No flux capacitor needed

September 17, 2005 9:49 PM

Smaller than a DVD player - small enough to sit comfortably under the hood of any truck or car - it could be big enough to solve the world's greenhouse gas emission problems, at least for the near future. In fact, it could make the Kyoto protocol obsolete.
posted by mr_crash_davis (72 comments total)

The Gazette drove a 2000 six-cylinder Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with an H2N-Gen prototype from Montreal to Cornwall and back. We set the cruise control at 102 kilometres per hour. The trip computer indicated that on the highway the car averaged about nine litres per 100 kilometres, which is more than 10 per cent below the manufacturer's mileage rating of 10.5. The combined city/highway mileage was slightly more than 11; the car is rated at 12.9.

In English, they drove 63 mph and the onboard computer indicated 2.37 gallons per 62 miles or about 26 miles per gallon. That's pretty good as I think the Jeep should only get 17-18MPG otherwise. I have no idea how to translate "mileage rating" but it looks as if lower is better. So that's $7,500 plus installation. Makes it somewhat unfeasible in older cars. Looks like he didn't solve the problem of using exotic metals for the hydrogen conversion.
posted by geoff. at 10:00 PM on September 17, 2005

I thought it said $7,500 for the largest model - the one used for trains and such. I'm sure a car engine model would be much cheaper.
posted by Vulpyne at 10:05 PM on September 17, 2005

Ah, but there seems to be reliability & non-blowing-up problems with it. I wonder if the engineering problem is material (>reliability/safetely ~ >weight/size) or if it's just a design issue.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 10:11 PM on September 17, 2005

You're right:

"We're marketing a 20-pound unit for $7,500," Williams predicted. "That's the maximum price that it will be. The average truck out there today will get their money back in eight months at the latest. CN (Canadian National) spends $11 billion a year on fuel and we can save them minimum a guarantee of 10 per cent, $1.1 billion a year."

I pay about $2,400 on gas a year. That's $1,600 in 8 months. Assuming a 20% increase in MPG (just estimating) that would be $320 for this device. I guess it would be safe to assume that hte device would be under $500 for the average consumer. If you consider my SUV an "average truck", which I guess it would be.

I would definitely pay $320 for less wear and tear on my engine, and the whole feel-good factor too. Let's hope this isn't vaporware. I'm surprised only a small newspaper has picked this up so far, I'll try no to get excited until I see this in a store.
posted by geoff. at 10:15 PM on September 17, 2005

The "blowing up problems" were encountered with a different hydrogen generator produced by an entirely different company.
posted by wakko at 10:16 PM on September 17, 2005

That would be 7500 Canadian Dollars I imagine... that's what, around 6400 US Dollars??
posted by nathan_teske at 10:23 PM on September 17, 2005

I'm putting this in the "hope it's true" file for now. Wouldn't Big Oil want to suppress anything like this anyway?
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:24 PM on September 17, 2005

i think the 12.9 rating means 12.9 liters per 100km, so about 18.2mpg combined is the "official" rating. 26mpg is then about a 44% increase in fuel economy, which is amazing.

you can just type "100 km per 9 liter in mpg" into google and it will translate it for you... google calculator is rad.

so the new hotness would be a prius hacked with extra batteries and one of these hydrogen generators. you might be able to get 150mpg out of that configuration.
posted by joeblough at 10:30 PM on September 17, 2005

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like the inventor doesn't want to use this to cut emissions, he wants to use it redistribute emissions. His idea is to be paid in credits and then sell those credits to other people who can use them to create the greenhouse gases that his customers would otherwise have produced. Net decrease in greenhouse gases = 0, by this plan.

Still an amazing invention and kudos to him for coming up with it, but I that I've either misunderstood his plan or that that aspect of his plan will be less than successful.
posted by duck at 10:30 PM on September 17, 2005

7500 Canadian Dollars I imagine... that's what, around 6400 US Dollars

$7,500.00 CDN = $6,352.70 USD (According to today's exchange rate)



What the article fails to mention is how much "distilled water" you have to add every 80 hours.
posted by o0o0o at 10:34 PM on September 17, 2005

Given that the unit is the size of a DVD player, it can't be all that much, can it?

