectifier of of 240v mains (dangerous) with two carbon cores from D size batteries as electrodes. He got it working well, but after ten minutes of running he broke the rings as well. We were going to revisit the idea, but in the light of having toxic sludge left over from the aluminium we have now looked at other ways of splitting hydrogen and storing it at low pressures. The 1100watt genset was sold and we are back to the drawing board.

We never had much of a problem with 'gunk'. Stainless steel plates were used and distilled water was the H O source. There was some experimentation with hydrogen peroxide that worked well but cost analysis put it around $4.00 a gallon while gasoline only cost $0.18 a gallon at the time.

[digitalmdi]

I bought a magnetic gas line device for 29.95, but my jeep still sucks gas like a 747- what's up?