To all of you chemists... MPG Product

If you've got 10 minutes to spare, check this website out and lemme know what you think of the product.
http://www.energyusingwater  com/
(I am not endorsing this site AT ALL. Nor am I trying to sell these. It's just much easier for me to paste a weblink than to explain it)
I could care less about the business end of it. But does it make any sense... chemically or other wise? I couldn't even find the cost to purchase. If its under $300 and increases at least 15% on the highway alone... it would pay for itself real quick for me (I get my 3000mi oil changes done right at 2 months)... so we drive alot.

Just let me know what ya think. My father's tried selling those EnergyCell super magnet things and I noticed ZERO gain from it so... is this a similar fluke?

You don't have to be a chemist to see this is a bunch of BS. It's your typical snake oil salesman. Just like those Tornado things that you're suppposed to put in your air intake to increase air flow, or those gas suppliments you put into your tank that supposedly increase your MPG.

This is actually quite humorous reading it.

Baking soda as a catalyst with water? no.
Using a mason jar as a vaporizer... no.
Bungee cords as "installation hardware"? no.

LOL to the bungee cord thing... hahahhaa

I'm pretty interested in HHO systems too.  I haven't seen a credible test for either side of the arguement.  I'd expect it to help MPG a little.

To everyone, HHO is not a gas, lol. "HHO" is simply a mixture of H2 (hydrogen gas) and O2 (oxygen gas) and would technically be named HHOO or even HOHO is you wanted because both hydrogen and oxygen are diatomic and always travel in pairs if they're not bound to something else. Also, even though they have an electric current breaking up the water molecules, there is nothing preventing the hydrogen and oxygen from bonding back together and condensing as water once again!

quote:


1 quart/1 Litre of water (see photo) may last for MONTHS of driving (900 miles in my experience). How come? That's because this small device forces each Gallon of water to expand into gigantic proportions: 1833 Gallons of combustible gas!!!

While it's true that, yes, 1L of H2O does contain 1,180L of combustible H2 and 589L of O2 over time. If you've ever done DNA gel electrophoresis in biology/genetics, you know that the electrolysis of tap water produces very little hydrogen at the cathode and oxygen at the anode, and that's at a standard 120V, think of how slow that would be at 12V.... that's 10x slower at the same amperage.
 
It takes 21 kJ of energy just to break one mole of H-O bonds and there are two moles of them PER mole of water. So that's 42 kJ already subtracted from your net energy just to convert the elements into a form that a combustion engine can use. Subtract 42 kJ from the 286 kJ/mol available from hydrogen gas and you have 244 kJ of usable energy from one mole of H2 gas or 12,800 kJ per 1L of hydrogen gas. Compare that to the 146,000 kJ available energy from 1L of regular gasoline.


Using a measly 15A power draw to power this whole apparatus, to bring down energy consumption and for overall practicality, only gives us 216W to work with the car on and running at 14.4V. It would take 16.5 hours of driving to convert 1 liter of water to hydrogen and oxygen at a rate of a whopping 13 kJ/min. That's roughly .00165 kJ per injection.

For my car I get about 31 mpg on average, I've gotten 34 before. Theoretically, my car has a range of approx. 530 miles per tank (17.1 gal). That's about 8.2 miles per liter (64.7L) Through a long list on calculations I've narrowed my fuel consumption down to 2.20e-5L/injection. Probably very innaccurate, but very precise indeed! With gasoline's energy content of 146,000 kJ/L, that's approx. 3.21 kJ/injection. With the addition of hydrogen from your wonderful *fuel saving* apparatus at .00165 kJ/injection, that's a whole 5/100% better fuel economy!!!!!

So, in summary, you spend 216W of power from your alternator which is created by the gas you're trying to save to put 153 more watts into your engine? That's a net loss of 63W.

And of course you would need to use platinum electrodes to do all of this since using iron, steel, stainless steel would likely result in you plating or eroding the metal.

Saltwater increases the conductivity of water, so that would help speed things up a tiny bit.

I was bored and thought you guys would like some mindless dimensional analysis and chemistry for your morning. Like I said, probably innaccurate, but very precise! <- Other nerds should understand that little joke.

