HHO O2 sensor question?

Question

HHO people claim that the reason their HHO device does not as dramatically improve mpg on newer car models (obd2, post 1996 cars) is that the combustion is so clean that the oxygen sensor detects a "lean burn"/hi-o2 and will compensate by pumping more fuel in the next cycle.

However, if the combustion were enhanced, more of the fuel is burned, and therefore more of the oxygen in the combustion air is burned, and the O2 sensor should actually be reading a "rich burn"/low-o2.

Can one of you HHO's explain this paradox?

Otherwise, the most likely explanation seems that:

1. little improvement is made because the combustion already is fairly clean.

2. the computer is programmed to ignore the pre-cat o2 sensor over readings from the pre-cat o2 sensor. That would seem a bit ludicrous.

Answer 1

People don't think they are getting gains.  They ARE getting gains.  It's not as easy as "Me Again" says.  There is real science in getting it to work.  

Oxygen is not a fuel.  It is an oxidizer.  It helps other fuels to burn more efficiently.  It WILL increase the amount of oxygen not used in the combustion process to your catalytic converter.  Your O2 sensor normally picks up oxygen as too much air and too little fuel or excess oxygen because too little pump gas has been added.  The EEC (electronic engine control) then adds gas to the motor as a result to correct the lean condition.  

When you inject hydrogen and oxygen back into the motor you increase the oxygen.  Some of that passes through to the O2 sensor which picks up this normally lean condition and adds gas to the motor, making the subsequent mixture too rich.  As a result you get lots of power but no increase in fuel economy.  

The research has been done and the results are in.  This works and nobody is trying to sell you a dang thing.  There are loads of people giving step by step instructions on how to make this work.  You have to spend a little time and do a little research but you can build a unit that will work.  

Don't trust idiot naysayers like "Me Again".  He speaking out of his butt.  He hasn't tried it and he's telling you it's voodoo.

Answer 2

I built a CO2 generator using sugar and yeast to incur explosive plant growth in my aquarium.  I built an "air-conditioner" (really heat-exchanger using cold water) to dehumidify and cool my house.  I accept that simple techniques can be used to achieve useful and inexpensive results.  

I have been researching this all night/morning on the 'net, and I WANT this to be true, because I'm in the market for a new car.  Unfortunately, the more credible the source, the less support there is for this providing any net benefit.

Blueskip, you speak with the authority of a person who has a working unit, but you don't speak of your experience -- you speak of others'.  In other words, you assert as fact that which you have not verified.  Have I missed something?  If you have a working generator, or have access to one, I would love to see it in action.

Answer 3

J S, thanks for the anwer-original poster here--had to post under a different login as i m not allowed to answer my own questions.

The  NO explanation is a candidate. I wouldn't know though; last bit of chemistry was from high school. My field is Physics where I have a bachelors and master's (numerical modeling).

I haven't read through your links yet, but will. Kind of amazing if such small quantities of HHO gas could possibly affect combustion so dramatically. So much in disbelief that i gotta do a ballpark calculation now:

Let's assume that we have a pretty good cell, and a small 2 litre car. Maybe half a litre a minute of HHO generated. If it was 1 litre/min you would have a pretty powerful cell, or maybe this was two such jars hooked together.

During that one minute,  1 L of brown's gas (hho) is divided between a four cylinders at 1600 rpm, on a 2.0L engine:

0.25 L of HHO per cyl per minute, 800 intake cycles times 0.5 L cylinder=400 L air+fuel.

That's a ratio of 1:1,600 of HHO to air, volume wise.

Mass wise fuel air ratio is 1:14. Water is 800x as dense as air, fuel, perhaps 700x as dense. So, the volume of 1 mg of fuel is 1/700th the volume of 1 mg air. So volume wise fuel:air is about 1/700:14 , or 1: 9800, or about 1:10,000.

However I must adjust for the act that fuel is incompressible (unlike HHO gas), and that the air during compression is ~8x as dense. So at compression, fuel air ratio, volume wise, is more like

1 petrol :1,250 air  --  volume wise

We make no such correction for the HHO gas and instead assume it compresses similarily to the air during the compression stroke. Its estimate hence stays the same, at:

1 hho : 1,600 air  -- volume wise

The HHO is thus slightly sparser (in space) than the fuel, but the ratios are comparable and not off by orders of magnitude.

Thus, surprisingly, perhaps these tiny tiny volumes of HHO generated by these 300 Watt cells may be enough to affect the combustion.

Mass wise the HHO is insignificantly puny compared to the fuel, and energy wise, very small, one or two percent, maybe somewhere around 300 W compared to 30,000 W (a modern small car at idle consumes around 10,000 worth of fuel).

Answer 4

The reason is that HHO is voodoo science. It is less efficient than gasoline, and people seriously think that they can go to Ace Hardware, pick up some nuts, bolts, PVC pipe, and a few feet of wire, and re-engineer the modern computer-controlled engine to get incredible increases in fuel economy. HHO generators are right up there with Ethos, fuel line magnets, and vortex generators  on the scam-o-meter. If you really want to increase your miles per gallon, slow down and stop playing Dale Junior on the road.

Answer 5

That's a really good question. I think the answer lies in the exhaust gases, particularly NO (nitric oxide) and unburned gasoline. With certain conditions, nitrogen from air combines with oxygen to make smelly NO gas, which is why cars have catalytic converters.

Catalytic converters try to do two things.

1) Reduce NO to nitrogen and oxygen

2) burn up unused hydrocarbons (gasoline). The oxygen sensor actually tries to sense if there's enough oxygen for the catalytic converter to do its work.

Read the two articles below (NAYSAYERS read these too). I'm thinking if you're using hydrogen and no NO is produced in the engine, there's more oxygen available for combustion, and this would make the oxygen sensor see more oxygen, and make it thinks you're running lean. They're talking about hydrogen-assist reducing these NO levels to near-zero.

There's a reason why HHO is not in cars now. Car manufacturers are glacial in adopting some new technologies, and right now, you would probably need to check your HHO electrodes and water every week, and will the average car owner really do that? HHO assist will totally change the intake and exhaust characteristics of car technology that has been around for decades and for a big car manufacturer that takes time to incorporate.

The thing that gets me, is the one article that shows a picture of an SUV and says "wouldn't you like to drive this for the same mileage as a little sedan?"

Isn't the whole @#$@%$ point of this to reduce our oil consumption? not to trade in our sedan so we can get a big SUV for the same fuel costs!!!