This is good, very good. I hope it proves out.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:36 PM on September 17, 2005

Invest now!
posted by longsleeves at 10:45 PM on September 17, 2005

If it cuts consumption, Congress and the administration here in the US will be against it. Hell, I'd bet they have the technology right now to get 90MPG, but they don't want to implement it, and auto makers don't want to sell it.
posted by fungible at 10:48 PM on September 17, 2005

I smell bullshit. Not about the fact that adding H2 will improve combustion rates and therefore some efficiency gains - no doubt about this, although I doubt the figures given - but from this line:

"Most internal combustion engines operate at about 35 per cent efficiency. This means that only 35 per cent of the fuel is fully burned. The rest either turns to carbon corroding the engine or goes out the exhaust pipe as greenhouse gases"

Errr.. an entirely efficient burn will only generate greenhouse gases , water and a little NOx. Thats what burning hydrocarbons , aka gasoline does. The figure of 35% does NOT mean that just 35% of the gas is burnt: otherwise catalytic converters would have to work overtime to oxidize and/or reduce all that bad gas vapor so that we weren't living in the mother of all smog clouds.

The 35% efficiency figure (and this is a high figure - I remember more like 20%) refers to the following: how much of the potential (chemical) energy in the gasoline released by burning, how much is converted to Useful Work. See
Considering the basics of the 4 stroke engine, It don't matter how much H2 you add, you will still never get above 40-50% (on a vvvvvvv good day!). Period. Thermodynamics and all that jazz.


I'm not even an engineer for chrissakes, but that article in the Montreal whatever is FOS.
posted by lalochezia at 10:52 PM on September 17, 2005

What the article fails to mention is how much "distilled water" you have to add every 80 hours.

Besides the capacity limit of a dvd-player sized contraption, I would also imagine that if these things ever become common, getting distilled water into your car will become very easy. They'll have a distilled water pump attached to every gas pump and you'll just pupmp it in when you get your gas. Distilled water is already more expensive than gasoline, so I'm sure you'll friendly neighbourhod gas bar will be happy to sell it to you, even if you won't be buying a giant tank's worth every week. If they're smart, they'll ratchet up the price until it makes up for what you're saving on gasoline. (ok, I know if they did that you would just buy your distilled water at the supermarket and poor it in yourself...maybe they'll have premium distilled water).
posted by duck at 10:56 PM on September 17, 2005

Cutting emmisions to zero would also save 100s of thousands of lives from cancer and other ailments.
posted by stbalbach at 10:59 PM on September 17, 2005

or they would build in a larger distilled water reservoir to feed the unit. Kinda like your wiper fluid reservoir.
posted by pmbuko at 11:00 PM on September 17, 2005

This would be fantastic if it does indeed work. I don't see why the auto companies and big oil would be against it; in my mind it seems like it would actually encourage consumption. Some people would be more able to rationalize buying a Hummer if they got over 20mpg.

However, I don't think it will be successful without a dashboard indicator that shows when you need to add water. The average driver is not going to keep track accurately.
posted by kyleg at 11:01 PM on September 17, 2005

I've seen DVD players smaller then that...
posted by delmoi at 11:12 PM on September 17, 2005

What kind of crack are these writers smoking? Even a perfict gasoline burn produces CO2. This will reduce harmful polutants like CO and soot (pure carbon) but it will increase the amount of greenhouse gas (CO2), not decrease it.

Sheesh
posted by delmoi at 11:15 PM on September 17, 2005

I don't think this article is likely to be true. One big clue was the stone cold tailpipe. From the article:

"What's more, even after the hour-long drive from Montreal, the tailpipe was not hot. In fact, we could wrap our hand around it without getting burned. Williams claims this proves that hot polluting emissions are not coming out of the tailpipe."

Someone is pulling a fast one here. Gasoline, whether assisted by hydrogen or not, is being burned. It is the explosive force of the burning that makes the pistons move. Explosive force means heat. I don't think there's such a thing as an endothermic explosion.

