Anyone have real world experience or know anyone with real world experience with hydrogen on demand fuel auxiliary systems. They propose to increase MPG and power by creating a more complete combustion.
I was looking at a fuel chart and found that hydrogen is about 1,000 Btu's per cubic foot. Somewhat similar to natural gas.
I have heard of a hydrogen generator that makes hydrogen while driving down the road from water and 12 volts. However it only makes 2 or 3 cubic feet per hour. If it made 2-3 cubic feet per minute, then it could make say 180,000 Btu's of energy in a hour - enough to save 1.5 gallons of diesel fuel (per hour at 3 CF per minute). At 2 cubic feet per minute, that would make about 120,000 Btu's or enough to save 1 gallon per hour. But at 2 cubic feet per hour, it would save a gallon of fuel every 60 hours of drive time.
Less that than much fuel because of the power consumed by the alternator to run the water seperation process.
Yes it will work, however there is no free lunch. How well it works will depend on the amount of hydrogen generated, and how much electricity it consumes.
If the engine is not running at it's rated efficiency, then improvements of 15% to 25% might be possible. But a valve job, adjusting the valve gap, and giving it a tune up might also save 10% - even 25% if the engine is running very poorly.
There are also propane injection systems. They also use propane to clean up the emmissions and improve fuel economy. This system also works, but Propane only has 95,000 Btu's per gallon, while diesel is 135,000 Btu's, so how much fuel you will really save is questionable. And will you save $500 in 10 years? How many miles will you have to travel to pay for the system?
When they start to show up on commercial busses that travel 100,000 miles a year and they save the bus company $1,000 a year, then you will start to see them on motorhomes.
The City of Long Beach started putting on natural gas tanks to their trash trucks and street sweepers. They run the diesel engines on 80% natural gas and 20% diesel until the gas runs out then switches back to 100% diesel. They cleaned up the emmissions, however it has not saved them a tremendous amount of money. Now that the fuel costs have gone way up, it is probably paying for itself.
However I know that the 60 KW electric compressors don't make a whole lot of 4,000 PSI natural gas but do use a lot of electricity to make it. At the Long Beach Energy Department (Gas Dept. HQ) they use 100 HP natural gas engines instead of electric motors to save electricity.
Bottom line, it will work, but will not save a lot of money. If you want to clean up the emmissions, then it will work. If you want to save money - that will really depend on the number of miles you drive each year, and how efficient your engine is now, and how much hydrogen the generator will make.
Fred.
Money can't buy happiness but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche or Country Coach!
From what I learned in engineering school it will not work. You will use much more energy making the hydrogen than you could possibly recover by burning it. Simply put, if you were to get more energy out than you put in, why use gasoline at all? Just use water all the time.
I have looked for explanations as to how it actually works and the ones I have found so far substitute meaningless buzzwords and long talk for real logic. This always leaves me suspicious. Also, all of the tests I have seen so far have been very unscientific. The one linked above was the best I have seen so far. Just remember that the placebo effect has been well documented in many areas of life. To get around this doctors use a large sample and neither the subject or the monitor know if they are testing the real thing or a placebo. I would love to see a test of this type done by a competant authority such as the EPA, any car builder, Car and Driver, Popular Science, etc.
I personally know a 99 Ford Taurus that gets 51 mpg. He is using a 2 jar setup with an O2 sensor retarder that keeps the O2 sensor from asking for more fuel, this is necessary because the HHO gas burns so clean. Just google water4gas or do the same on youtube for more info.
Mickey
Mickey&Linda
98 Damon Challenger 34ft
99 Dodge Dakota 4/4 Toad
Middleburg, Florida Mickey's Motorhome
(My 98 Damon has treated me well, but I would never buy a NEW one, just ask me why)
Golden_HVAC wrote: There are also propane injection systems. They also use propane to clean up the emmissions and improve fuel economy. This system also works, but Propane only has 95,000 Btu's per gallon, while diesel is 135,000 Btu's, so how much fuel you will really save is questionable.
LP is $2.69/gal vs diesel is $4.89/gal. You can figure out the savings. Westport can convert your truck to CNG.
Quote: When they start to show up on commercial busses that travel 100,000 miles a year and they save the bus company $1,000 a year, then you will start to see them on motorhomes.
astro001
I stumbled upon Hydrogen On Demand and from there ended up on WATER4GAS. It sounds very plausable in their presentation. Pretty easy and cheap to build and install. Also good for the enviroment and my pocketbook. Real world is always better than a sales pitch.
Thanks
It is very cheaply added mpg. Doesn't take much web research to realize thousands are already doing it. There is an Oklahoma company that's putting 6 large cells in semi-trucks and getting good results.
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