Hydrogen powered rods?

Ok, here's the latest scoop on hydrogen production.

Water [H2O] is made up of 2 hydrogen atoms clinging to one oxygen atom. Makes simple sense that if you remove the oxygen atom, the 2 hydrogen atoms will be "released".

So, what happens when a piece of metal rusts or corodes? It "oxidizes"... That is, the atoms of steel bond with oxygen atoms to form iron-oxide, or RUST.

Using that logic, if you put a piece of metal in water, the O in the water will bond with the metal and release H. Problem is, it takes a looooong time.

The solution is to make a metal alloy that speeds up this process.

Turns out, that aluminum combined with gallium is the most potent combination for acellerating this process. Watch this video.



Using this technology, you could have a car's gas tank filled with water, and drop a couple alum-gal pellets into it, and drive off on pure hydrogen
Ok, yea... The actual process is going to be much more complicated than that. It will actually resemble a neuclear reactor where "rods" of alum-gal can be put into water to produce H on demand.

The byproduct of this reaction is aluminum oxide powder, which can then be put into a smelter to burn off the O and make more aluminum, to be mixed with more gallium, to produce more fuel for cars.

It will take energy to smelt the aluminum, produce the al-gal alloy, etc, etc... At current technological levels, the ROI is equevelant to $5 a gallon gasoline, but with wide spread application and the cost reducing benefits of mass usage, it could be equivelant to $2 a gallon gasoline with todays technology.

This is only one of the technologies that are in the running to replace fossil fuels. Only time will tell which one win out and gain mass acceptance.

 

The Honda FCX Clarity (only available in KA) runs on compressed hydrogen to power an electric motor. You'd be better off trying ethanol. But my feeling is fuck the greenies! I like dumping as many hydrocarbons into the atmosphere as I can.

 

Other countries run propane,you can actually do a lot more with it then gas, it like high compression ratios, and it's really easy to convert anything with a carb to run on it. they waste a lot of natural gas products at these refineries a huge amount, just burn em off,nothing to do with them. If they try to get rid of gas, something that can convert a carbed car to keep running sounds good to me. inside of the engine doesn't are if it's gasoline or propane, except for a little less detonation, it runs the same way.

 

i do not know of a gas station that does not sell propane for vehicles, you have to run a high comp ratio, and it is only a little cheaper, $5 a gallon is cheap in most of the world.

 

http://jlnlabs.online.fr/bingofuel/bgen/

Here is something that is called Brown's gas. It is made from water and used as a suppliment to gas. It does work, or I have been told it does and I am planning on trying it.

 

I've driven both propane and natural gas powered vehicle. Neither gave the mileage that gasoline does. In the winter you couldn't get the engine warm enough to keep the interior warm. (This was in Columbus Ohio.) The natural gas cruiser was dual fuel. You couldn't start it in the winter on Natural Gas, so we were supposed to warm it up on gasoline and then shut it off and restart on natural gas. It was a total pain in the tush.

There was an episode on 60 minutes, years ago, on a chicken farmer in England that developed a way to process methane from chicken crap. He ran his vehicles for several years that way. Here's the link. http://www.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/batesmethane.htm

 

C'mon Rich, don't have to like Jesse, but it is a neat project.

 

It doesn't work....but have fun....

 

I saw this hydrogen fueling station the other day in Santa Monica. The guy was saying its like the only one in LA, i guess there are a few experimental cars running around while its being tested. He was saying that the hydrogen is free for people with hydrogen cars.

 

I don't dislike Jesse. The car may be neat but a AA/BFS at 199 is slow. As far as I was concerened that show convinced me that hydrogen is a dead end. All that work and money that went into that motor over, what did they say? Five years? and it's slow. That dosen't make me want to run out and convert my car to hydrogen.

 

Like most everything, there's a lot of misinformation around about gaseous fuels. In the first place, hot-rodders were converting cars to run propane in the '50's. I'll send copies of the articles in Hot Rod to anyone who wants proof.

Second, straight hydrogen runs fine in IC engines. It's not very practical right now because its energy density is much lower than gasoline, and it's a pain in the ass to compress enough of it to go anywhere.

Next, this "Brown's gas" hype is just hydrogen. It's easily made by passing an electric current through water, no nuclear reactors required. It's currently possible to make enough hydrogen to fuel the average commute by using a photovoltaic array on your roof. Not hard at all. Compressing is the real problem.

And finally, Compressed Natural Gas right out of your house line can run your car beautifully. The Canadians are floating on the stuff, and have been running fleets in COLD weather for years. Yes, it takes some engine mods to get it to perform as good as gasoline in power and mileage, but it will. It has a VERY HIGH comparable octane number, and can tolerate very high compression ratios. It works, and it's no BS. Anybody want to know more? I've been working in the field since the '70's, so feel free to ask away. I'll tell you like it is.