If the tailpipe is cold, then the engine isn't running its exhaust through there. Period. This is probably a lie using literal truth, 'hot polluting emissions are not coming out of the tailpipe'. If you'll note, he's definitely is not claiming the emissions don't exist, just that they're not coming out of the tailpipe.

The zero reading on the pollution index also makes me very suspicious. A low number, ok maybe... but ZERO? Not likely.

I'm not a chemist, and I don't know how much carbon is in gasoline. I do know that it has some, and that the addition of hydrogen wouldn't get rid of it. It might bind the carbon into a different form, but it wouldn't magically go away. Elements can't be created or destroyed with chemical processes. This engine CAN'T have zero emissions. The carbon has to go somewhere. If they got that reading, then someone is being fooled.

The whole article is very, very fishy.
posted by Malor at 11:16 PM on September 17, 2005

This passage has rung my warning bells:

"Most internal combustion engines operate at about 35 per cent efficiency. This means that only 35 per cent of the fuel is fully burned. The rest either turns to carbon corroding the engine or goes out the exhaust pipe as greenhouse gases. The H2N-Gen increases burn efficiency to at least 97 per cent, Williams said. This saves fuel and greatly reduces emissions.

This is misleading at best, and outright wrong at worst. In most four-stroke vehicles the "burn efficiency" is already > 95%. The 35% figure is often quoted as the thermal efficiency for the whole engine, (which, according to Carnot, can never exceed about 65%).

So, assuming it works at all, this on-board reformer may increase thermal efficiency by a few percent, not by 60%!
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:26 PM on September 17, 2005

post-preview: what lalochezia said.
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:27 PM on September 17, 2005

Distilled water is already more expensive than gasoline, so I'm sure you'll friendly neighbourhod gas bar will be happy to sell it to you, even if you won't be buying a giant tank's worth every week.

Er, no it's not. Distilled water is about $1 for a gallon jug, 50¢ at walmart.

--

But yeah, these writers don't know WTF they're talking about. This may make a car burn cleaner but it does not get rid of CO₂.

There are already cars (like the natural-gas powered civic) that output hardly anything except water and CO₂, in fact the air that comes out of the tail pipe is less poluted then the air around the car but CO₂ is what we're trying to cut back on.

by the way, I found this totaly helarious "refutation" of global warming while I was researching this post (wanted to see what % of the atmosphere was CO₂)
posted by delmoi at 11:28 PM on September 17, 2005

by helarious, I mean the authors had no idea what they were talking about.
posted by delmoi at 11:28 PM on September 17, 2005

I wonder if they are just dumping the oxygen that's also produced in the electrolysis or if it is fed into the air intake stream. Seems to me that adding extra oxygen would promote a more complete burn as well.
posted by aardvarkratnik at 11:33 PM on September 17, 2005

Malor: the thing you have to remember is that CO₂ isn't a polutant. It's a greenhouse gas, yes, but it dosn't create smog or do anything bad. In fact, your body produces CO₂ itself, all plants and animals do.

So while this device could help older cars produce less smog (great in big cities) it won't help with global warming at all.
posted by delmoi at 11:33 PM on September 17, 2005

Google results for "H2N-gen" are all but nonexistent. The only relevant one other than a couple of copies of this story is this puff piece.

What Malor and delmoi said -- bullshit meter off the scale, at least the way this is written. The only way it can eliminate "100% of greenhouse gases" is if it does not produce carbon dioxide. Well, if combustion doesn't produce carbon dioxide then what does it produce? As far as I know (IANAC either) there exists no chemistry so exotic that the combustion of hydrocarbons produces no exhaust. And WTF about the "cool tailpipe" angle?
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:35 PM on September 17, 2005

First, let's see what we're talking about:

Basically, the H2N-Gen contains a small reservoir of distilled water and other chemicals such as potassium hydroxide. A current is run from the car battery through the liquid. This process of electrolysis creates hydrogen and oxygen gases which are then fed into the engine's intake manifold where they mix with the gasoline vapours.

It's a scientific fact that adding hydrogen to a combustion chamber will cause a cleaner burn. The challenge has always been to find a way to get the hydrogen gas into the combustion chamber in a safe, reliable and cost-effective way.

