On-board electrolysis unit to generate hydrogen for injection to improve MPG
Global Energy Options and H to-go have developed a retro-fit device called the Hydro Fuel System Hydro-charger that is designed to help improve fuel economy. Texas based H to-go markets the system as MAPSOE (for Most Abundant Power Source On Earth). The device consists primarily of an on-board electrolysis unit to produce hydrogen from a water tank and a system to inject the hydrogen into a standard internal combustion engine. The company claims to have done testing on a variety of engines ranging from a Chevrolet pickup with a 5.3L V-8 to a Freightliner truck with Detroit Diesel engine and seen improvements in fuel efficiency ranging from 33 percent to almost 73 percent.
It makes sense that injecting hydrogen would improve fuel efficiency and clean up the emissions. Substituting an alternate fuel to replace some of the gas or diesel will increase the number of miles you can go on each gallon. However, producing the hydrogen on board via electrolysis requires electricity that must come from the alternator. That means a lot of extra load on the engine, which would be tough to make up from the hydrogen. The test results from the company don't give any details on the test procedures, so it's not clear if they were actually using power from the engine to drive the electrolysis unit. If they can actually produce hydrogen using less energy than the hydrogen produces, this could be a really benefit. Unfortunately, I'll have to see some real data before I put one of these on my car.
[Source: H To Go via GreenCarCongress]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
joeseph 2:17PM (1/26/2008)
I agree with the naysayers; anything I don't understand cannot be true.
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jake 9:31AM (3/04/2008)
shut up and try it already, stop thinking you know it all, and put your money where your mouth is. i've been driving truck for 10 years, and if you think a "tune up" will increase your fuel mileage will increase your fuel mileage from 5 to over 7 mpg pulling 80 0000 lbs you don't belong in this discussion. I have never seen a truck jump in efficiency like that, new injectors, new turbo whatever, you can not improve efficency 20-30 percent with a tune up. this idea makes some sense, enrich the air, BURN HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF THE PRIMARY FUEL. that is what this is and the only way i think could work. The question is not if it takes more energy to make the hydrogen than it gives but RATHER CAN THE PURE HYDROGEN AND PURE OXYGEN HELP A BETTER COMBUSTION OF THE PRIMARY FUEL WHILE CREATING ENERGY THEMSELVES, AND KEEPING YOUR ENGINE CLEAN AND EMISSIONS DOWN. i am going to experiment. on a small scale, and then if it works, i will use it in my highway tractor, what do i have to lose, 200 bucks for a small engine kit. if it works i will save myself thousands of dollars a year
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kevin 1:20PM (4/02/2008)
what if you turn it on when say going down a hill or cumming to a stop?
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Charles L. Stone 6:29PM (5/16/2008)
New ideas must overcome the established situation which is making money with the established technology. Water does contain hydrogen and oxygen (h20), that is well established even though most of us have never seen those atoms or the molecules they form to make water.
At issue seems to be how to seperate those atoms (crack the molecules) so they can be used as components in a combustion situation. We know that the NASA Space Shuttle uses hydrogen and oxygen to create enormous thrust for flight - no question hydrogen and oxygen can burn (lots of Otto cycle engines are working well on hydrogen also).
So seperation of the atoms is possible, burning the atoms as fuel and oxydizer is possible also.
The shortfall is finding a method to "crack" the molecule of water in a timely manner, and there are several ways to do that. Electrolysis has been used since the 1700s. Thermolysis has been used by industry for more than a hundred years that I know of, maybe longer. I am only 72 years old so I missed a lot of history.
Now we are left with a design problem for the hardware that can do the cracking on demand in real time and at an adequate rate to feed a running engine. The size of the engine is not critical as long as the hydrogen flow rate is big enough for the engine in test.
Less than 2000cc of continous flow hydrogen will feed a 25cc engine doing work at a normal driving cycle all day long.
The waste heat of the engine is worth about 65% of the energy value in this 2000cc flow. If that energy could be captured at a reasonable rate it may well do the trick of cracking more water as the engine does it's work. Can this really work?
Tell us no - then watch the show. Send no money, we are having fun challenging the "nay-sayers".
"Columbus and the Wright Brothers"
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Peter 4:59PM (6/12/2008)
Another problem is the assumption that you get dramatic results by "improving the combustion". This is not the problem. Modern engines have quite complete combustion already. The problem is most of the heat energy in a ICE is waste energy. This doesn't change that.