One more thing, because gaseous fuels don't wash down the cylinder walls or dilute the oil, engine life of 300,000 miles is common using synthetic oil. You DO have to have pressure tanks on board the vehicle, but this technology is about to become commonplace. Remember, real live TRADITIONAL rodders were working on this stuff in the '50s.

 

Hi all,
I am running a hydrogen fuel cell in conjunction with gas. The car runs much better and much cleaner. I get abot 25% increase in fuel economy. Check out www.ecofuelcells.us

 

No thanks!

 

Nothing beats gasoline for power vs expense. Thats's why we have used it for so long and will for the forseable future. CNG, Methanol, Propane all have some value but as long as gasoline is cheap compared to the alternative it's the fuel of choice.

Hydrogen fuel cells or hydrogen internal combustion engines....I believe it will be the fuel cell that wins out in the end. Zero emissions once all the problems are worked.

Nobody has sucessfully built a car that runs on water, Brown's gas, or other such pseudo-science. The energy it takes to reduce hydrogen by electrolysis is many times that produced by burning it or in a fuel cell combining it.

CNG engines are down on power...and it's still burning fossil fuels - only a stopgap solution. Hydrogen IC engines are not very efficient, a bitch to start, and down on power.

Electricity by way of fuel cell and/or battery is the future when fossil fuels are gone.

 

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When the cost (in terms of energy) of the manufacture of the cells, mining of the materials, transport, are factored in, the set up cost is looking hefty, pump for the water storage for the gas, plumbing all takes energy and of cause carbon emissions.

Interestingly Arthur C Clark was asked if he could imagine a clean and abundant power in the future, his reply was that all energy eventually degrades to heat and he suspected that this being the case the world would probably over heat at some stage possibly bringing on more problems- he made that statement in the 60&#8217;s.

 

I agree entirely that gasoline is the fuel of choice for as long as it lasts. That's the point. It's going away. When there was a fuel shortage in Atlanta after Katrina and fuel was nudging $5/gal when we could get it, my dorky little propane powered Geo Metro was getting me there when much of the city was crippled. Natural gas is significantly cheaper in this market, therm for therm, than gasoline, and in fact is working VERY WELL for some fleet users. There is NO performance disadvantage with CNG if the engine is optimized to use it, and as of 2007, CNG fueled Cummins diesel engines were delivering the SAME POWER AND TORQUE as their oil fueled brothers.

 

To answer Spark, yes, all of those points you raise are valid and very good. At some point however, the cost of gasoline will most probably rise so high that all of that will be offset. Somewhere down the road though, those of us who want to be driving cars that sound like cars will probably be burning hydrogen in them. Otherwise, you can bet the PC police will be knocking on the door.

 

...I think anything can be done. I read a story a year or so ago about a guy that was making his own fuel out of chemicals he had access to at geothermal power plant. I can't remember the exact compound or chemicals he used, but the final product was similar to a type of fuel the indy cars used in the 60's that later became banned. My mind is turning to mush and I hate IT!!! I'm going to search the net, and see if I can find the article again....One of the ingredients he used was kerosene, anyways, a bit off topic, but there are alternatives out there...just don't know much about hydrogen.

 

O.T. off the subject slightly, We hauled our 59 savoy gasser to the hamb drags in my 93 ford crew cab 7.3 IDI diesel running 90% used motor oil 10% diesel. we put on over a 1000 mile round trip and spent $60.00 on fuel to thin the oil. Thats the only way we could afford to get to the Hamb drags and I am filtering another 100 gallons so we can go to K.C. for greaserama. It was great flipping the bird to all the fuel stations. Finnally I get my Revenge.

 

Since oil speculators, rather than supply-vs-demand, are responsible for gasoline prices at the pump, I wonder how affordable whatever next viable alternative fuel source will be.

I hope that next generation fuels will be cleaner and come from our own soil, sea water or air. Cost will unfortunatley not come down, it appears.

 

Hey 59ratgasser, I really like the idea of running a diesel on 90% used motor oil. Do you have to filter it or anything else, and how smokey is it?

 

The oil is pumped through 3 stages of filters 1 water block 1 15 micron spin on filter and the final big 6 to 8 micron filter. Than pumped from my 120 gal. container into the trucks 100 gal tank in the bed that has a valve to fill the front tank.The rear tank is clear diesel to shut off on and for startup only. After engine is warmed up a few minutes I switch to the front tank and never look back. I filtering 100 gals Today so we can be ready for K.C. Greaserama Sept. 6 7 As as smoke not that much a cummins 12 valve probably make more smoke. mileage is about the same as on clear diesel. The Freedom it has given us to do the old school car stuff is overwhelming.

