Experimenting with HHO (hydrogen on demand)

In very slight defence of those apparently nearly universally crap US vehicle MPG's, I seem to recall that the US gallon is only 3.75 litres whereas the UK gallon is 4.54 litres. That said, those US vehicle MPGs still look pretty crap.

My old non-turbo 1800 cc diesel Peugeot 205 (after I Slick 50'd both the engine and the gearbox) used to give me an absolutely dependable 64MPG while I was working during the week in Plymouth and coming back home to Bristol at the weekends, a regular baseline of 302 miles a week, every week for 3 years.

Edited to add: By the way Andy, if you have KOH coming up the pipe and corroding your aluminium intake pipe, would it be worthwhile looking at some sort of chamber along your HHO pipework where the foam that must be coming up can pop, with a return for the liquid back to your bubbler reservoir?

In very slight defence of those apparently nearly universally crap US vehicle MPG's, I seem to recall that the US gallon is only 3.75 litres whereas the UK gallon is 4.54 litres. That said, those US vehicle MPGs still look pretty crap.

My old non-turbo 1800 cc diesel Peugeot 205 (after I Slick 50'd both the engine and the gearbox) used to give me an absolutely dependable 64MPG while I was working during the week in Plymouth and coming back home to Bristol at the weekends, a regular baseline of 302 miles a week, every week for 3 years.

Edited to add: By the way Andy, if you have KOH coming up the pipe and corroding your aluminium intake pipe, would it be worthwhile looking at some sort of chamber along your HHO pipework where the foam that must be coming up can pop, with a return for the liquid back to your bubbler reservoir?

Agreed, US cars MPG are crap. I owned a German import 1964 220Seb Mercedes. This monster got 25 MPG with a gasoline motor. This at a time when gas prices meant nothing.



Tim, The corrosion is not from foam or liquid, it's KOH in gaseous form combined with the HHO gas.
I am in the process of building a scrubber filter to remove the KOH trace gas from the final product.
I will post the build here as this would be needed for anyone wanting to feed a turbo diesel. The turbo side impellers may be titanium but the intake impellers are still Aluminum & will get eaten up!

Thanks Andy.
For me and most Europeans an mpg to include your hard work of 15.6 is horrendous for a medium sized vehicle.

Our fuel prices are still well above Americas, I suspect there will be a chart somewhere online - so efficiency is key over here.

30- 40 mpg is typical for petrol (gas) vehicles.
40 - 50 mpg for diesel, I dont think you guys use that though - not sure could be wrong :?

I think a lot of it is related to speed.
I hear a 50 mile trip in England can take a couple hours.
My wife drives 42 miles one way to work. About half of that is considered "city driving" in Ohio. It takes her 40 minutes without rushing from the time she leaves the house doorway until she can call me from INSIDE her office!
Her old medium sized car gets about 35 US MPG highway, at those speeds, with 275,000 miles (450K km).

I think a lot of it is related to the perception of "medium sized".
Buick LaCross is midsized and weighs around 4000 pounds, as does the Mercury Milan, and Chrysler Sebring.

My wife's graduation present was an SUV. Yes, we use it when it is needed. No, I do not like feeding it. :cry:
Pretty sure a Cooper Mini would fit in the back if the wheels were removed. Not kidding.

Have you ever tried to get a 76 VW US Rabbit Diesel up hill on an on ramp into bumper-to-bumper 80 MPH traffic?
I have. It is not pretty.
I am not saying it is a good situation, I am simply saying that is the reality, here.

BTW, that old Rabbit Diesel still got about 68MPG going 68MPH with 68,000 miles on it.
Would I let my daughter drive it on the highway?
Not a chance.
G-

Andy
I don't see how it could be KOH vapour. KOH boils at over 1300 degrees centigrade. In aqueous solution at nearly ambient pressure, it couldn't get much over 100 degrees centigrade, at which point its partial pressure would be extremely low - KOH itself doesn't even melt until it hits 360 deg C, and its vapour pressure at 714 deg C is only one millimetre of mercury.

