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Hydrogen brown gas generator

I was searching for a small hydrogen gas generator on line, and stumbled onto this.

People on e-bay are advertising hydrogen generators that supposededly increase the fuel efficiency of your car. Unfortunately they work like this:

you place a small cylinder containing distilled water and a small amount of baking soda. The cylinder also houses two electrodes which hook to your car's battery. The car splits the water into oxygen and hydrogen which then travel to your cars vacuum hose. People are actually claiming to see increased gas milage.

by: bscar 05/13/2008 6:42:32 PM
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
by: meathead 05/21/2008 7:38:38 PM
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i went to this link and it didnt tell me why....
by: majpops 05/12/2008 7:21:11 AM
Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
This discussion seems to have been carried on on behalf of me. I personnaly started investigating the idea of a hydrogen generator and called my personal friend sderekh to explore its possiblities. I came to look at the discussion and I must say that much of the discussion seems to be emotionally based rather than objective or experience based. There are some good points made but the best observation I see is that I have a true friend in sderekh who is willing to endure the harrassment in search of hard evidence. In the end I may conclude that it is not a good fuel saving option but just hearing anonymous oppinions doesn't really help make a good decision. If you can share the science to support or debunk it, great, or if you can share your experience having used it great. Everything else is little more than an oppinion based on who knows what. For many long years it was thought that man could not fly and many reasons (oppinions) were given to justify it. Many who tried to prove it could be done were considered "fools" as they failed in their efforts to prove otherwise. Still some refused to disbelieve in the possibility and eventually now we all know that only a fool would believe man cannot fly. I don't know where Hydrogen Generators will end up in the long run...just be careful who you lable a fool.
by: JoeMario 05/12/2008 7:58:26 AM
Re: Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
The assertion that electrolysis requires more energy to produce hydrogen than the resulting hydrogen energy you get is something that many of us learned from our college physics courses. Others learned it from reading similar materials.

Many of the replies in this thread are based with such laws of physics in mind. Is that what you're questioning?

by: meathead 05/21/2008 7:18:32 PM
Re: Re: Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
yes I have heard this too, that is why solar farms could be made to run off of sunlight to separate the water into its two gasses...but if we had super solar cells that I heard we might have that are flexible and can be mounted anywhere, these could be painted onto the vehicle itself making the whole surface of the car a solar generator, much like the solar cars you seen in popular mechanics or pop science, this super cells could electrolyze the water as you drive it down the road and direct the gasses right into a fuel cell that produces enough electricity from the gas to move the engine, but maybe the solar cells are so super they dont need to do that and can directly drive the electic motor from the power of the sunlight alone without the need to make hydrogen? Isnt this what the racing solar cell cars did in fact do? A hybrid solar, water, hydrogen car could be concieved out of these technologies....and even make it so a fuel cell isnt needed at all in the process. Something to think about.
by: ok4450 05/12/2008 9:35:06 AM
Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
Eventually something like this may be practical. At the moment it does not exist and the problem is not that anyone is totally dismissing the concept.

The problem is that your "personal dear friend" sdkerekh (in cahoots on this forum?) is promoting something as existing and viable at the moment.
As Joe Mario mentions you seem to be willing to overlook a few things; as in we don't need no stinkin' physics.

Majpops and sdkerekh, things would be simpler on us, you, and this forum if you would spend your own money on one of these things and motor on forever by simply filling up at the water hose.
In the time it takes to make one post here you could have logged on to any one of dozens of sites with credit card in hand and ordered one of these amazing devices.

Install it and snicker at us for the rest of your life. Would that not be much simpler than posting against a bunch of heretics?
by: sderekh 05/13/2008 7:11:56 PM
Re: Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
I started this post in the hopes of getting objective information about systems that claim to get increased fuel economy from hydrogen produced by electroylsis. I also hoped to find information about an actual test. My research has lead me to believe there has NOT been such a test.
There have been many people who have given me some objective rational reasons they believe the system would not work. The two arguments that make the most sense to me are 1. You would lose any gains from the hydrogen because of the increased load to produce the electricity to produce the electroylsis. 2. The amound of hyrdrogen produced would be very small. 3. The information from this site: "http://mb-soft.com/public2/hydrogen.html" (copy and paste to your browser).
I was disappointed by the number of people who took instead of using rational arguments, instead resorted to insults, insinuations and outright accusations.
by: ok4450 05/13/2008 10:50:49 PM
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Buy one, install it, and ignore the heretics. Problem solved.
In the time this thread has gone on you could have already been the proud owner of one of these miracle workers.
by: cappy208 05/12/2008 9:47:59 AM
Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
it is NOT up to anyone here to prove this theory wrong. the correct way to deal with this is to prove it RIGHT.

