Does my theory on hydrogen and HHO sound plausible?

Question

My idea...

standard ICE with a unknown volume of air intake. an HHO supplement provided by a on-demand electrolysis system. takes up 30% of the volume of air sucked by the engine. the other 70% volume of air is fuel(gasoline) and air. this fuel is replaced by hydrogen. The hydrogen is made by a separate electrolysis machine that gets plugged in when the vehicle is at home. on this machine is an HHO splitter (hydrogen into a tank which is separately fed into the engine, and oxygen sent into another tank) The tank(s) replace the current gasoline tank. Doesn't need to be too big as just needs enough fuel for 200 miles. I've heard something about 10k psi hydrogen tanks? where can I get one?

Answer 1

if the hydrogen is made by a machine plugged in at home, why is there a water tank in the car?  why would you lug the machine around while you're driving, and reduce your mileage?

there are several things to keep in mind:

-splitting H2O takes lots of energy.

- your car uses far more energy than your house, so, if you plug your car in, your electric bill is going to go up dramatically, maybe 5 times, maybe more.

maybe you want to keep the machine in your car so that when you go visit your friends, you can plug your car into their house, and have them pay for your "gasoline".  somehow i doubt you'll get invited back real often.

10,000 psi.  IT'S A BOMB.

Edit:  i don't like david's  "on demand electrolysis system."

if it's working during normal driving, it's using normal energy to create the hydrogen.  you'll get less energy back than you used to create it in the first place.  if it were only used during breaking, in essence to use the car's excess kinetic energy to create the hydrogen, it might be of some benefit.  on the other hand, if you were to drive such that you let your car slow down naturally, you'd probably save even more energy, w/o anything special.

any time someone uses the term HHO, instead of water, either they don't understand, or they do, and they're trying to fool other people.  it's water.  it's already burned.  there's no energy to be had.  it's kind of like, if you're going to use a ladder to get up to your roof, do you find the lowest available spot to put the ladder?  (like the lowest energy level?)  no, you use the high spot, so you don't have far to climb.  using H2O is starting from the lowest available energy level.  it just doesn't make sense.

Answer 2

Sounds reasonable if you have a cheap source of electricity.

Check this out:

http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.c...

They don't have the on demand electrolysis system. You are running this off the compression of the engine. It will kick in during  cruise and turn off when you are accelerating?

linlyons

You are correct.. It would be better not to generate the H2 on board. The apparatus is heavy and it's not 100% efficient. Burning fuel to make more fuel to burn won't help. It's the first law of thermodynamics. I was happy to see that somebody is developing the technology no boost fuel with H2. Somebody with a windmill could save lot's of cash with a hydrogen vehicle and have the ability to refuel at a gas station.

2n2222:

Follow the link. I thought the same thing but apparently such an engine exists.

Answer 3

Well at least you aren't making an over-unity machine.  That's a start.  

Now you have the same problem as any hydrogen fuel cell car.  It takes a lot of energy to get hydrogen from water, and a lot more to compress it into a 10k psi tank.   And then you put it into an engine that's 20% efficient?  Whoa.  

Why not just use the electricity to charge batteries and run a motor?  That's 85% efficient.   Simpler.  Cheaper.  Thousands of people have already done it so you can get help.  No brainer.

Answer 4

I'll bet your engine would ping and knock until it fell apart.  Once the car gets nice and hot, hydrogen gas in the cylinder will detonate from compression ignition long before the spark plug wants it to.  They have anti-knock stuff in gasoline precisely to keep it from turning into hydrogen gas plus carbon and doing just this.  

I don't think you can burn hydrogen in a high-compression engine.  Those water-cell generators don't produce enough gas for the engine to notice, so it won't hurt it.