The system supposedly improves MPG by helping with atomization by decreasing surface tension.  If there were a net energy gain, we'd be running our cars completely off this thing as well as everything else! ..... but then again, breaking the laws of physics might be a bad thing ..... kinda like crossing the streams when you're catching ghosts.

Surface tension of what? I didn't have time to read through it, I just figured it was another one of those run-your-car-on-hydrogen-via-electrolysis gizmos.

It is, but the idea is that the hydrogen enriched air allows the gas to atomize better.

I don't think .00002197L of STP H2 added to a .5/.53/.55/.58/.59L cylinder is going to make anything "atomize" better. You're going to have even less hydrogen at higher engine temperature than STP.

I'm a bit skeptical about these systems too, but until I can fully understand how it can or can't work, it interests me.

Surface tension of liquid gasoline in air (among other things) controls the predominant droplet size in the spray.  Smaller is better, because that's better surface:volume ratio.  You have to evaporate that gasoline before you can burn it.  So anything that gives more surface area is better.
 
But...  it still smells like snake oil to me.  I find it hard to belive that a very small molfraction of H2 in the air will have much affect on atomization & evaporation.  Fuel pressure & the details of nozzle design would be way more important here.  Ya think a little company like Honda would have tried higher pressure & different nozzles in their R&D departments?
 

In short, that device will not increase your gas mlieage.  If you think it will, you'll probably be helped by one of these, too: http://www.qray.com/
 
But here's an idea that will lead to real energy savings. 
 
First, get some aftermarket brake/electic generators (you know, they're in those hybrid cars) and install them on your car's wheels.  Then pile a few hundred pounds of storage batteries in your trunk and "hook up" the electric output from the brakes to the batteries. (The batteries are a completely separate circuit from the regular automotive battery in the front of the car, of course). Install a 120v inverter on the storage battery arrary's 12V output.  Whenever you hit the brakes, you'll be charging the array of batteries.  Do you have to endure stop and go traffic to and from work? Good. The more, the better!
 
Second, remove the rear seat(s) and install in its place an insulated tank that will hold 400 or 500 lbs of antifreeze solution.  "Install" in the tank a coil of copper tubing that will carry engine coolant to and from the engine.  "Hook up" the cars cooling system so that hot engine coolant will pass through the coil in the tank.  The engine will heat the water in the tank - "for free"!  (You decide on how hot you want to let the water in the tank get.  You'll probably have to keep the windows rolled down, even during the winter.)
 
Third, remove one of the walls of your living room and install in its place a well-insulated garage door.
 
Now you're ready for some energy savings!
 
During the home-heating months, after that long trip from work, drive the car right into your living room (don't block your view of the TV).  The engine and other hot metal on the car, as well as the hot water in the tank, will put into the home a remarkable amount of heat, and therefore reduce the amount of energy necessary to heat the house.
 
At all times of the year, you can connect any electically-powered device to the inverter connection on the car and use the power generated by stopping the vehicle that is stored in those batteries.  The longer you drive to and from work, and the more batteries you stick in the car, the more power you'll have stored for use at home!
 
There!  Let me know how it turns out.
 
Seriously, though, during Energy Crisis I, I beleive it was Volvo that made a stand-alone, diesel-engine-based "energy unit" that would sit in the basement of a home or business.  The engine drove a high-quality electric generator that would power any electical device in use at the time, but also charge an array of storage batteries. 
 
The engine's "cooling system" included a large heat-sink. I think it was a 600 gal plastic tank filled with water. 
 
The engine was either 2 or 3 cylinders and was extemely efficient so the conversion of the energy in the diesel fuel to electrical energy was as good as it gets.
 
The system was supposed to run for just enough time to charge the batteries and heat the water in the tank.  Then the home would use the electricity in the batteries to run things, and the hot water in the tank would be used to heat the house.  The heated engine block itself would also radiate heat into the living space.
 
Of course how often the engine would run would be determined by how fast the batteries ran down and the water cooled, so the more efficient the use of the electricty and water, the less frequently the engine would run.  During the winter, if the water cooled off faster than the batteries would discharge, one could connect an electric heater and the batteries would drain much more quickly.  Etc.
 