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Josh 5:03PM (7/07/2008)
I've noticed a few of you that speak about how complete the combustion is in modern IC engines. I'm not sure if you've been under a car in the last ...........say, 30 years, but if ya look at the exhaust system you'll see a couple things. One of em we all know and love, it's the muffler. The other (sometimes there's more than one) is the catalytic converter. It's job is to finish burning (combustion) the left over fuel and other by-products of incomplete combustion. Now why in this world of "complete combustion" would we need to complete the combustion in the exhaust system long after that burn could be of any benefit to us? Well, this is because modern IC engines don't by any stretch of the imagination produce complete combustion. It seems highly plausible and really in my view quite probable that adding some hydrogen to the mix would increase the efficiency of an engine. Now, if you're just here to argue, throw the perpetual motion argument out there, just remember......nobody ever said this would eliminate your trips to the gas pump, nobody claims this can generate enough hydrogen to sustain ignition without gasoline, and maybe it doesn't improve a thing, but after reading all the comments here only a couple of you sound like you have anywhere near the background in thermodynamics needed to calculate the benefits of the hydrogen. I know I certainly don't even remember where to begin a calculation like that.
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Aquaman 12:30AM (7/10/2008)
All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
For the doubting Thomas:
It is amazing the amount of people that are willing to share their ignorance and borderline stupidity with others without any credibility at all. It is almost like watching the "VIEW" where 5 women who know absolutely nothing about absolutely everything are paid to tell everyone total opinions based on a total lack of credibility. Those same people were standing at Plymouth Rock when Columbus sailed in 1492 telling him that the world is flat. 516 years later, and the world is still flat.
Unless someone imagined that an internal combustion engine is 100% efficient, they should be able to fathom that a portion of the wasted energy could be captured and directed to another source. Let's see what "Myth Busters" has to say; keep drinking the Kool-Aid buddy.
The mind is like a parachute, it only works when it is open. Consider this, hydrogen is the most efficient fuel on earth, it has a burn rate 225 faster than gasoline. Introducing hydrogen into ANY fuel will result in a more efficient burn, with a more efficient burn comes less unburned fuel with a side effect of less emissions. Increase torque and horsepower are companions.
If a US President would have pointed the young minds of the world toward slitting the water molecule to create energy instead of focusing the attention on the moon, we would be driving around in cars today that ran on water. Anything less is a waste of the human mind. You know what the commercial says, "The human mind is a terrible thing to waste".
I drive a car that runs on water now. When will you?
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Chris M 4:01AM (7/10/2008)
Splitting the water molecule does NOT produce energy, it consumes energy! That energy is stored in the hydrogen and oxygen. When the hydrogen and oxygen react, that stored energy is released. So, while you could have a car that runs on hydrogen, the only way to have a car "run on water" is to make it an amphibious boat-car. Happy sailing!
eric 3:37AM (9/06/2008)
The hydrogen that is produced is not powering the engine but helping ignite the full that that engine is using.
Petrol burns at 20 to 25 % leaving the unburnt petrol to go out the exhaust pipe as pollutants.
The hydrogen gas increases the burning of the petrol and you get 90 % burn levels .
The engine will run smother as it is no longer trying to compressing the unburnt fuel in the chamber.
You can see this in older cars that have carburetors .
A computer controlled and fuel injection engine's have sensors at the air intake and are harder to fit the on board hydrogen.
But using bypass electronics this is achievable.
The good units use 2 volt power throe bandwidth modulators and frequency modulators at 15 amps.
This is not a strain on the alternator especially as the engine is now running smoother and not fighting with the unburnt fuel.
So you get more power and greater fuel economy.
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Mason 5:43PM (10/21/2008)
My grandpa and I both have these on our vehicles. They're perfectly safe, and with the proper minor modifications, they work. His truck gets 57% better gas mileage, but I haven't yet noticed an increase in mileage on my car (I didn't do all the necessary modding--just put in the electrolyzer and wrapped a thin layer of aluminum foil around the oxygen sensor).
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Mason 5:47PM (10/21/2008)
Oh, and here are a few images and a news article.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/7599/hydrogenjarbxl0.jpg
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/6757/hydrogenhookupsbxx4.jpg
http://www.dailyamericannews.com/homepage/x1768846587
Rick 6:45PM (3/11/2009)
I see we have a lot of "I'm not sure" here. By producing hho through electrolysis with one quart jar with dessert cups inside (4) pos,neg,pos,neg I raised my gas mileage from 22.2 to 50.9 MPG highway on my subaru legacy 4x4.! I only gained 5 mpg in town.I saved my investment on my first trip! Im a believer,but it takes learning about the computer in your car so you can overcome the built in mileage destroying sensors that take you back to the original mileage after a couple days to a week...but it can and IS being done by people who have the time and knowledge to do it.Believe me the oil Co. stock holders (a lot of political people) do not want you to know this! The car Companys have held back on high mileage because of ?.....They could push 75 with NO PROBLEM if they wanted.