What I think you have there, and those pix of the dribbles inside your ally intake pipework corroborate, is a liquid phase coming up the HHO pipe somehow, along with the hydrox gas mixture. That's got to be water, either as a foam or as a fine mist suspension, and in that liquid phase will come the dissolved KOH that you're seeing once the water itself has evaporated.

Edited for finger slip (running a current red wine deficit again)

Andy
I don't see how it could be KOH vapour. KOH boils at over 1300 degrees centigrade. In aqueous solution at nearly ambient pressure, it couldn't get much over 100 degrees centigrade, at which point its partial pressure would be extremely low - KOH itself doesn't even melt until it hits 360 deg C, and its vapour pressure at 714 deg C is only one millimetre of mercury.

What I think you have there, and those pix of the dribbles inside your ally intake pipework corroborate, is a liquid phase coming up the HHO pipe somehow, along with the hydrox gas mixture. That's got to be water, either as a foam or as a fine mist suspension, and in that liquid phase will come the dissolved KOH that you're seeing once the water itself has evaporated.

Edited for finger slip (running a current red wine deficit again)

It's baffling to me, here's why. 1st when you remove the hose from the intake you see nothing coming from the hose ( I though maybe steam was present). I put a mirror to the hose to see if any splatter or fogging shows on the mirror. I saw none.

Additionally, my line from the generator is first going to a reservoir whose output is at the top or the tank then to a bubbler via a hose which has an arc dip to avoid liquid to get into the bubbler. After the bubble the line dips yet again, goes through a flashback arrestor the climbs straight up before getting to the inlet barb on the intake.

I am at a loss as to why. But I will figure it out. :D
I filter is in the works, I think I will also build an inline inspection port using a pyrex tube.

There is a plus point. By placing the hydroxy port 4mm away from the throttle body butterfly and no othe modification to the o2 sensors, I did manage to increase the MPG to 16.7 in local traffic. So the closer it is to the throttle body the better.

My Trac is now up to 16 mpg local driving ONLY!
I have not touch a highway or county road at all.
I will be going to Harbor Freight soon which is about a 50 mile run, so I will be able to get a nice
highway reading as wells as a combined MPG.

But still...I want more MPG!

[Gotwind Ben]

Hi Cabrera.
as an aside,
I have looked into using thermo electric panels (TEG's) to generate power, along the way I found out that BMW are looking at using the waste heat from the exhaust pipe combined with the cooling air of the moving vehicle to create the heat differential that is needed to produce electrical power.

A considerable amount of power can be harnessed I believe, 50-100 watts I think, that recharges the battery instead of the alternator.

Might be worth looking at :idea:

Hi Cabrera.
as an aside,
I have looked into using thermo electric panels (TEG's) to generate power, along the way I found out that BMW are looking at using the waste heat from the exhaust pipe combined with the cooling air of the moving vehicle to create the heat differential that is needed to produce electrical power.

A considerable amount of power can be harnessed I believe, 50-100 watts I think, that recharges the battery instead of the alternator.

Might be worth looking at :idea:

Definitely worth looking at!!!
That would be much more efficient than using a solar panel to TRY to power the cell.

BTW

I had noticed that my mileage wasn't as good in the last few fill ups as I had been getting. Well today I accidentally found the culprit.





While I was adding distilled water to my KOH tank, I noticed that there was a split in the tank at the seam. So in effect, I had am HHO gas leak for about 3 weeks. I anticipated these types of problems which is why my reservoir tank is installed just behind the grill on the driver's side. This is far enough away from the intake and any potential flashback issues.

I replaced the tank with a 2 quart unit of much thicker plastic.

[Gotwind Ben]

Saw this over on Treehugger and thought it may be of interest to you Cabrera.
Shave another 1 mpg off possibly.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/08 ... hutter.php