The thing that makes the Volvo system more attractive nowadays is those added exhorbitant fees that electricity and natural gas providers tack onto monthy bills.  If one can disconnect from those services, those exhorbitant extra fees go bye bye.
 
Of course if you live in a windy or sunny place, wind turbines and solar cells and solar heaters can reduce the need to be connected to a service provider.

the fact is that the amount of energy the alternator needs to create to sustain the reaction in the water would be less than the amount of power generated by the combination (explosion) of hydrogen, oxygen, and gasoline, as engines only transfer about 25% of the explosive energy into the pistons (eventually ending up to the wheels)
also, sorry to be the chemistry police finch, but your equations are off a bit. the breakdown of water into hydrogen and oxygen is like this:

2H20 + e- = 4H + 2O + e-

one idea however would be to charge an array of batteries in the trunk from your household current, then use that instead of the alternator to power the electrolysis. When you get home, just plug the batteries back in. not sure how well that would work though.


EDIT: let me share a few quotes from this guys website:

quote:

SAFETY FIRST: First thing you have to understand is there are NO safety hazards - this system is SAFE. Yes, pure Hydrogen that is dangerous. And it is dangerous to store it in high-pressure tanks. But we do NOT generate Hydrogen, you see, we generate HHO. The presence of Oxygen and water vapor in our system makes HHO very safe! Yes, HHO is a powerful combustible gas. But it's NOT explosive like pure Hydrogen. It does NOT need cooling and will be ignited only by the strong spark inside your engine.

wait wait wait... the presence of oxygen makes an explosve gas (explosive because it combines with oxygen) SAFER? the mixture of oxygen gas and hydrogen gas ("HHO") is one of the most explosve gasses around.

quote:

These facts are not obvious. In every street corner you'll find an expert or two who may have listened to their schoolteacher but have never TOUCHED this technology. The only way to know:
(1) Don't listen to anybody!
(2)...

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Water cools down the engine. For years, heavy trucks have been using water injection systems that cost up to $15,000 to cool their engines. Truck owners are very sensitive to maintenance expenses and they know from years of experience that water reduces their breakdowns and overall operating costs. We do the same - affordably.

HHO =/= water

also, this "map sensor enhancer" is bull. It basically intercepts the line going from the map sensor to the ECU and throws a couple of variable resistors in there, basically splitting the already split voltage from the sensor, allowing you to increase or decrease the map sensors reading.

his "vaporizor" is basically a bong. literally, thats exactly what it is, except instead of smoke it uses the gas produced from electrolysis.

the fuel heater is just a brass fitting thats spliced into the fuel line and zip-tied to the upper radiator hose, then your supposed to wrap aluminum foil around the two.


Putting a device like the water4gas thing into your gasoline engine wont particularly hurt anything, however putting it into a diesel is outright dangerous for the engine. diesels have extremely high compression because the fuel is injected directly into the cylinder around TDC, then the compression and heat allow the fuel to ignite by itself (without a spark). however using a system like this sprays fuel into the engine in the intake manifold. the high compression/heat will ignite the "HHO" before the diesel fuel is injected, giving the diesel less oxygen in the combustion chamber, increasing the engines temperature, and causing an effect similar to that of engine knock (detonation)

Okay, so we are all agreeing that the MPG product that was first questioned about, is not a real big help?

Here's an energy saver that anyone could use:

http://www.sungrabber.net/solar-hot-water-heater-how-it-works.html

quote:

ORIGINAL: falkore24

Here's an energy saver that anyone could use:

http://www.sungrabber.net/solar-hot-water-heater-how-it-works.html

i went to china few months ago and you see those on just about every single house / apt building there. their everywhere.

They are an awesome idea!  You can retrofit any hot water heater through the drain.

however the ones in china (and most other retail ones) are significantly different.
heres a picture I took while I was there: http://nafango.org/pics/solarWaterHeater.jpg

same idea ..... the one that I posted is a retrofit for any normal hot water heater or storage tank.  Another good idea is to use a tank rather than a heater with an indirect heating coil fed by the house boiler.  For the most part, as you combine heating or cooling systems, they gain efficiency.