Sure - its’ true that ICE is a fairly wasteful process. It’s also true that Democracy is a wasteful form of government. The problem is that they’re the both the best option we have - at least right now.

Perhaps when electric battery technology advances to the point that a person can travel 300-400 miles without a re-charge, we’ll have something. The other problem is that batteries need hours to re-charge. Not a huge problem min you, but good luck traveling cross-country with an electric car. Good luck using one to deliver parts or flowers or packages or whatever.

Electric cars are a good idea, and I’m 100% for them. But this post is about the scam artists that are bilking poor dumb saps out of millions of dollars telling them “I can run your car on water.” That’s what gives me the proverbial “red-ass”.

Thanks for the comments - this has been fun.

Bruce: the Flourine gas example is not correct. So before you jump all over that statement, consider it to be retracted. However, the concept is correct. Many so-called “inert” gases are now combined and the statement had to be amended that they do not combine naturally. The NY Times website at the top of this also describes an ongoing debate about certain “immutable laws” concerning the attraction of electrons.

I am also not certain about the specific conditions for which the speed at which H2 burns has been presented. I’m getting conflicting information from credible sources on this figure.

In a pipeline 8 miles long containing - say - 25 percent H2, one source would say the ignition would travel the distance in 1 second and another source would say it takes over an hour.
My bet is on the shorter time. I think there are typos all over the place on this figure. A lot of the reference material on this simply says it burns “really fast.” Wow, that’s helpful.

Here is a good explanation for the confusion, by Kevin Cameron:

“There are two basic forms of combustion, deflagration and detonation. In deflagration, the propagation of combustion is carried out by simple convection; the hot combustion gas heats what is ahead of it, raising its temperature to the ignition point. Because this process of heating what lies ahead takes time, it is relatively slow. The burning of a quiescent gasoline air vapor is in fact slow only a foot or so per second. Combustion in an engine cylinder is much faster than this because of turbulence, which so wrinkles the flame front that its area becomes hugely enlarged. This area, multiplied times the slow quiescent combustion speed, computes out to a very large volume combustion rate.

Detonation is a different animal, and not all gaseous mixtures will support detonation. It is a form of combustion in which the unburned material is heated to ignition at least partly by shock compression, as the detonation wave moves at the local speed of sound through the medium.

This has to happen very quickly, so fuels with simple molecules or those with low stability lend themselves to this form of combustion.”

==========================================

My take on this last part is that H2 REALLY “lends itself to this” - being the simplest molecule there is.

http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2006/11/72100

Jason
So, you think your 80% inefficient machine is just peachy? You’re OK with that? What I told you about the engine is not my opinion. It’s common knowledge. But you’re not the least bit bothered by those numbers? You are just going to breeze past that and attack me and my bicycle? (Whoops, I don’t have a bicycle.) The one thing you said regarding the alternator is an important concern. So let’s talk about that instead of attacking each other’s …. bicycles or whatever.

Most of the experimenter hydrolyzers are pulling about 15 to 20 amps at 12 volts (assumed - could be 13V). That’s about 240 - 250 watts. Hmmmm. Not a lot on the overall scale of things, but still too much. However, even at this inefficient level, it’s only using about 1 horsepower of the engine capacity. So the bottom line is: can the resulting Hydrogen “give back” more than one horsepower? Wellll, not if you just slap the hydrolyzer on the car and stick a hose into the air intake. You’ll get nothing. The engine is not set to burn Hydrogen. The O2 sensor will sense that there is less O2 in the exhaust (burning lean) and increase the pulse length to the injectors. That will increase the amount of gasoline consumed. Not good. And the timing is all wrong.

Bruce

1) “Flourine is an inert gas and will NOT combine with any other element.” All Highschool and College chemistry taught that as an immutable law of chemistry. Then came Carbon Tetraflouride otherwise know as “Teflon.” Ooooops! Oh well….

2) The burn speed of H2 is much slower than the 40,000 figure. That was a typo.The burning speed of hydrogen at 8.7–10.7 ft/s (2.65–3.25 m/s) is nearly an order of magnitude higher than that of methane or gasoline (at stoichiometric conditions). Hydrogen also burns closer to the cylinder walls than gasoline. So it just gets things going really quickly. It actually lowers the Octane. And if you know the definition of Octane, you know that it is a measure of RESISTANCE to detonation and that water has the highest octane of all. I will describe the characterization more fully below.

