Hydrogen Generators for Cars

[Reatta Man]

The Southwest Research Institute has published a report on May 28, 2008 stating this technology DOES work! Here is the link to the report:

http://www.gasadvancesystem.com/Sothwest%20Research%20Test.pdf

The dealer installing them here in Florida is located here:

www.masterautotech.com

You can click on his link about "Fuel Cell Information Website" which links to the Huffman Foundation, which is the ower of the site that published the SWRI report.

In case you are wondering if I am going to buy one, the answer is YES. As soon as I return to Texas, I am going to have one of these systems installed on one of my older cars; probably the 2000 Buick Park Avenue Ultra with 168,000 miles, or a '99 Olds Intrigue with about 85,000 miles. That way, if it does work then I will have it installed on one of my newer cars or trucks.

Joe

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Southwest Research Institute has published a report on May 28, 2008 stating this technology DOES work! Here is the link to the report:

http://www.gasadvancesystem.com/Sothwest%20Research%20Test.pdf

</div></div>

O.K. Last line of the report:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">All Reports Published For The Huffman Foundation LLC </div></div>

And the shocker, guess who they are and what they sell. (see link)

This is not an independent test. It also is a test of cars leaned out to the max, with multiple additional modifications of zero description beyond name (<span style="font-style: italic">"simple fuel heat exchanger installed", "computer device installed and adjusted to 350 milivolts", "halo plus spark installed", <span style="font-weight: bold">and several more</span></span> {see page 8}), and with tires pumped up to 50 psi (<span style="font-style: italic">including on a Dodge truck! </span>).

The most interesting part of the data tables is that the best mileage increase comes in the last line, when the only difference is listed as "driving", defined as <span style="font-style: italic">"all the driving techniques in operator's manual were implemented"</span>. I'd love to know what kind of instructions in the "operator's manual" they were ignorring to get 15 mpg (city) out of an already thoroughly modified 2004 Dodge Ram that, when followed, brought the mileage all the way up to 22 mpg. I'd also be willing to bet that the "operator's manual" is something that came with the unit and is basically a hypermiler drivers instruction manual (shut it off and coast, draft trucks as close as possible, run stop signs, etc.).

(The link is to an article in <span style="font-style: italic">Mother Jones Magazine</span> on a guy who gets 59 mpg out of a stock Honda Accord. The sales pitch web site for this device lists their Honda Accord as getting 55.9 mpg. An awfully similar result. I wonder..... )

I seriously doubt the cars modified as they were for this test would last more than a few weeks in normal use. I also seriously doubt that the final testing procedure ("driving") is anything like normal use.

There <span style="font-style: italic">may</span> be some benefit in using hydrogen to lean out the fuel mixture and gain some mileage that way. It would be nice if that were true. But if these are the ends that have to be gone to to make <span style="text-decoration: underline">this thing</span> work, I can't imagine wanting any part of it.

[Dave@Moon]

BTW, This thread is coming up on 3000 hits, with almost 1000 of them coming in the last 24 hours. What gives?

[Ivan Saxton]

Dave is right, that it is a simple conservation of energy problem. Two molecules of hydrogen plus one molecule of oxygen give two molecules of water plus a large specific quantity of energy; and the reaction is reversible if you apply the exotherm to the same two molecules of water. If you try to use heat it will escape to other surrounding matter of course, so efficiency becomes negligible in reversing the reaction. Electrical energy is easier to direct and constrain, but you need to apply exactly so same amount as you will get back in heat by combustion.

I suspect there may be a much better financial benefit making and selling these devices than using them on cars; and the best collective of potential customers might be just be politicians. Consider the use of ethanol as "biofuel".

This is produced by anerobic fermentation of a carbohydrate stock by specific yeasts or bacteria. There is inefficiency in this too, because you turn some of the grain energy into other things such as more yeast or bacteria; and you also have to expend energy to extract/concentrate the ethanol. But the killer is the fuel cost of producing the grain. My former boss at our Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation did post-graduate research at the Waite Institute in South Australia in th early 1960's. With the best outcome from the absolute minimum number of equipment passes over the paddock from seedbed preparation to harvesting, it takes 4 1/2 tons of diesel to produce one ton of grain!!! Then you have to add the fuel use in transport to destination. One wheat farmer in the northern Wimmera region here in Victoria discovered that one B-double taking his wheat to port used the same quantity of fuel that would propel a 6000 ton train the same distance. But the government had "privatised" the rail lines, and the companies had not made enough profit during a drought when there was little wheat, so they closed the lines. Politicians who subsidise ethanol fuel production, or who allow demise of efficient public infrastructure are most certainly the ready customers for hydrogen generators.

One of the most convenient ways to produce hydrogen is from aluminium and sodium hydroxide. May be you could make expendable hydrogen generators of aluminium tanks, to which you add sodium hydroxide as required. You would need a very good politician to work out the risk, the original energy cost, and the mess of that one.

[RocketDude]

If a con man wasn't good at what he does, he wouldn't be a con man....!

[Guest Skyking]

Last Monday night there was a guy at the local cruise with a 68 Chevelle SS 350. He had some contraption hooked up to his car stating he was getting 27mpg. There were 2 glass jars with baking soda and water hooked to the battery and lines running to the vacuum on the carb. It looked dangerous to me and besides that when he ran the motor we went behide the car and felt water in the exhaust...........yea, sounds good to me.

I hope he made it home.

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> My former boss at our Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation did post-graduate research at the Waite Institute in South Australia in th early 1960's. With the best outcome from the absolute minimum number of equipment passes over the paddock from seedbed preparation to harvesting, it takes 4 1/2 tons of diesel to produce one ton of grain!!! Then you have to add the fuel use in transport to destination. </div></div>

The ratio has improved considerably since then due to imporved efficientcies at several levels. Most current analyses have the net production of energy using corn around a positive 25%. Even ten years ago that was definitely not the case.

Further improvements are expected as well, especially as cellulosic ethanol comes online producing fuel out of what is essentially waste material and grasses.

[Ivan Saxton]

I am curious to know how there is such a huge difference between wheat utilizing legume nitrogen, and corn presumably grown with fertiliser nitrogen, Dave. Fertiliser nitrogen is manufactured form atmospheric nitrogen at very significant energy cost. I'll have to check my referral network to get up to speed microbiological conversion of cellulose to liquid fuel. I guess the non-pharmaceutical Indian hemp would be more ideal than corn for that, because it will tolerate soil salinity and will produce a crop fom less water than most crop plants require. (produces better, more durable clothing fibre than cotton, too). I would really like to be able to get scientific understanding of the huge difference in efficiency you allude to. The conversion rate of oil to crop at Waite Institute in th '60s was decades before government decided to subsidise conversion of cereal into transport fuel.

Ivan

[Dave@Moon]

I think a big part of the efficientcy increase has to do with yeild efficientcy. There are just a lot more bushels per acre harvested then there were in the 1960s. Then there's improvements in farm equipment, technique, and transportation, as well as the distillation/fermentation processing equipment.

Those are just guesses, however. I've not read any breakdowns that explain how the ethanol yield improved.

I have read that when cellulosic ethanol becomes established the feedstock plant will be different location by location. Pretty much anything that grows is a candidate, and it'll be a matter of determing on a field-by-field basis what will grow the fastest with the least amount of energy input.