Or, in a different page's hyperbole:

This new device works simply by manufacturing a fractional amount of Hydrogen/oxygen and pumping it into the air intake to enrich any petroleum fuel with amazing results, like guaranteed savings of 10-20% or much more, cooler running engines, longer lasting oil and like we said - tailpipes so clean, you can almost drink the exhaust which turns back to, you guessed it, H20 water.

So we have to know what this "small reservoir of distilled water and other chemicals such as potassium hydroxide" really entails in terms of cost and bother and maybe a patented formula of top-secret ingredients. It's another fuel you would have to worry about buying and filling up. And if the result is simple hydrogen and oxygen, technically you should be able to get the same results by buying compressed hydrogen and oxygen (it is injecting both?) retail in small tanks and injecting the hydrogen and oxygen into the fuel system just as this invention does. No one has tried that before?

Science stories usually fall into three families: wacky stories, scare stories and "breakthrough" stories. This is one of those "breakthrough" stories. It is based, by the sound of it, on a start-up company's own press release.
posted by pracowity at 11:36 PM on September 17, 2005

delmoi: actually photosynthesis from plants produces oxygen from carbon dioxide
posted by aardvarkratnik at 11:37 PM on September 17, 2005

From George_Spiggott's puff piece:
From a marketing perspective, no unit will ever be sold - only leased. I wonder if we'll need a EULA to use this thing:)
posted by aardvarkratnik at 11:44 PM on September 17, 2005

delmoi: actually photosynthesis from plants produces oxygen from carbon dioxide

Yes, but plants contain both mitochondria and chloroplasts. Plants also do the krebs cycle(?) thing which uses some of the CO₂ they produce. Plants definetly need oxygen.
posted by delmoi at 11:47 PM on September 17, 2005

If this device makes more complete combustion, there is less burning gas exiting the combustion chamber, hence,
cool tailpipe.
posted by hortense at 11:49 PM on September 17, 2005

A couple more BS points about this:
*the device aperantly electrolyzes water to produce H₂O. You don't need any exotic metals or substances to do that, you don't even need pure water. Tap water + electricity = H₂ and O₂. Not only that, but you will always get less useful energy out of burning the hydrogen then you will use to electrolyze it.

*If you add extra hydrogen to a car's engine, the onboard computers will get screwed up, and there won't be enough oxygen in the piston to burn everything. Car engines use oxygen detectors to figure out how much oxygen there is in there, and inject the perfect amount of gasoline. Adding hydrogen will mean that some of the gas will actually not burn fully producing more carbon monoxide and soot.


*More about the cold tailpipe: Modern catalytic converters need to warm up to start working. Catalytic converters remove extra pollutants from the exhaust, if the tail pipe warm, neither is the Cat, and that means that it's not working and you're polluting more

*nothing this thing does could not be accomplished (much cheaper) with a tank of hydrogen.
posted by delmoi at 11:56 PM on September 17, 2005

I also find the inventor's statement that CN Rail spends 11 billion per year on fuel to be very uinlikely -- total revenues for CN are about 6 billion per year and they are making a nice profit out of that.

Usually, if something is too good to be true, it is. Stories like this come along, then, when they disappear they are grist for "the oil-companies are supressing the technology" conspiracy theorists...
posted by Rumple at 12:18 AM on September 18, 2005

delmoi: Plants also do the krebs cycle(?) thing which uses some of the CO2 they produce. Actually 2 molecules of carbon dioxide are created during the Krebs cycle, which actually only needs glucose and water to produce ATP.
posted by aardvarkratnik at 1:44 AM on September 18, 2005

delmoi: other than the issue about carbon dioxide, I agree with you that this "invention" is probably a scam or the like. It takes energy to perform this electrolysis. That energy comes from an alternator driven by the engine - which will have to work harder to produce the energy. Sounds like a loss of energy throughout the system beyond the issues you mentioned. It's an old rehash of the perpetual motion machine, IMHO.
posted by aardvarkratnik at 1:54 AM on September 18, 2005

Hmmm, whilst I'd like to believe this I have a couple of questions/points, please bear with me...:

Yer average car's ECU (Electronic Control Unit) controls the fuel injectors to open & close delivering an amount of fuel based on engine load requirements based on a 'lookup table' or map. The ignition timing is also mapped.

