Hydrogen Fuel Cell Kits

[Mike Conley]

Has anyone looked into these do it yourself kits to extract hydrogen from water? A Father of one of the kids at my son's school says he put one on his truck and is experiencing a 7 to 8 MPG increase.

Seems to good to be true but there are a lot of sites on the internet and videos on YouTube about this.

Here is one review from an ASE certified technician.

http://www.auto-facts.org/water4gas-scam.html

[Pete Simmons]

First I do not believe this is a "Fuel Cell" per say.

It looks like a water injection system.

The link just goes to a sales pitch for the books. No real info on how the system works.

I have studied the hydrogen myth somewhat.

Pleese do not tell me Hydrogen is the most abundant isotope available on earth!!!

It may be, but most of it is in the form of its ashes which we call water and to seperate the Hydrogen out takes a lot of energy. Not something you do with a plastic mason jar.

So...... This sure looks like a scam to me. If anyone can prove different please let me know.

[Mike Conley]

First I do not believe this is a "Fuel Cell" per say.




I wasn't exactly sure what to call it. They claim that they extract hydrogen from the water and the hydrogen supplements the gasoline.

[Pete Simmons]

Let them show me how they seperate Hydrogen from water and I will change my ideas about them.

Just the statement that they extract Hydrogen from water is enough to worry me. If indeed they can do that with a net gain of energy then this would open up the use of Hydrogen as a fuel for cars.

First I bet they DO NOT extract any Hydrogen from the water.

And second if they do it would be at a net loss of energy.

Sure - you could make a small hydrolysis unit powered via the cars electrical system but it would use way more power than any possible gain you could get from it. But it appears they do not even do that. Instead they breakdown the water by some yet unknown process.

[jeremy levine]

I think there was a "Myth Busters" episode about this. True you can get Hydrogen out water H-O-H it takes a good deal or energy to break the bonds. Also simply forcing ( really just blowing) hydrogen into the fuel air mix doesn't seem like it would change fuel economy that much.

[Mike Henderson]

Absolute, positive, guaranteed scam.

Mike

[Dennis Peacock]

Let's not forget about the "welder ran by water" deal too. Real or fake?

Everybody is looking for ways to better fuel economy. Around here, scooters and motorcycles have been selling like hot-cakes. The Honda dealership about 1 hour north/west of here sold SEVENTY bikes this past Saturday. They sold 51 the Saturday before and 48 the Saturday before that.

[Mike Conley]

I have the advertisements turned on.

The advertisements at the top of the page are showing Ebay listings for these kits.

The ads must be generated based on the discussion in the thread. I never noticed that before.

[Pete Simmons]

OK - I tried to be nice but I could have used just one word.



SCAM

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

It is all a big fat lie.
Don't buy it.
Google: Electrolysis and Hydrogen
Look at this site: http://tinyurl.com/3q6hoc
And: http://tinyurl.com/4699bh

While you can separate Hydrogen from Oxygen and use both the oxygen and the hydrogen as fuel you can not do it quickly. And one lousy little jar, no matter how slick the promises made, will deliver more than a cubic foot of hydrogen per week or maybe month or maybe per year.

Hydrogen electrolysis as a DIY using unsophisticated technology is a question of scale (HUGE SCALE) unless you are willing to go very, very high tech. And the energy return issue is a killer. It's almost impossible to break in the positive. You need solar power to do it. Then you need time to pay for the solar.

It takes electricity that you generate by burning fuel to power a water disassociator.

Generally speaking people who are claiming a greater return of energy from the fuel consumption than it took to disassociate the water in the first place are experiencing a zero point energy phenomena. It's pretty darn small. It's so small in fact that in order to reach that tiny delta of power ration you have to optimize your equipment and monitor it precisely to maximize the reaction.



However, if you still feel inclined to throw your money at these guys please re think it:

Because I have something better.
I have a wood hydrogen generator that I'll sell you that makes hydrogen extracted form the air and you don't even have to plug it in. It works as a natural consequence of the astral forces that power the blobosphere.
If you buy two I'll toss in the wood hydrogen compressor that will manage and compress your endless supply of wood hydrogen.

