YOU TELL HIM MILEHIGH...............

I will have to say though you are my controlled methodology..... LOL keep up the good work and reports.

 

Most all our ICE engines run on the same air we breath. Now if we can add different gases like NO2 , HHO, O we can change the combustion and many times increase power and lower emmissions. All we are tryng to do is break up water which is probable the most abundant thing on the planet and inject these gases for greater mpg. If we have units working now with more time and research and testing we will have better units in the future. Guys keep working lets share ideas and results and let the disbeleivers go find a pessimist forum

 

I built a small HHO generator and used it on the '05 Freestyle on a 500 mile(each way) trip last weekend. I used flat SS plates cut from sheet and a caustic solution. I got 24-25 MPG on the way down. On the way back I added a little bit of sodium hydroxide to strengthen the electrolite. I was getting upwards of 29 MPG before the fuse blew. I added some water to dilute the solution some and replaced the fuse. I was still getting 27-28 MPG and ended up making it all the way home on one tank of gas, just over 500 miles on that trip.

Now you can think what you want about it, but I can tell you that that car NEVER got that kind of mileage EVER in the time we've owned it, a little over 50K miles now. Does it work? I'd have to say yes. Doug, I'll even send that unit to you so you can test it to your heart's content, so long as you agree to post your results here for all of us to see. If you're interested just let me know.

BTW. I guess either nobody's interested in it or you guys just never picked up on it in my previouis post. I took that cart apart and have three sections from the shelves sitting around here that I don't need. They are roughly 18"X30" of sheet SS. If you're in the CT/RI area and want to try making one of these things I will let you have one of the shelves. You just have to come get it or make arrangements to meet me. If it's too far then I guess I could ship it if you cover the shipping costs. I also found another cart similar to the first one and have it too but have not taken it apart yet. I will have more SS sheet when I do.....

 

Is 24-25mpg your normal baseline? If not, what is your normal and I'm assuming you did not change your driving habits like speed & acceleration? Did you add any sensor gadgets or was it straight HHO? Do you have any pics &/or specs of your unit and did you measure LPM? Sorry so may questions....just want to learn what you did......thanks Todd

 

Hello thedaddycat - isn't the freestyle gas? and it's rated at 24mpg highway.

Either way, I would love to take you up on that offer and try your 'HHO' kit for myself. I will gladly document and post my results with as little bias as possible.
My email is my username @gmail

 

I'm impressed........w/ both of you! I hope you do give it a real go..........& either prove us wrong or right!

 

daddycat: Where did you get the cart, if you don't mind my asking? Store yard sale etc..........

 

thedaddycat, I would leave your unit right where it is.

You have proved to yourself it works, who cares what anyone else thinks.

I never started into this to prove anything, I started to save myself dollars at the pump.

That should be everyone's objective with this project.

 

I agree with Dave. I'm testing my setup to help ME and if it helps sombody else great. It would be different if "we" were selling somthing but I'm in this to try to improve somthing if I can. If it works, great. If it doesn't that's my problem. Nobody's forcing whomever to do somthing they don't want to do. If you don't like the idea, don't do it but don't put sombody else down because you don't like the idea. What works for me might not work for you and vice versa. That's what's good about this forum. You put an idea out there and people can try it if they want to. Nobody's forcing anybody to do anything!

 

Guys, first off I can get more SS any time I need it. My buddy works in the mechanic shop and they have a shear for cutting sheet metal. I can get the scraps that fall off the back and sit there waiting for either someone who wants a small piece or they need to clean it out and throw it away. I have access to a lathe, milling/drilling machine, and MIG welder that has a spool gun so I can weld SS or aluminum if I need to.

I work at a hospital so it's not uncommon to see many different items made from SS end up in the scrap heap. It will stay there for a few days and then the grounds crew come with a backhoe/loader and haul it off to a dumpster so it gets recycled. I found two SS carts this last week, the other one is welded a bit more securely (not spot welds) so I'll have to use my 4 1/2" DeWalt grinder with a wafer wheel to cut the welds out.

I made my entire unit out of free stuff except for a couple of fittings so it's no big deal to let Doug use it to find out for himself if it works. Who knows, he may take it and come up with something way better that we can all use. Either way, it can't hurt anyone for him to try it. You don't have to agree with my actions, you may not do something like this yourself, nobody's asking you to. Maybe in the long run we will all be better off but the only way to know is to go ahead and try...