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Rick 7:10PM (3/11/2009)
Hi Mason, I might not have enough tin foil wrapped around that o2 sensor or the tin foil isn't wrapped on up the wire 3-4 inches.The o2 sensors actually draw air between the wire and the insulation on the wire! There used to be a tiny hole that the outside air came in but thet blocked easily with road grim.Some people don't actually know that the sensor gets its signal by comparing the exaust with the outside air.All so with cold weather the tin foil method just cann't keep in enough heat.I had that problem this winter and had to add an EFIE which took care of the problem .All so watch for gas leaks.I get great results with 4 oz. of zylol zylene to every 10 gallons of gas. Good luck
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RNB 9:46PM (4/03/2009)
Amusing ... Now I admit right from the start that I’m a skeptic. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think anyone’s getting better gas mileage with these things. As far as I know, some of you may really be observing 50% or more better mileage. It’s just that the explanations floating around are just totally unsupportable. So I’d like to make a few points and perhaps throw in a few alternative explanations for some of what may be going on.
First, lets look at the science behind water electrolysis. Let’s say we set up an electrolysis apparatus that passes 100 amps of current through our water. That’s a lot of current, but let’s presume that we’re running, say, 10 amps through 10 cells in series, equivalent to 100 amps altogether. Now, an ampere is a coulomb per second – a coulomb is the basic unit for charge. So if you run this for an hour (3,600 s), you pass a total of 360,000 coulombs of charge, with sounds like a lot. But it takes 96,500 coulombs of charge to equal one “mole” of electrons (the mole being the basic unit for measuring stuff in chemistry). So that 360,000 coulombs is right about 3.7 moles of electrons. It takes 2 moles of electrons to make one mole of H2 from water (2H2O + 2e- -> H2 + 2OH-), so that gets you 1.85 moles H2, and a mole of H2 is 2.0 grams, so that’s a whopping 3.7 g H2 in an hour. And all of this assumes 100% efficiency. I don’t think any of the devices out there come anywhere near this. (The Brown’s HHO device runs a single pass electrolysis at 400 milliamps, so that will get you 15 milligrams H2 in an hour, which is about 180 ml of H2 gas.).
So point #1. Let’s look at a car tooling down the highway at 60 mph getting 20 mpg, so that’s 3 gallons gas in one hour. Now if we improve mileage by 50% – 30 mpg instead of 20 mpg – then we use only 2 gallons, so we've save one gallon. A gallon of gas weighs in at about 2,800 g. Let’s see – 2,800 g gas vs. 3.7 g H2. Happily, it appears that most of the electrolysis proponents concede that it isn’t the burning of the H2 that makes a difference. That’s would be 100% (okay, 99.999993%) ridiculous. There’s just not enough H2 generated to allow it to serve directly as a fuel. (And by the way, generating the H2 does require more energy that you get by burning it.)
Point 2. Yes, gasoline engines are not very efficient. But that is NOT because they don’t burn fuel completely. A very high percentage of gasoline is burned. One post pointed to the fact that cars had catalytic converters to complete combustion as evidence that car's didn't completely burn fuel, but missed the really important fact that the amount of uncombusted fuel is actually very small. It is just that we’ve become pretty touchy (and rightly so) about emissions of carbon monoxide and VOCs (volatile organic compounds, which play a key role in photochemical smog). Internal combustion engines are inefficient for a lot of reasons having nothing to do with incomplete combustion. There are mechanical compromises that allow engines to run at a wide range of speed. More important, there are limitations on how much of the energy produced from combustion can actually be harvested. The fact that exhaust gas is hot is proof of that – the exhaust would have to exit ice cold (actually, a lot colder than that) to approach 100% efficiency. Getting more complete combustion (if that’s even happening) won’t produce much in the way of improvement. (More on this point later.)
Point 3. It is likely that along with the minuscule amounts of H2 being kicked into the engine, there’s also a mist of water. That trick to improve mileage has been around for ages. I don’t know how well it works, and it might depend somewhat on how well your engine is tuned up to begin with.