[Jude Tuliszewski]

I saw that episode of Myth Busters. It did work…..gave off about two to three pinhead size bubbles of H every couple of min. or so. They ended up trying bottled H via a tube to the carb. It did work with the bottled H until it back fired out the carb. with a nice accompanying flame. Those guys have one cooooooooll job :D.

[Jerome Hanby]

It takes electricity you generate by nuclear fusion in every reactor you can construct as quickly as you can build them.

Probably a better deal to use the electricity charging batteries for light weight electric cars.



It takes electricity that you generate by burning fuel to power a water disassociator.

[David Epperson]

Let them show me how they seperate Hydrogen from water and I will change my ideas about them.

Just the statement that they extract Hydrogen from water is enough to worry me. If indeed they can do that with a net gain of energy then this would open up the use of Hydrogen as a fuel for cars.

First I bet they DO NOT extract any Hydrogen from the water.

And second if they do it would be at a net loss of energy.

Sure - you could make a small hydrolysis unit powered via the cars electrical system but it would use way more power than any possible gain you could get from it. But it appears they do not even do that. Instead they breakdown the water by some yet unknown process.
A co-worker is currently testing one of these systems. So far it looks like it is delivering a 5-10% improvement. But it does draw a lot of current though the alternator (30 amps) - and some vehicles may need a larger capacity alternator to drive it, or them (as more than one unit at a time can be installed).
But then again, the timing is somewhat suspicious. If one starts the advertising and sales to coincide with the change from "Winter mix" gasoline to "summer mix" there will naturally be an increase in mileage - there's less ethanol in the summer mix so it gets more miles to the tank anyways.

[Ben Rafael]

It uses the same idea that some of use to take the rust off of tools using an auto battery charger. Simple electrolysis. It takes a lot of hydrogen to get enough to produce enough energy to move a car. At best this system is another nonsensical perpetual motion machine.
Let's see: Gasoline powers engine that moves the alternator that powers a means to get hydrogen out of the water, the hydrogen powers the engine that turns the alternator that powers the means to get hydrogen out of the water and so on....
So once you start the car and never let the jar of water get empty this thing will run forever.

[David Epperson]

It uses the same idea that some of use to take the rust off of tools using an auto battery charger. Simple electrolysis. It takes a lot of hydrogen to get enough to produce enough energy to move a car. At best this system is another nonsensical perpetual motion machine.
Let's see: Gasoline powers engine that moves the alternator that powers a means to get hydrogen out of the water, the hydrogen powers the engine that turns the alternator that powers the means to get hydrogen out of the water and so on....
So once you start the car and never let the jar of water get empty this thing will run forever.
These systems are not intended to run the engine strictly on hydrogen, only to reduce the amount of gasoline needed. I'm not really sure but what you might get the same results with just the water vapor from the cell. Just like getting better mileage in humid air, the water vapor adds to the expansion forces in the heated gasses.

[Jeff Bratt]

Completely, utterly bogus. The system claims to 1) electrolyze water to produce hydrogen and oxygen, then 2) combine these gases with the air flow into a car's engine to "save gas, prevent smog, clean engine, and boost power".

Even if there was efficient electrolysis of water to hydrogen and oxygen, the energy then produced by burning these gases is less than the energy required to separate them in the first place. There is NO possibility of improving a vehicle's mileage using this system.

The only reason you are hearing about this is the recent spike in gas prices. This is a scam, a fraud, a complete waste of money, and has been thoroughly debunked previously.

[Bill Cunningham]

We used to get a pretty good stream of hydrogen bubbles from a underwater welding rod, also a u/w cutting rod, enough to cause a problem to the diver if it gets trapped in a closed compartment. But the production of this hydrogen as a by-product of the underwater welding or cutting process would certainly not be a cheap method of producing it.. For cutting (you get the most hydrogen) A diesel or gas powered 300 - 600 amp DC welding generator with a OCV of 45 volts, or 175-225 amps during welding running full tilt all day, burning lots of fuel.. MUCH more than it would be creating..

[Pat Germain]

Last week a caller on NPR's Car Talk asked about this very method of improving mileage. He wanted to install it on the family minivan. After Tom and Ray were done laughing at the guy, they strongly suggested if he insisted on trying it, he should buy an old vehicle and not mess with the new family truckster.