The ECU receives information on what the engine is being asked to do from a number of sensors, the primary ones being an Airflow Meter (or Manifold Air Pressure Sensor [MAP]), engine revs, throttle position, engine temperature and a lambda (air:fuel ratio) probe.

So, if the engine is doing x revs, the airflow/MAP sensor detects how much air y is entering the engine, the ECU tells the injectors how long to open and when the ignition is to fire. The target is the correct air:fuel ratio (lambda) for the operating conditions.

If you were to inject (distribute) the hydrogen into the engine, how is the ECU going to lean out its fuel map to compensate for the additional hydrocarbons being added? (and therefore give better economy)?

If you added hydrogen to most EFI vehicles the ECU may see a change in the air:fuel ratio as a result, but most vehicles do not operate on such a (closed loop) system and therefore would not vary the existing fuel map as required.

A programmable/or re-mapped ECU may be able to take advantage of the addition of the hydrogen, (as is sometimes done with LPG) but I am sceptical that this 'bolt on' modification would deliver as reported.

More info/testing required?
posted by fullysic at 2:21 AM on September 18, 2005

If this machine worked like it says in the article, I still don't see how it would make the Kyoto protocol obsolete.

I hope like fuck it works... and I'd get one if it does.... but it sounds like snake oil to me.

Another thought - wouldn't the initial application for something like this be more likely to be in gas-turbine power plants or something?
posted by pompomtom at 3:33 AM on September 18, 2005

This device is much cheaper, easier, and seems to achieve similar results under controlled testing. It essentially heats up the fuel as it is injected, ensuring more efficient combustion.
posted by Jimbob at 3:50 AM on September 18, 2005

Should also note that the Vapourate device I just linked to requires no additional driving energy from the engine to work it - it uses the existing engine heat to heat the fuel. I like it because it seems to produce nice results, without raising all the difficult questions the hydrogen device does.
posted by Jimbob at 3:53 AM on September 18, 2005

pracowity writes "And if the result is simple hydrogen and oxygen, technically you should be able to get the same results by buying compressed hydrogen and oxygen (it is injecting both?) retail in small tanks and injecting the hydrogen and oxygen into the fuel system just as this invention does. No one has tried that before?"

Um, I think the whole point is that actually transporting canisters of hydrogen is actually expensive and cumbersome. Although the device might be a little expensive in the short run, I'm pretty sure that as far as a source of hydrogen goes it's a fairly decent way to do it.

Also, the O2 would be a "pollutant" of sorts. It wouldn't be injected into the fuel system.

Also, once you start creating a system that carefully controls injecting the hydrogen, then you're adding enough complexity that it's close to the other machine. I mean, getting hydrogen from water is easy. Any kid can do that with two wires, a battery, a beaker, and a test tube. So using h2 tanks is not a real source of cost efficiency.
posted by Deathalicious at 4:11 AM on September 18, 2005

Electrolysis is easy - but energy intensive. As ardvarkratnik says, the energy to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen's got to come from somewhere.

Good, if true - but I don't think it's true.
posted by JB71 at 4:58 AM on September 18, 2005

What kind of crack are these writers smoking?

Perhaps the same kinda crack that people smoke when they talk about how wonderful the US Government is.

Even a perfict gasoline burn produces CO2. This will reduce harmful polutants like CO and soot (pure carbon) but it will increase the amount of greenhouse gas (CO2), not decrease it.

This device makes H2 for oxidation in the engine. Thus the Reaction is 2H2+O2 => 2 H2O. No where does this reaction INCREASE CO2.

Sheesh
posted by delmoi at 11:15 PM PST on September 17 [!]