i am thinking that this website is NOT the place to come looking for approval of an untried, unproven system.

go yonder and find a website which delves into these ideas.

this is NOT the web site you are looking for.
by: jsutter 05/12/2008 9:56:36 AM
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Cappy208 is secretly the CarTalk Jedi "This is not the website you are looking for." :)
by: laurencitaND05 05/13/2008 11:06:22 PM
Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
Well, here's the rub, and maybe a free lesson learned by me that you won't have to, sderekh! [posted on the other thread, too]

I had actually posted a question to Car Talk about this last weekend, because I figured if these guys knew anything about it then I would trust them. I was genuinely curious about this option (found online, had been looking for something else) and unfortunately I impulse-bought a document "detailing" how to put together a machine/contraption that would do this. My first think-through made sense, but granted I also could not find a source that I trusted to tell me one way or another. Hence I wrote on these boards (thank you Click & Clack).

However, I was set right -- it won't work nearly enough to make it worth the while is my impression -- and I have re-learned the lesson not to take anything on the web at face value... ESPECIALLY when the webdesign is so gawdawful.

So for the benefit of all, in hopes of getting at least an entertaining return on the $45 I dropped on this, I'm uploading the document with the hopes that I can disseminate it far & wide and get my "revenge" that way.

Sort of like the 'Neiman-marcus cookie' recipe story, although I think that was just a story.

Please spread far & wide!!!
Download Run_a_Car_on_Water.pdf
Filesize: 2669 Kbytes
Downloaded: 192 time(s)

by: md2b2k7 05/14/2008 1:34:43 PM
Re: Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
I am a high school chemistry teacher and we recently started discussing alternate fuels. We also made batteries and did electrolysis of water. During the process we ran across the HHO, Hydrogen on-demand generators.

At first I thought hydrogen (produced by water split by electrolysis as in our experiment using a 9V battery) gas was used as an alternative fuel source. Then the following newscast was aired, showing that the Hydrogen and oxygen actually provide a cleaner burning environment in the combustion chamber. http://www...9c4bb13a28 They did an investigative report and found a 60% increase in fuel efficiency after one month as proven by a dynamometer.

My mechanic will not install the one I purchased from eBay. He installed several back in 1975 and they did increase gas mileage, but he said that the valve seals got destroyed due to the high heat. I'm trying to get information to see if anyone has this on long-term and experienced problems with the valve seals.
by: NYBo 05/14/2008 5:08:06 PM
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Interesting link. Too bad it's a load of BS:

Modern combustion engines burn something like 97% or 98% of the gas delivered to the cylinders, not the 85% the makers of the magic device are quoted as claiming.

The reporter says the fuel economy of the test vehicle rose from 9.4 MPG to 23.2 MPG, for an increase of 61%. Um, according to my calculator, that's actually an increase of 248%, which is complete nonsense.

Therefore, I can only conclude that the linked page is totally bogus or the t.v folks were taken in by the con artists.

As a chemistry teacher, you should know better.
by: bscar 05/14/2008 7:22:29 PM
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Silly NYBo, you should know 96.578% of the statistics are made up 87.5624% of the time.