My attitude toward the automobile began to change when I visited with the top mechanic for General Motors, retired due to poor health, which was the result of job pressure. The papers and many photos of his career were on the wall of his repair shop in rural Oklahoma. His current repair accounts included all of the local work for UPS in Oklahoma

He told me many things in 1989. He had patented a fuel processing system in 1980 which would make all cars operate much more efficiently. He showed me a letter from General Motors which stated “if you can get this device certified by the EPA, we will put it in every car we make.”

He showed me the device itself. He had one on his wife’s Ford SUV ( a Bronco, I think). She was getting about 50 miles per gallon. The dynamotor showed 160% power from the engine. He proudly stated: “now you can say you have seen one.”

He took his request to the EPA. They scoffed at him and presented him with paperwork 24″ tall and printed on both sides. He took that to his attorney. The attorney was astonished. The next day, the attorney told him the following: “it will take 10 years in time and $1,000,000 in money and at the end of that time (and money), there is no guarantee you will be certified.” So he said “to hell with it.” He hoped his kids might be able to benefit from it.

The experience of meeting with this person happened to me, not you. I don’t expect you to change anything about how you believe or view things.

The initial high speed ignition of the gasoline by the hydrogen requires that the timing be retarded to “almost top dead center.” This totally changes the efficiency for the better.

Because the explosion occurs at TDC, the entire process is dedicated to the downward stroke of the piston. The engine operates cooler and there is less wear because you don’t have that “horrible moment” when the piston is upward bound, and ignition occurs before it is all the way up. It’s not rocket science. During that horrible moment, you have the piston trying to go up, but the explosion is trying to push it down. The piston is shoved off to one side or another and ring wear takes place. Also some “blow-by” (gasses that make it past the rings into the oil pan.) The lubricating oil in the upper cylinder is vaporized. The downward vector puts the largest force on the crankshaft bearings at this moment. The head gaskets are being pressed outward, super-hot gasses are temporarily trapped and are being compressed. Enormous heat is squeezed out of the exploding gasses through the thermodynamic law that as the volume decreases the pressure and temperature increase. Then comes TDC and the piston starts moving downward. It has won the battle and now retreats gracefully, but the price has been paid in wear and tear, excessive heat, and poor efficiency.

Yeah, the H2 also has problems, and there are a lot of scam artists out there trying to make a fast buck. They just make things a whole lot worse.

But I stand by the original point that the ICE is a rolling disaster. It really strikes home when you start thinking about the 85% efficient electric motor. No oil, antifreeze, gasoline fumes. Just tons and tons of good ol’ battery acid.

OK - everyone’s entitled to an opinion. I expect you’ll be riding your bicycle from now on then? Of course, that process isn’t 100% efficient either (sweat is a form of heat loss). I guess you’ll be calling God a scam artist then for designing an inherently inefficient process?

On to your “science”. You’re basically saying that adding hydrogen to the gasoline acts as a “chemical intercooler”. Perhaps. However, I would argue that this benefit does not compensate for the heat loss in the electrolysis process.

Here’s an even simpler explanation - one that I’m quite sure you’ll reject. If this type of system really worked, why aren’t the car companies all over it? GM, Ford, and Chrysler are losing billions of dollars because they can’t sell their gas guzzling trucks and SUVs. Do you really expect me (or anyone else who’s reading this) to believe that the car companies wouldn’t be including this system in all their new vehicles?

This is the part where you say something about a conspiracy…let me guess. The oil companies and the car companies are in cahoots, right??

Tell me, which of the “so-called “immutable” laws” have you seen change (as you claim)?

And believe it or not, modern internal combustion engines are already running remarkably close to the theoretical maximum for the Carnot cycle so a 40% improvement would vastly exceed that theoretical maximum - thus violating the laws of thermodynamics (which remains immutable to this day).

Please explain your claim that hydrogen “characterizes” the explosion at 40,000 feet/second.

What we want/need in an ICE is a deflagration of the air/fuel mixture, not a detonation.

Now I have done a lot of research and design work with combustion and a detonation is combustion involving flamefronts traveling at supersonic velocities. These are typically very destructive and most certainly *not* desirable in an ICE.

The typical flame-front speed for a hydrogen deflagration is subsonic and far short of the 40,000 feet/second you claim.

If you want to see some of my combustion work, take a look at http://interestingprojects.com

I have developed a type of pulse-jet engine that uses very high-rate deflagration to improve performance by a factor of three over conventional pulsejets. This has been the result of much research and development during which many things have been learned and relearned about combustion. see: http://aardvark.co.nz/pjet/xjet.shtml

This engine is about to undergo independent testing at an accredited university.

I’m not a tinkerer or pure theory academic. I’m working with the science and practice of combustion every day.

Trust me, if this HHO rubbish had any merit, I’d be using it.