Yea, Sheesh.
posted by rough ashlar at 5:42 AM on September 18, 2005

fullysic : Just about every gas powered vehicle manufactured today has at least 2 oxygen sensors, before and after the catalytic convertor, which measure the A/F ratio so that the ECU can adjust the fuel to be injected. Closed loop fuel control started in the early 80's, and was used even on carbureted engines.
posted by rfs at 5:50 AM on September 18, 2005

geoff. writes "If you consider my SUV an 'average truck'"

I think the guy was actually talking about those large semis that haul goods across the country...
posted by clevershark at 6:33 AM on September 18, 2005

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like the inventor doesn't want to use this to cut emissions, he wants to use it redistribute emissions. His idea is to be paid in credits and then sell those credits to other people who can use them to create the greenhouse gases that his customers would otherwise have produced.

Yeah that worried me too. I mean, that would make him a massive credit baron, giving him a vast influence on the economy. He could basically control the cost of emission credits at will.
posted by Hobbacocka at 7:52 AM on September 18, 2005

I think the idea here is just to burn more fuel in the cylinder and decrease unburned hydrocarbons. At least that is what we test for here, unburned hydrocarbons and NOX (JAPAN!).

I think The idea isn't to increase power by adding additional fuel... I don't know how hydrogen reacts inside in an engine... It basically sounds stupid. I am picturing VERY VERY VERY HOT running temps (oxygen, plus fuel, plus hydrogen). Maybe i will try it out on a 2 stroke I have laying around, but I highly doubt this will be at all effective... Also, tailpipes are always hot. Fuel + Air = Fire. Fire + Metal = HOT ASS PIECE OF METAL. I understand that heat is wasted energy... but PLEASE.

And what sort of chemical reaction would he be doing to make hydrogen? I vaguely remember hydrogen peroxide and potatoes or something to make hydrogen when i was in 10th grade. Sounds cheaper to me.

How is this going to conserve oil??

More realistically, is just plain old turbocharging... i think it was volvo or someone who put on small turbines that actually upped gas mileage... instead of making more power. You could fit a small one no problem to you car... then run the first open-source EFI ECU!
posted by KantoKing at 8:07 AM on September 18, 2005

>> I am picturing VERY VERY VERY HOT running temps
That's what I thought too. I'd want to know this wasn't going to cook my pistons/valves before using it.

biodiesel conversions sound a whole lot more feasible . I'm tempted to buy a diesel "beater" and try this out.
posted by login at 8:19 AM on September 18, 2005

Jesus, people! Have you all slept through physics and chemistry? There is so much bullshit in this article that I don't know where to begin. Anyone ever heard of Gibbs free energy? Conservation of matter and energy? Thermodynamics?

Most internal combustion engines operate at about 35 per cent efficiency. This means that only 35 per cent of the fuel is fully burned.

Yeah, so my ZJ has 13 gallons of raw gasoline coming out of the damn exhaust pipe per fill up. I was wondering where that smell was coming from!
posted by c13 at 8:39 AM on September 18, 2005

Hip hop etc does not directly stem from slavery. But it has roots in the non-family "institution;' of slavery...the rest follows. Jews are big in diamond trade...that stems from the time of attacks when they had to flee and could take only that which they could jam in pockets. (and they were not allowed to own land)...read history and thin rather than jump at some contemporary thing and sayP: see Those peole are such and such
posted by Postroad at 9:06 AM on September 18, 2005

Maybe the hydrogen dude should get together with this guy.
posted by greatgefilte at 9:26 AM on September 18, 2005

The battery does the electrolysis, the engine charges the battery by burning gasoline, this decreases the overall efficiency of the engine. Now I suppose you could charge the battery at home, but then why not just have an electric car. As to combustion efficiency, an engine uses 100's of cubic liters of air per minute, the gas generated by the electrolysis of that tiny amount of water would not change ratios of gases in a detectable way. Besides, adding hydrogen increases pollution (richens the mixture), unless you also add oxygen, in which case it's a wash (just adds water).
posted by 445supermag at 9:38 AM on September 18, 2005

Apart from all the other valid critcisms of the bad science in the linked article already mentioned... If you add hydrogen to the fuel-air mix entering the cylinder, I suspect you're going to significantly change the way it burns. Petrol engines are designed to burn petrol and air only. The fuel-air mix doesn't just explode any old how in the cylinder. Engine companies have spent lots of research and design resources to control exactly how the fuel burns across the cylinder. It all happens very quickly, but it's still a controlled burn started by the spark plug. Adding hydrogen to the mix is inevitably going to change the nature of that burn behaves. I'm no combustion chemist, but assuming all else is valid about this idea (bad assumption), I'm having a hard time believing this technology could be retrofitted to any old petrol engine without causing detonation, timing, or other severe engine performance problems. An engine requires specific design for the fuel it's going to burn.
posted by normy at 9:39 AM on September 18, 2005