I'm wondering if installing a "hydrogen separator" would void the warranty on a newer vehicle. (?) And I don't think such a gadget should be called a fuel cell in any way. As I understand it, an actual fuel cell converts fuel, be it hydrogen or kerosene, directly into electricity. The work great, but they're extremely expensive. Until they can get the cost below a 100k vehicle, it's a long way off for the consumer.

It's the same for all these "fuel saving" gadgets. People install them and they want them to work. They drive like an old lady from Pasedena, which actually will improve fuel economy, then swear it was the gadget.

Whether it's a magnet on the fuel line or hydrogen injection, bogus is the appropriate word. I'm old enough remember the same scams back in the 70's. It's all the same stuff. The marketing is just better.

[Jerome Hanby]

I'm not going to try and say you get a net energy gain, but there is obviously some wasted electrical generation capability on "normal" cars, other wise hybrids couldn't get better MPG. Since you don't plug them in, their batteries are charged when the engine is running. I'm sure they are designed to maximize the generation of electricity and could very well be much better at it than "normal" cars. Plus the electric motors are much more efficient than the ICE. But, if there were enough excess electricity production to electrolyze water , feeding the resultant gases into the ICE along with the normal fuel would be a clever idea to retrofit "normal" cars. But I just have to believe all the little losses due to trying to make all these systems work outside their design criteria are going to eat up any gain you might generate.

My guess is that after people add these snake oil gizmos, they are very sensitive to their MPG and changing their driving habits. If you only eat raisin bran for breakfast and avoid jack rabbit starts and stops, your MPG will also increase:D

[Pat Germain]

If you only eat raisin bran for breakfast and avoid jack rabbit starts and stops, your MPG will also increase:D

Dude, it's the raisin bran. I just know it!

[Brad Knight]

Even if you were able to convert enough hydrogen to matter, there would be the matter of timing and compression. Engines are tuned to fire at the optimal point of compression and hydrogen would be different from gas.

Now... if your interested in trying something, I have seen natural gas conversions. You can fill up here for $.91/gal equivalent. The kits have a chip that will adjust the timing and you can switch between gasoline and natural gas with a flip of a switch.

Note: I haven't done this myself, but I am seriously looking into it.

[Pat Germain]

I went to high school in Oklahoma back in the early 1980's. This was during the previous records for gas prices. Many pickup owners in OK had converted their trucks to run on propane. I was less expensive than gasoline. (I don't think that's the case today.)

The truck engines ran great on propane. Part of the bed was taken up by a propane tank, but you could go a very long way on one fillup. Back then engines were carburated. The conversion was no big deal: simply replace the carburator with a throttleable LP gas regulator.

Now engines are fuel injected. They are specifically designed to spray gasoline into a fine mist in a precise, measured amount. I can't imagine how that would work for LP gas.

But if you happen to have an old, carburated vehicle, you're golden. In fact, I have a 1986 Jeep Comanche pickup. And it's got a carburator. Hmmm...

[Jerome Hanby]

Now... if your interested in trying something, I have seen natural gas conversions. You can fill up here for $.91/gal equivalent. The kits have a chip that will adjust the timing and you can switch between gasoline and natural gas with a flip of a switch.


I'm interested in building nuclear power plants as quickly as possible and churning out electric vehicles as quickly as we can build them.

[Ben Rafael]

I'm not going to try and say you get a net energy gain, but there is obviously some wasted electrical generation capability on "normal" cars, other wise hybrids couldn't get better MPG. Since you don't plug them in, their batteries are charged when the engine is running. D

Hybrids are also charged when you coast, depending on your speed, acceleration(on a steep hill for example) the engine will shut down and the batteries are charged.
Hybrids also get charged when braking, they have something called a regenerative brake it is a system that reduces vehicle speed by converting some of the energy of the cars motion into electricity that charges the battery.
You are correct though, if it weren't for these features a hybrid would get worse mileage than a purely gasoline vehicle. The thing to have though is a plug in hybrid that you can charge overnight.

[Jim Becker]

Ben has it correct relative to hybrids and generation. (We have two of them) Any time there is opportunity, the motors are turned into generators...coasting, braking, etc. The downside is that if you have very short commutes or general driving activity, you will get lower mileage because for the first five minutes or so, the engine is heating up (and doesn't shut off) as well as charging the batteries to top them off. Battery operation is also less efficient in colder weather. Folks in warm climates will get more consistent mileage over a year than folks who live where the seasonal swing is greater.