 

I would seriously reccomend against running a diesel on used motor oil.

Yes, it can be done, and a lot of people are doing it sucessfully, but IMHO it represents a health risk.

The motor oil is not a pure petrolium product. There are a lot of additives in it that are made from some pretty nasty stuff... Zink, toluine, chlorides... Not to mension the stuff the oil picks up from the wear and tear on the engine... Lead from the bearings for example.

Once burned, these contaminates turn to a gas and can be breathed in... Not cool!

Look into used cooking oil as a diesel fuel source. It's plant based, and is effectively carbon neutral. The only thing comming out of the tailpipe of a vegi-diesel is H20, C02, NoX, and Acrolein

The H20 is water vapor
The C02 is carbon dioxide, but since your only releasing the C02 the plant used to grow the oil, the net carbon footprint is zero
The NoX is oxides of nitrogen. Vegi oil produces about 5% more NoX than diesel fuel. Tho it is a major contributing factor to smog, it breaks down rather quickly when exposed to water and sunlight. Since VO is carbon neutral, the benefits outweigh the risks
The Acrolein is produced by the burning of the glycerine in the veg oil. Lab results have been in-conclusive as to the health risks of it. It has caused tumors in lab rats, but lord knows how much of the stuff they pumped into those poor rats before the tumors formed. Once exposed to sunlight, it breaks down into harmless nitrogens [fertilizer] in less than 4 hours.
*Acrolein is also produced naturally by rotting or decaying vegitation or animals.

 

i want to run a hotrod on hydrogen, to make my hydrogen i want to use the wind to create the power needed, you can buy a scuba/paintball compressor for about $1000 on ebay, i have access to used aluminum scuba tanks at scrap metal price, then there are firefighter fiberglass tanks, my question is would aluminum hold the hydrogen?

 

It's all double-talk. We already burn hydrogen in the conventional internal combustion engine. No need to 'produce' it, which is merely changing the molecular structure, removing it from different forms where it exists naturally. When gasoline 'burns' that process is using stored hydrogen, immediately converting it to work energy, waste heat, and also releasing some of it in yet another form, water vapor, containing yet more hydrogen, which by the way, is majority of the byproducts released by 'burning', petrol. To remove the hydrogen from water, then store it for later use is merely an exercise, reverse engineering.
The fuel cells containing liquid hydrogen are not a source of hydrogen for the purpose of 'burning' it in the conventional sense as in an internal combustion motor, they are an electrochemical conversion device. The way they would be used in a wheeled vechicle would be to create electron flow to operate an electric motor. .

 

I think I remember hydrogen having an effective octane rating of 135 and natural gas at 125. Zat rite?

 

I was puzzled by the fact that this thread had a comment from me on it, that I didn't recall posting. Until I looked and saw that it is more than 4 years old.

I see the methodological naturalistic conclusions drawn from controlled observation haven't changed in those 4 years.

Buy this book and read it cover to cover: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-...=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251409722&sr=8-3
It is the bible on how to power your car, your electric and gas bill, how your air conditioner works, and all about hydrogen power.

 

I work in the oil industry and peak oil is just around he corner, might be 2 years from now might be 13 but its comming. The majors know this and they're planning for it. Shell have a well known planning strategy called scenario palnning where you take extreme opposites for the possible future of the organisation and make plans for both scenarios. This way you should be covered for both and everything in between, in both Shells scenarios they see the future as a hydrogen economy and that natural gas is the bridging technology to this future economy, they view it as inevitable and are making the investments now to alow the company to adapt. Eventualy it may not be that much of a choice. Once peak oil is confirmed I'd expect the countries that are self sufficient to be a lot more reluctant to export and that prices will rise very rapidly, pushing the use of new fuels. There are majors with dwidling reserves as it is, production already out strips discovery, to protect their market (think energy more than oil) these majors willl promote new fuels and still aim be the main players in the new economy.

 

It will sure be interesting to see how the world will look like in 20 years and beyond.
Regardless what energy producers have planned and what technologies they want in place...

How will the climate be and affect every life form on earth?
What effect will overpopulation and dwindling food supplies and fresh water have?
And what about world economics, politics and religions ?

I think the best funded energy producing companies and smartest engineers and scientist will have all kinds of other factors to take into consideration as they move along and whatever solution they may come up with, they may have to keep starting all over, time and again.

I believe individuals can move quicker and that smaller companies will provide locally produced energy for their own small communities.
The days of big oil and large energy producing companies and speculators who regulate energy cost, may be numbered.

 

I love this post! Tom Petty told me the future was wide open.

I own a piece of the Hindenberg... Maybe I'll glue it to my Rat Rod...yeah!!!!