:P
by: 2manycats 05/14/2008 5:55:56 PM
Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
Theoretically, mathematically, yeah, it works. But the amount of hydrogen it produces is so miniscule that the gasoline savings is not worth mentioning. Being said, also remember that any weight-ANY weight on a car requires fuel to move that weight. This gizmo weighs SOMETHING (doesn't matter if it's only one pound-it still has weight). Any piddly 'extra' boost the mileage may get is more than eaten up by the weight of this thing (not to mention the initial cost, which you will never recover through gas savings). If you want to be cool and say you're helping the environment or something like that-then go for it, you're not going to hurt anything. If you're thinking it's going to help with your gas mileage, then I'm afraid you're wasting your time and money.
by: chadthornburgh 05/20/2008 1:47:49 PM
Re: Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
well i bought the water for gas system i own two car lots in troy,mo i put it on a old ford ranger last thursday so far all i know is it does seem to run alot better doesn't ping or smoke or anything like i was scared of i did put it on just a old truck to see fist the truck was getting before was 17.8 mpg then drove the truck about 200 miles over the weekend then sunday refilled it up and it is at 21.4 mpg i read the stupid book lol so now increaseing the baking soda don't know if it will help or not yet but i does seem to run alot stronger i am just trying it out to see if it works i haven't changed any other varables yet but i will report back on next fill up the truck is a 1993 ford ragner v6 4x4 131k miles but the 6 mpg was nice for first try but idk really want to put a couple tousand miles on it before i talk good or bad about it yes this might be a scam or joke i may have wasted three hunderd bucks on it but i have spent on more stupid things lol
by: chadthornburgh 05/20/2008 1:49:37 PM
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4 mpg lol mistype
by: BigSUV$ 05/21/2008 9:26:49 AM
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You got a 22% improvement - not bad. As for the rest of the thread, I have seen numerous people hung up on the concept of hydrogen as fuel in this system. True, hydrogen acts as a fuel of sorts, but there is lots of documentation (get off the net and visit a library) that hydrogen gas enhances the combustion of gasoline in internal combustion engines. So basically, you're adding a combustion enhancement, not another fuel, to the engine.

Another popular myth seems to revolve around the combustion efficiency in today's engines. True, almost all of the gasoline is burned now, which would prompt the question "how much more efficient can it be?" All who claim to know something about thermodynamics apparently dozed off in class, because the idea here isn't how much fuel burns, but how much work we can extract from the burning process. If a significant amount of the fuel burn occurs after the midpoint of the power stroke, you really don't get much work, just heat. But, if you can speed the process so that the fuel burns faster, more work goes to the crankshaft.

The bottom line - a little hydrogen can indeed improve the efficiency of an internal combustion engine. Arvin Meritor is currently developing a "plasmatron" add-on that will derive hydrogen from a portion of the gasoline, then re-inject it back into the fuel. This was a joint development with MIT, with the idea being that gasoline is already in the car and people probably wouldn't want to add two "fuels" (water and gas) every time they fill up.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
by: meathead 05/21/2008 7:06:08 PM
Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
ok you admit that it works....but you say you use more energy in the form of electrical from your battery than you get back in the cylinders....this is illogical because your motor is a gas combustion chamber that runs on gas not electicity so you dont lose any energy by using the electricity from your battery in the engine; they are both separate parts not linked in the horsepower output of the internal combustion process, especially since the battery is continuously recharged by the alternator while the engine turns, and this turning of the alternator is not burdened by adding a HHO; two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule gas into the intake of the engine...or brown gas as it is called. The only part that isnt free in this system is the cost of the water which contains the combined gasses of oxygen and hydrogen, ready made fuel that is readily available in mass quantities all over the earth. I dont know the exact increase in horsepower that is achieved in adding the HHO to your intake, but logical reasoning would tell me that there would be an increase and not a decrease like you suggest. A real breakthrough would be if some scientist actually found a way to add some element that causes water to combust when added to it automatically, so then all you would need is the element and water to make an engine that could do anything you need it to do for essentially the price of the water and the element that does the trick to it. I think it exist somewhere out there or can be discovered or made by a chemist or inventor.
by: meathead 05/21/2008 7:32:35 PM
Re: Hydrogen brown gas generator
I wish the makers of these devices would tell you how much hydrogen Oxygen HHO gas is electrolyzed out of the water and injected into the system or vacumed sucked into the intake manifold....and at what the air/gas/HHO ratio actually can be or is in it.....and what is the critical point where any more addition of HHO harms the engine and or decreases its horsepower....because since the HHO burns at a higher temp...or flash burns at a higher temp when combusted by the spark plug...it would cause the motor to heat up higher...stressing the metal and the cooling system...find that info please...you techno scientist out there who are smarter than me the meathead...

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