The Ultimate cell fuel saver

[kschachn]

Lmao, you are arguing against yourself, not me.

Hydrogen as a motor fuel is a very good fuel, why would you think any different? Your only product of combustion is water vapor, it would be a very clean fuel. I have never said nor have I ever implied that it was "found not to work". Where have you ever seen that?

You do have a problem storing it though, since it is a gas (and cannot be liquefied at any reasonable pressure or temperature) then the volumetric efficiency is going to be low - as it is for any gaseous fuel. Liquid fuels are always going to have the advantage in that respect.

The most serious problem though is where are you going to get it? If you have a hydrogen well somewhere, like you have for natural gas then you might make a go of it. But making it from water using the vehicle's electrical system? That's where it all falls apart.

And yes fuel injection systems take energy but you get more efficient fuel consumption (not as much unburned hydrocarbon). But once again, you continue to confuse increasing the efficiency of an ICE (up to the Carnot limit) with this device. You're not gaining efficiency by adding a miniscule amount of hydrogen gas to the system, especially when your energy cost to produce the hydrogen is so onerous.

 

[kschachn]

And yes, I am.

Originally Posted By: supton
I'm pointing out that you're dismissing it simply because of "energy in, energy out" argument.

 

[supton]

It's a lousy automobile fuel. Clean burning, yes. Needs to be stored at ridiculous pressure in order to get decent energy density? Yes. Highly explosive? Hydrogen embrittlement? Losses in compressing it to be reasonably dense? Hydrogen is a battery technology, and IMO a pretty lousy one at that. Which implies to me that it's a lousy automobile fuel.

*

Fine, what metric do you want to call mpg?

 

[SLATRON]

There are many types of fuel cells, hydrogen being the most basic, cheap n definitely not an answer for dramtic personal car efficiency .
Fuels cells advancement and utilization has been mostly in buildings; hospitals, data centers, schools, factories, & massive transportation units ie; ocean liners, trains, & military/Govt equipment.
Hydrogen is a very basic and old technology, the type first shown to high schoolers to peak an interest. Its obviously not a game changer for automobiles

 

[Fleetmon]

I agree....my experience with the buses showed it was not a good, viable means of stretching fuel dollars. It did work but at a tremendous expense of expensive alternators amounting to a replacement about every other week. Next came electric turbochargers that, while producing plenty of almost instantaneous boost, again greatly reduced alternator life and the turbos themselves suffered very short lives in true bus operations.

Currently, the newest craze, after the hybrid fad which turned out to be a bust, is electric buses....the problem is they must stop at quick-chargers for ten minutes out of every hour.

Hydrogen fuel cells may eventually become a reality but it is destined to fail without an infrastructure of hydrogen stations across the US and the vehicles fall to a reasonable price rather than the $1.2M they seem to hover around.

Me? I'll stick with diesel.

 

[kschachn]

Electric turbochargers? Nice, I had never heard of those before. Isn't the whole idea behind a turbocharger that you get the energy for "free" from the waste exhaust heat?

An electric turbocharger would be like a supercharger but with one extra energy conversion step in between (rather than getting your energy directly from the crankshaft).

Originally Posted By: Fleetmon
I agree....my experience with the buses showed it was not a good, viable means of stretching fuel dollars. It did work but at a tremendous expense of expensive alternators amounting to a replacement about every other week. Next came electric turbochargers that, while producing plenty of almost instantaneous boost, again greatly reduced alternator life and the turbos themselves suffered very short lives in true bus operations.

Currently, the newest craze, after the hybrid fad which turned out to be a bust, is electric buses....the problem is they must stop at quick-chargers for ten minutes out of every hour.

Hydrogen fuel cells may eventually become a reality but it is destined to fail without an infrastructure of hydrogen stations across the US and the vehicles fall to a reasonable price rather than the $1.2M they seem to hover around.

Me? I'll stick with diesel.

 

[The_Eric]

Fleetmon, do you have any experience with large flywheels for bus use? Have they proven to be a reliable, economical way to increase fuel economy?