As far as the Freestyle goes, it's the wife's car and yes it's a gasoline engine. She gets something like 19+/- MPG with it though it has improved up to around 20+/- after the trip but without the HHO generator. I had the oil changed with semi-synthetic, used injector cleaner, cleaned the air filter, fuel filter replaced, etc before we left. I'll use 22 as a base number just to be conservative in the comparisons. It has a 3.0 V-6 and CVT. I don't care for it myself as I get about the same mileage with my '95 Crown Vic with the 4.6 V-8 and 183K on the clock, and that's more comfortable for me to drive. I did all the driving on the trip, mostly highway driving on cruise at 65-70. I didn't do anything to the car except wire the HHO generator in the way I described before and run the vent tubes up into the air filter box. I'll include the schematic for you Doug so you can have a basic idea how I did it, but you'll have to get your own parts for that. After I added the sodium hydroxide to strengthen the solution for the return trip, I was watching the dash display MPG numbers, which I reset when I filled the gas tank, climb slowly but steadily higher. Even if you use 24.5 MPG as a highway baseline(about what I got on the way down using the HHO generator with the weaker solution), I still gained almost 5 MPG over that, or roughly 20% gain before the fuse blew. Obviously it needs to be tweaked some. I had used plain old tap water and some caustic (boiler chemicals from work) to get started. The sodium hydroxide I added later was drain cleaner from Wal-Mart.

I tried to measure the HHO output of my unit but there were some leaks where I tried to seal it up, like where the wires went through the plastic jug. I never could get it to build much pressure though I know it was making some gas. I figured the whole thing would be under a vacuum anyhow so it didn't really matter that much to me that I get an accurate gas production reading. I was short on time and needed to get things done beofre leaving on the trip. Like I said, I'm calling it a preliminary success and now I'll work on the next one, maybe changing the plate design and spacing, etc.

 

I have one small request for those who are running newer vehicles with MPG meters. Please verify the MPG average with a hand calculation if you post your results. The MPG display has been nicknamed the "lie O meter" by some.

 

I have to say that this is an interesting thread, you guys are saving a ton of mistakes to those who heed the the pit falls. Thank you, my interest in this subject has had me scouring the internet for info. I own a shop up here in Canada and have access to many of these materials, so I'm looking forward to building an HHO generator.

A couple questions; Milehigh, what was your base line MPG, and how did you fuse the plexiglass together?

Daddycat; is the stainless from the roller cart usually 316L SS, and in your Freestyle did you put an Effie in to adjust your O2 sensor?


Dougphysics; what difference does it make to you if it doesn't work, there was a time when a moldy cantalope was considered rotten food and thrown away,,,now the by product is one of medical history and most important drugs. If I can get more than 22 MPG in my truck, and clean up the environment at the same time,,,well that's a no brainer.

Thanks again guys, I'll be watching closely and when I get started on mine, I'll post.

Lincoln

 

Oh ya ,,,and I found this,I thought looked interesting.

A Purdue University engineer has developed a method that uses an aluminum alloy to extract hydrogen from water for running fuel cells or internal combustion engines, and the technique could be used to replace gasoline.

"The hydrogen is generated on demand, so you only produce as much as you need when you need it," said Woodall, who presented research findings detailing how the system works during a recent energy symposium at Purdue.

The technology could be used to drive small internal combustion engines in various applications, including portable emergency generators, lawn mowers and chain saws. The process could, in theory, also be used to replace gasoline for cars and trucks, he said.

Hydrogen is generated spontaneously when water is added to pellets of the alloy, which is made of aluminum and a metal called gallium. The researchers have shown how hydrogen is produced when water is added to a small tank containing the pellets. Hydrogen produced in such a system could be fed directly to an engine, such as those on lawn mowers.

"When water is added to the pellets, the aluminum in the solid alloy reacts because it has a strong attraction to the oxygen in the water," Woodall said.

This reaction splits the oxygen and hydrogen contained in water, releasing hydrogen in the process.

The gallium is critical to the process because it hinders the formation of a skin normally created on aluminum's surface after oxidation. This skin usually prevents oxygen from reacting with aluminum, acting as a barrier. Preventing the skin's formation allows the reaction to continue until all of the aluminum is used.

The Purdue Research Foundation holds title to the primary patent, which has been filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and is pending. An Indiana startup company, AlGalCo LLC., has received a license for the exclusive right to commercialize the process.

The research has been supported by the Energy Center at Purdue's Discovery Park, the university's hub for interdisciplinary research.

"This is exactly the kind of project that suits Discovery Park. It's exciting science that has great potential to be commercialized," said Jay Gore, associate dean of engineering for research, the Energy Center's interim director and the Vincent P. Reilly Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

The research team is made up of electrical, mechanical, chemical and aeronautical engineers, including doctoral students.

Woodall discovered that liquid alloys of aluminum and gallium spontaneously produce hydrogen if mixed with water while he was working as a researcher in the semiconductor industry in 1967. The research, which focused on developing new semiconductors for computers and electronics, led to advances in optical-fiber communications and light-emitting diodes, making them practical for everything from DVD players to automotive dashboard displays. That work also led to development of advanced transistors for cell phones and components in solar cells powering space modules like those used on the Mars rover, earning Woodall the 2001 National Medal of Technology from President George W. Bush.

"I was cleaning a crucible containing liquid alloys of gallium and aluminum," Woodall said. "When I added water to this alloy - talk about a discovery - there was a violent poof. I went to my office and worked out the reaction in a couple of hours to figure out what had happened. When aluminum atoms in the liquid alloy come into contact with water, they react, splitting the water and producing hydrogen and aluminum oxide.

