Hitchcocks Forum

Is anyone experimenting with the Browns gas (Hydrogen) fuel supplement? i.e. building a hydrogen generator and feeding the hydrogen in through the air intake..? It's supposeed to lower fuel consumption and can give up to 25% more m.p.g.

Fuel from water..?

I'm seriously considering having a go.

Hello EXILE------- I wouldn't bother if I was you..Have a look at this and especially the reference to the energy released against the energy consumed to make it in the first place }----http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyhydrogen ---------------- A more interesting and possibly fruitful line might be HTP ( Hydrogen Test Peroxide ) where the basic fuel used releases oxygen when burnt ( or decomposed) within the combustion chamber..... It was trialled on submarines during and just after WW2.......................... If you have an eon or two to spare have a look at this}------http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_peroxide -------------------------

As Alan R says - you don't get anything for nothing. Also, where would you mount all the necessary equipment on the bike? I looked at this a while ago (with my car in mind) and concluded that it was too difficult/costly to do for the benefit gained. Oh, and I bet your insurers would just love it! Good luck if you decide to proceed, though; the world needs experimenters.

Have a look at this chap's setup. I'm thinking of something similar.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFtCuXOJqjQ


Similar mounting would be easy on the bullet..

I found this posted on another forum, which seems to sum it up for me:
The concept is basically flawed when it comes to producing a vehicle fuel. The web is full of examples of people demonstrating hydrogen being produced by various pieces of apparatus, but the volume is always small. That part of it is true. You can produce hydrogen by cracking water molecules using electricity. There is nothing complex about the apparatus. It's easy to do. It's a basic high school physics or chemistry experiment.

The problem is that the amount of energy it takes to break a water molecule into its constituent parts (hydrogen and oxygen) is the same amount of energy that you get back if you recombine them by burning the hydrogen in oxygen (or air) to get water. Therefore, if you intend to run an internal combustion engine on hydrogen produced from water on board that vehicle using energy produced by that engine, you have a huge energy deficit. If it worked it would be an example of perpetual motion. There are far too many losses in the cycle.

A typical car petrol engine has an efficiency of about 25% to 30%. That's how much of the energy available in the fuel that is available to propel the car. The rest is lost as heat, friction (heat) in the transmission and the tyres, air resistance (more heat), and so on. The car's alternator, from which you would draw the electricity to produce the hydrogen, is probably about 60% efficient; so there are more losses there.

Those who claim to achieve improved fuel consumption using hydrogen produced on-board, and genuinely believe it, are probably trying very hard when they drive to obtain the best possible mileage figures. If you drive your existing petrol-only powered car in the same way, you'll also experience a marked improvement in economy.

Hydrogen powered cars may come on day. Car companies and gas companies have been working on it on and off for quite awhile. But when they do, the hydrogen will have to be produced industrially using power from the electricity grid, and then placed in a fuel tank in the car, at a filling station. If the grid-sourced electricity used to produce the hydrogen comes from burning coal, then the exercise is pointless.

The problem with using hydrogen as an automotive fuel is that it is very difficult to store in sufficient quantity. There are only 3 methods.

1. You compress it into a cylinder at high pressure.
A cylinder with a capacity of about 50 litres would only hold about 6m3 of gas, and it would be at a pressure of about 14,000kPa. That's a very heavy, cumbersome, inconveniently shaped cylinder to fit in a car to obtain very little driving range.

2. You could use a cylinder that contains a material that will adsorb hydrogen at a lower pressure, but they haven't found anything suitable yet. And you would still have the problem of very limited range.

3. You store it as a cryogenic liquid at close to absolute zero in a special (and bulky) vacuum insulated cylinder. That would give you a range similar to a petrol car but would require special filling stations, an awful lot of safety devices and systems, and a very expensive vehicle. BMW were working on this with BOC in Germany about 15 to 20 years ago. They had test cars on the road - but we still haven't seen anything practical.

I think you may have missed the point here.. I am not trying to entirely replace the fuel with hydrogen..
I intend to add hydrogen (and oxygen) to the fuel.

On board hydrogen production is never going to power any vehicle by itself. However, adding on board produced hydrogen and oxygen to the existing fuel may extend the mileage per gallon of petrol.

I intend to find out.. if I can.

Exile, I think another Al is right and you have missed the point in his explanation, namely, that the inefficiency of on-board hydrogen production is so great that adding the product of the onboard process to your existing fuel supply simply magnifies the problem. But good luck all the same, we need eccentrics and not just to open the valves! Haleson Steamer anyone? (Look it up..)
REgards, Mark

Hi guys---------- you might want to give METHANOL a thought (NB this is NOT the ETHANOL being added to petrol, but is in the same "family"if you like....Have a look at this, especially the references to use as fuel for automobiles}----- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol ----------------

Experimenting started this evening. I made a "generator" using seven stainless steel plates (bought from the local builders merchants)and bolted them together with plastic coated bolts, using plastic washers to insulate the plates from each other. Connected the positive to one end plate and the negative to the other using a 12v charger as the power source. The plates in between are neutral. Brine was my chosen electrolyte.

Keep up the good work! I am sceptical, but I'm still interested to hear how you get on. If you can make it work (ie. produce more enrgy than it consumes....) you can make a start on nuclear fusion. Good luck, and be careful!