Oh, and as a physical chemist, I have an urge to club that journalist with a statuette of Gibbs for putting out such self-evident nonsense.
posted by 445supermag at 9:43 AM on September 18, 2005

And we only use 10% of our brains.... Which is, of course, BS.

Maybe we could mount this the the undercarriage of our cars.
posted by eperker at 9:59 AM on September 18, 2005

Deathalicious: Um, I think the whole point is that actually transporting canisters of hydrogen is actually expensive and cumbersome.

No, the whole point is to make cars burn gas more efficiently using, in this case, hydrogen and oxygen added to the combustion chamber. Assuming (heh) the method works as he says, I'm saying that instead of carrying the source materials (spiked water of some sort, which also would be expensive and cumbersome) and equipment (his expensive patented box in every vehicle), I bet you could do it as efficiently with a canister of hydrogen and a canister of oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen could be manufactured and bottled much more efficiently at a central place and be distributed (swapped out with empty bottles) at the gas station.
posted by pracowity at 11:21 AM on September 18, 2005

It appears that this hydrogen doping is valid technology, if the existence of Hy-Drive is testimony. They claim 15%-25% increase in fuel efficiency. In their brochure, they make these claims:

“Our studies have indicated an up to 80% reduction of particulate matter, an up to 46% reduction of nitrous-oxide emissions and a staggering reduction of up to 98% of carbon monoxide emissions.”

The device adds a small amount of hydrogen to the air supply entering the engine, and they claim that it is 100 percent OEM compatible, i.e. it won't screw up sensors and the like.

This is the same company that said Joe Williams Sr. is a snake oil salesman.
posted by luckypozzo at 11:22 AM on September 18, 2005

It is very difficult to carry hydrogen in tanks because of the risk of explosion, especially during a collision. One advantage of these machines is that they don't carry that risk because they make hydrogen on demand.
posted by luckypozzo at 11:25 AM on September 18, 2005

It seems to me that the addition of some hydrogen to the fuel/air mix will have the effect of increasing the combustion temperature primarily. The hotter burn may be more efficient in converting any unburned gasoline into heat, but none of this will reduce the CO2 produced by the combustion process. It is that CO2 that the Kyoto protocol seeks to address.

What this device probably claims to be doing (despite a writer who didn't get it all) is increasing the efficiency of the conversion of fuel to heat and heat to mechanical motion (raise the mpg). It is that improvement in mpg, and thereby the burning of less fuel, which leads to reduced CO2 and Kyoto credits. In addition, high operating temperatures reduce the other pollutants like SOx and NOx.

It is worth noting, however, that some of the big auto companies, and others (like Garret), spent fortunes on trying to make a ceramic engine block that would permit higher combustion temperatures. Ford even claimed, several decades ago, that given a high enough operating temperature, they could deliver a "Thunderbird that would get better than 100 mpg!). The problem is reliability. Valves, rings, cylinder walls and many more things die much more quickly at those elevated temperatures so that maintenance costs skyrocket.

The result has been to engineer the combustion temperature to be as high as possible without damaging valves, rings, etc. and move the high temperature part to the catalytic converter where it removes the pollutants. The converter, however, is incapable of doing anything about the CO2, and hence Kyoto.

So it appears that the trade-off in this hydrogen injector will be primarily engine reliability and life.

I,too, smell fishiness, however. The cold tailpipe, if really true, leads me to suspect that the real exhaust gasses are either being partly re-directed or scrubbed. A critical reporter needs not only to look under the hood, but under the car as well!
posted by RMALCOLM at 11:30 AM on September 18, 2005

truth be told, I'd rather just buy a DVD player! I love watching DVDs.
posted by mcsweetie at 11:40 AM on September 18, 2005

If you really care, buy a vehicle with a diesel engine and run Biodiesel. Our 2001 VW Jetta TDI gets 50+ MPG and runs domestically produced Biodiesel.
posted by potuncle at 11:46 AM on September 18, 2005

It amazes me how many people never quite get that plants are aerobic organisms.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:57 AM on September 18, 2005

RMALCOLM: high operating temperatures reduce the other pollutants like SOx and NOx.