"Gallium is critical because it melts at low temperature and readily dissolves aluminum, and it renders the aluminum in the solid pellets reactive with water. This was a totally surprising discovery, since it is well known that pure solid aluminum does not readily react with water."

The waste products are gallium and aluminum oxide, also called alumina. Combusting hydrogen in an engine produces only water as waste.

"No toxic fumes are produced," Woodall said. "It's important to note that the gallium doesn't react, so it doesn't get used up and can be recycled over and over again. The reason this is so important is because gallium is currently a lot more expensive than aluminum. Hopefully, if this process is widely adopted, the gallium industry will respond by producing large quantities of the low-grade gallium required for our process. Currently, nearly all gallium is of high purity and used almost exclusively by the semiconductor industry."


Woodall said that because the technology makes it possible to use hydrogen instead of gasoline to run internal combustion engines it could be used for cars and trucks. In order for the technology to be economically competitive with gasoline, however, the cost of recycling aluminum oxide must be reduced, he said.

"Right now it costs more than $1 a pound to buy aluminum, and, at that price, you can't deliver a product at the equivalent of $3 per gallon of gasoline," Woodall said.

However, the cost of aluminum could be reduced by recycling it from the alumina using a process called fused salt electrolysis. The aluminum could be produced at competitive prices if the recycling process were carried out with electricity generated by a nuclear power plant or windmills. Because the electricity would not need to be distributed on the power grid, it would be less costly than power produced by plants connected to the grid, and the generators could be located in remote locations, which would be particularly important for a nuclear reactor to ease political and social concerns, Woodall said.

"The cost of making on-site electricity is much lower if you don't have to distribute it," Woodall said.

The approach could enable the United States to replace gasoline for transportation purposes, reducing pollution and the nation's dependence on foreign oil. If hydrogen fuel cells are perfected for cars and trucks in the future, the same hydrogen-producing method could be used to power them, he said.

"We call this the aluminum-enabling hydrogen economy," Woodall said. "It's a simple matter to convert ordinary internal combustion engines to run on hydrogen. All you have to do is replace the gasoline fuel injector with a hydrogen injector."

Even at the current cost of aluminum, however, the method would be economically competitive with gasoline if the hydrogen were used to run future fuel cells.

"Using pure hydrogen, fuel cell systems run at an overall efficiency of 75 percent, compared to 40 percent using hydrogen extracted from fossil fuels and with 25 percent for internal combustion engines," Woodall said. "Therefore, when and if fuel cells become economically viable, our method would compete with gasoline at $3 per gallon even if aluminum costs more than a dollar per pound."

The hydrogen-generating technology paired with advanced fuel cells also represents a potential future method for replacing lead-acid batteries in applications such as golf carts, electric wheel chairs and hybrid cars, he said.

The technology underscores aluminum's value for energy production.

"Most people don't realize how energy intensive aluminum is," Woodall said. "For every pound of aluminum you get more than two kilowatt hours of energy in the form of hydrogen combustion and more than two kilowatt hours of heat from the reaction of aluminum with water. A midsize car with a full tank of aluminum-gallium pellets, which amounts to about 350 pounds of aluminum, could take a 350-mile trip and it would cost $60, assuming the alumina is converted back to aluminum on-site at a nuclear power plant.

"How does this compare with conventional technology? Well, if I put gasoline in a tank, I get six kilowatt hours per pound, or about two and a half times the energy than I get for a pound of aluminum. So I need about two and a half times the weight of aluminum to get the same energy output, but I eliminate gasoline entirely, and I am using a resource that is cheap and abundant in the United States. If only the energy of the generated hydrogen is used, then the aluminum-gallium alloy would require about the same space as a tank of gasoline, so no extra room would be needed, and the added weight would be the equivalent of an extra passenger, albeit a pretty large extra passenger."

The concept could eliminate major hurdles related to developing a hydrogen economy. Replacing gasoline with hydrogen for transportation purposes would require the production of huge quantities of hydrogen, and the hydrogen gas would then have to be transported to filling stations. Transporting hydrogen is expensive because it is a "non-ideal gas," meaning storage tanks contain less hydrogen than other gases.

"If I can economically make hydrogen on demand, however, I don't have to store and transport it, which solves a significant problem," Woodall said.

Source: Purdue University



Sorry it's long.

Lincoln

 

Lincluvsturbos, interesting article. Who knows, it may be the future. My guess is that rechargable batteries would be better than burning aluminum...

However, as stupid as our government is, I wouldn't be surprised if they immediately started a massive project using diesel fired generators to refine enough aluminum to run 10% of our vehicles. I don't know off the top of my head, but my guess is that it takes a *lot* more energy to turn aluminum oxide (bauxite) into "aluminum" than you'd get going the other way.

 

Some sites just for the DIY's

http://www.fuel-saver.org/Form/index.php
OUPower.com :: View Forum - Electrolysis & Hydrogen Applications
watercar : Daniel Dingel's Hydrogen-Powered Car