One feature that hybrids tend to have that SHOULD be implemented on all vehicles is the automatic shut down of the engine when the vehicle is stopped for more than a very short period of time. (traffic lights, etc.) That feature alone could add noticeable efficiency to any vehicle. It is, however, a very weird experience the first few times you experience this...when you are used to a "normal" vehicle, your first thought is "stall"... :)

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Electricity is becoming more and more expensive in my area. Right now, my electric rate is 17 cents per KwHr....and a recent news report said that it will increase another whopping 20% this year. (So much for deregulation).

I wonder what this means to a hybrid car that must be plugged in at night to recharge. Aside from the benefit of reclaiming a portion of lost braking energy, a hybrid just seems like it is just substituting one expensive energy source for another unless one has cheap electric utilities.

Further, what about repairs being more costly because the auto now has two drive systems (gas motor and electric motor/generator), and probably sophisticated controls and circuitry? What about the periodic cost to change-out tired battery packs? How do these issues factor into an hybrid's economics when assuming a life expectancy of 10 years and 200,000 miles?

I'm skeptical.

-Jeff :)

[Ben Rafael]

There were several studies done on the cost effectiveness of hybrids taking in to account repairs/maintenance and the fact that hybrids are typically substantially more expensive than similar gas only vehicles. The results I remember were when gas was about $2.25 per gallon. The breakeven point was 350,000 miles. Today with the batteries slightly cheaper, the price difference between hybrids and gas only decreasing, and gas much more expensive, that breakeven point has gone down, I dont know by how much.
Unless something comes along to replace hybrid technology, hybrids will eventually be cost effective enough for nearly everybody. The way I drive it would take 30 years for me to breakeven, some would be at breakeven in 5 years.

[Pete Simmons]

I'm skeptical.

-Jeff :)

You and everyone else should be.

Electric - in any mode for a car is a false expectation. The energy must come from somewhere and there are significant losses at every transition point.

I do not totally condem them as they are a needed and good stepping stone to the next method. Just do not think today's electric cars either full electric, solar or hybrids are the great answer to our energy problems.

[Jim Becker]

Things are starting to move along such that there is a much smaller cost difference between a "regular" version of a vehicle and the hybrid version. Camry is an example...if I recall, the cost bump for the hybrid version is under $2K now between it and the similarly equipped standard drive vehicle. I thought that the ~$26K we paid recently for Professor Dr. SWMBO's new 2008 Prius to be quite reasonable given the roominess and high level of amenities. (Package 5....everything except leather) On the other hand, my 2006 Highlander Hybrid had a much bigger nut between the standard "Limited" version and the Hybrid Limited I drive...like about $7K at the time and no discounts available. (I did get a $3K+ tax credit, sorta...AMT and all that) That's been significant in limiting the market for what really is a great vehicle; a mid-size SUV that gets about 28 mpg. I didn't buy it, however, presuming to get any kind of payback. My motivation was for reducing fuel consumption and reducing emissions as a general principle...both of us are like that.

I'm hoping that as more and more hybrid vehicles become available, the manufacturers are able to gain the efficiencies necessary to continue reducing the "premium" for the feature. I really do think they can do it, and in the near term, I agree with you, Ben, that it's probably the best bet all around.

On the question of charging plug-in hybrids, yes, there is a transfer of energy from one source to another, but presumably, electricity generation should still be more efficient and cost effective than the internal combustion engine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the power usage for charging batteries overnight probably isn't a major current draw. I suspect we all probably use more energy with all the "always on" electronics around our homes than we might for charging batteries. LOL

[Jim Becker]

Just do not think today's electric cars either full electric, solar or hybrids are the great answer to our energy problems.

Yes, I agree....ultimately, they are not, at least with today's technology. But they are certainly a viable option until the research and discovery comes through with affordable alternatives "down the road", as it were...

[Ben Rafael]

It is cheaper to produce electricity at night which is an advantage for charging electric cars at night.
There are many ways to produce electricity, but only one way to fuel a gas engine. I think all those treadmills at health clubs across the country should be hooked up to generate electricity.