Um.. that's wrong. NOx emissions increase exponentially with combustion temperature. That's why car engines have exhaust-gas-recirculation valves - to lower the operating temperature.
posted by Popular Ethics at 12:02 PM on September 18, 2005

And there was a big discussion a few months ago here on mefi... Hydrogen leaks from any container given time (Boils off i think), it has to be kept cold or it evaporates... NEAT. Kind of makes you not want to carry it in the trunk. a Real "use-it-or-lose-it" deal.

I call BS. But i am gonna try this.
posted by KantoKing at 12:12 PM on September 18, 2005

luckypozzo: It is very difficult to carry hydrogen in tanks because of the risk of explosion, especially during a collision.

Not necessarily: "BMW conducted numerous crash tests to see what would happen if the hydrogen tank was punctured or damaged. Their engineers report the liquid hydrogen dissipated harmlessly into the air."

And remember, the car we're talking about in this thread would be powered primarily by gasoline, not hydrogen. The hydrogen would be an additive and therefore not carried in great quantities.
posted by pracowity at 1:31 PM on September 18, 2005

i'm with mcsweetie. dvd's are awesome! you guys see all the extras you get these days? my copy of "cat in the hat" had an audio commentary track from alec baldwin! viva techmology!
posted by Hat Maui at 1:54 PM on September 18, 2005

The story of the maverick inventor who finds a way to make cars run on water (or partially on water in this case) is as old as cars. Why do people still fall for this?

In a modern, properly-tuned car (and electronic fuel system controls make modern cars basically self-tuning) combustion of the fuel is very nearly as complete as can be - over 95%. There just isn't room for a significant improvement there.

Gasoline is mostly hydrogen. As soon as the spark plug fires, there's plenty of hydrogen in the combustion chamber. What benefit could adding a little hydrogen to the fuel have?

If one wanted to increase the combustion temperature, it's as easy as leaning out the fuel/air mixture a little bit - a relative overabundance of oxygen makes the gasoline burn faster and hotter, and in the process makes more NOx, which is why the "check engine" light comes on if your car is running lean. The higher temperatures can also damage the valves.

The automotive industry is not an anti-competitive cabal, whatever other nasty things it may be. There are thousands of very clever scientists and engineers who would have been all over something like this if it was worthwhile.
posted by Western Infidels at 2:12 PM on September 18, 2005

... a canister of hydrogen and a canister of oxygen.

All else aside, and for reasons I've never been able to fully grasp, canisters of hydrogen are commercially non-viable as a means of transporting fuel for a hydrogen vehicle. That's why the hydrogen fuel efforts to date have all been obsessed with some variation on storing hydrogen chemically, in solids.

There seems to be this idea out there that hydrogen tanks might explode. (Unlike, say, gasoline tanks, which never detonate explosively [sarcasm /].) [on prev: ... um, what pracowity said.]

From what i understand, it might be more dangerous to transport oxygen gas than hydrogen gas.
posted by lodurr at 2:24 PM on September 18, 2005

lodurr: Well, one of the problems is that hydrogen is highly reactive, reducing the operational lifespan of such tanks by a good amount. But then again, gasoline isn't all that explosive either, it just burns nicely. Hollywood has tended to exaggerate the results for effect.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 3:11 PM on September 18, 2005

It is wrong to assume Big Oil is against fuel economy. This simply isn't the case. You do not have to look very far to see how this works in America. Plenty of gasoline and cheap prices are very attractive to the the producers because the more we have, the more we want. America has a lust for gasoline and no amount of fuel economy will soften that I am afraid.
posted by shockingbluamp at 8:05 PM on September 18, 2005

Also debunked (faster) at Slashdot.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/18/1638204&tid=187&tid=14
posted by hank at 7:59 AM on September 19, 2005