 

[Fleetmon]

@ kschashn - the electric turbos were a product called Turbodyne. The intent was to provide boost quicker so the throttle delay on, particularly 6N71T, engines would be minimized for quicker throttle response with minimal smoke. The throttle delays back in the day waited until boost was sensed before more fuel was allowed....more air (boost) allowed more fuel with minimal smoke which was something that was very undesirable in city environments. Older t/delays activated via oil pressure. Turbodyne was a good experiment but 80k - 100k RPM electric turbos require lots of juice and very precise operating environments. The turbos would spool up almost instantaneous.

@ The_Eric - no, no experience with momentum flywheels although I worked on a boat one time that had a similar system although much older.

We were always experimenting with something back then including turbine engines (slow acceleration and difficulty stopping), fuel warmers (??? - what was the inventor thinking?), fuel lines to line up fuel molecules (again...???), biodiesel, and anything else that came along. In the end, diesel once again proved it's best.

 

[jrustles]

Originally Posted By: kschachn
I don't know how many more ways to put it. This would be exactly like taking carbon dioxide and water vapor and synthesizing gasoline for combustion. You're taking the low energy, already oxidized combustion products and remaking the fuel. It won't work that way.

The only way it works is to take an already high-energy and essentially free energy source (solar, wind, wave, mined, etc.) and use that as your source. Use the second law of thermodynamics to your favor - reap the benefits of moving to a high entropy state, don't try and walk uphill. You aren't going to win.


How about using an exhaust manifold made of Peltier cells or an electric turbine generator coupled to the exhaust (turbo for efficiency, not power

) to fund the energy requirements for electrolysis, and perhaps using high voltages off a regenerative braking system, rather than trying to re-stuff a battery at irregular rates of current generation, a small amount that the battery cell can actually accept in that time, and foregoing all of the reconversion losses associated with that process-- and use the energy instead to directly break down water?

Too complicated? Pshaw!

 

[kschachn]

Complicated or not, I will leave it up to you to calculate the energy requirement to generate sufficient hydrogen to power the vehicle. You might want to use something other than water though for your starting material however

Originally Posted By: jrustles
How about using an exhaust manifold made of Peltier cells or an electric turbine generator coupled to the exhaust (turbo for efficiency, not power

) to fund the energy requirements for electrolysis, and perhaps using high voltages off a regenerative braking system, rather than trying to re-stuff a battery at irregular rates of current generation, a small amount that the battery cell can actually accept in that time, and foregoing all of the reconversion losses associated with that process-- and use the energy instead to directly break down water?

Too complicated? Pshaw!

 

[kschachn]

Actually there is a pretty good way to store hydrogen for use in a motor vehicle. This method is compact and convenient, and would rely heavily on existing infrastructure for storage and distribution. In addition, no modifications would be required for nearly all vehicles currently on the road. All you have to do is react the hydrogen with carbon, and make C-C chains in the eight to maybe 20 carbon range. Perfect

Originally Posted By: supton
It's a lousy automobile fuel. Clean burning, yes. Needs to be stored at ridiculous pressure in order to get decent energy density? Yes. Highly explosive? Hydrogen embrittlement? Losses in compressing it to be reasonably dense? Hydrogen is a battery technology, and IMO a pretty lousy one at that. Which implies to me that it's a lousy automobile fuel.

 

[jrustles]

Originally Posted By: kschachn
I will leave it up to you to calculate the energy requirement to generate sufficient hydrogen to power the vehicle.


to power the whole thing from hydrogen alone?
i just wanted to recover wasted energy

 

[Shannow]

Built a hydrogen plant some years ago, and the electrical input to produce H2 is staggering...such that if you burn it in an IC engine, the cycle is worse than woeful...

If you want to use the waste heat, there's sufficient of it to crack fuel nd steam to H2 and CO in the "water gas" reaction, and fuel the engine on that...I reckon Smokey was probably cracking the fuel in his hot vapor cycle engines.

 

[kschachn]

Ahha, well then you would be better off installing a turbocharger, right? They do make it more efficient.

Originally Posted By: jrustles
Originally Posted By: kschachn
I will leave it up to you to calculate the energy requirement to generate sufficient hydrogen to power the vehicle.


to power the whole thing from hydrogen alone?
i just wanted to recover wasted energy

 

[kschachn]

286 kJ per mol to be exact. Decomposing oxides is never easy.

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Built a hydrogen plant some years ago, and the electrical input to produce H2 is staggering...