Point 4. Most important one, really. I wouldn’t care much about this except that I’ve picked up (initially from an acquaintance who was interested in installing one of these) that getting the benefits from these involves “tweaking” the system a bit. In fact, one recent poster states “it takes learning about the computer in your car so you can overcome the built in mileage destroying sensors...” Here’s the real problem. Those “mileage destroying sensors” are part of the emission control system. Cars are very intentionally tuned to minimize emissions of CO, VOCs, and NOx (NOx is another major ingredient in photochemical smog). And minimizing those requires compromises in fuel mixtures, engine timing, and engine temperature that certainly do reduce gas mileage. You can improve your mileage a lot just by advancing the timing and running the engine leaner, but the NOx emissions shoot up. So the biggest improvement in mileage that folks are reporting probably has nothing to do with a trickle of H2 that they’re adding, but to the fact that they’re totally subverting the engine's emission controls. So much for this being “green”!
Point 5. Law of unintended consequences. I have not examined any of these, but I do note that any electrolysis will require adding an electrolyte of some sort to the water (pure water is a pretty crappy electrical conductor). So as the H2 is being generated in really fine bubbles, it may also be carrying with is a fine mist of the electrolyte. If I were using this stuff, I’d have to wonder what deposits of some of this stuff is doing to my engine. The fellow I know who was considering one of these said the directions for his called for sodium hydroxide (lye), which is very corrosive to aluminum (which is often used for heads on engines). In addition, if you’re re-tuning your engine by playing with the computer, then you may also be playing havoc with the catalytic converter, and that’s pretty pricey to replace. (But if you’ve decided to play with the computer, then you’ve already admitted that you don’t give a rip about what your car is emitting, so the catalytic converter’s failure probably won’t make a difference to you.)
So... folks may really be observing significantly higher gas mileage, and that’s great. But it ain’t the H2.
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A.Brien 8:10PM (11/27/2006)
I think this is the future. On board hydrogen production with a regular cylinder engine or a fuel
cell. Even better in the not so distant future, we can make a system that recirculate the water exhaust
so we do not have to refuel at all or maybe just
once a while if there is a little leaks. So we can
buy the biggest and best engine and enjoy free fuel.
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Andy 9:17PM (11/27/2006)
I am not holding my breath that the thing works. The energy produced from combusting hydrogen and oxygen will ALWAYS be less than the energy needed to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. If you don't believe me lookup something called "law of conservation of energy". Now gas engines do waste a lot of energy. I think an effiecient engine still waste like 75% of it's energy into heat. If the wast heat to do electrolosis then you could gain some of that loss back. Even then as a general rule every time energy changes form (heat to motion, motion to electricity etc) you loose a little. By the time the heat converts water to hydrogen, hydrogen into combustion and combustion into motion I bet you salvage maybe 20% of the 75%. In other words not much. Change your air filter and fill your tire. It will probably get you more milage than this thing.
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Rick 5:04PM (4/01/2009)
Andy,Andy,
You sound skeptical and use the old arguement of thermodynamics which THEY LIKE TO USE WITHOUT TELLING YOU THAT THE "HEAT IS WASTED ENERGY" THAT IS PRODUCED! I now get 50.9 MPG on a 4x4 subaru that the Co. says only can get 22 highway...and I got 189,000 miles on it! Your more than welcome to check it out yourself if you live close enough. Wish I could add pictures of the unit installed but it's basically 2 mason jars with my home made electrodes and a vaporizer bottle(water with bubbles to raise humidity) Truthfully It only gives me an extra 6 in town though.
John 9:15PM (11/27/2006)
http://www.google.com/search?q=conservation%20of%20energy&sourceid=mozilla2&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
This system would still have to be refueled, and its not getting the extra efficiency from the energy gotten from burning hydrogen as it takes more energy to electrolyze the hydrogen from water than is returned by burning it. The system works (presumably) by using the hydrogen to increase the effeciency of the already occurring reaction with gasoline.
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Henri 12:18PM (11/28/2006)
Disappointingly another perpetual motion machine comes to light. Based on the laws of the universe this or any device cannot produce more energy than it takes to make the Hydrogen. Maybe we'll see refillable Hydrogen tanks, but on board generation will never make sense.
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Tim 9:45PM (11/27/2006)
I don’t know that Brown’s Gas from the electrolysis of water will ever provide 100% power due to over unity. There is a lot of information about using HHO Browns or Water Gas to enhance the combustion efficiency of other fuels. The arguments for HHO gas injection make sense.
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