Hydrogen in fuel

[Shrek]

I was watching a renewable energy channel on the T.V. and i found out some people were using peanut butter/glass jars filled with water and baking soda and use electricity to get Hydrogen vapors and fed that into the airbox and they got 6-50% better fuel economy(depending on type of fuel and carbureted/EFI) and gained some HP. i thought about it for a while and if we could use a switch to turn it on when passing someone, it might work but i don't know for sure, what are your ideas?

[Ciro Pabón]

There is a company devoted to that. You can read about it here: http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2005/11/69529

They claim fuel savings, but I have not seen an independent review. The website is dead (not very promising). The unit (of course, not a peanut butter jar!) costs around 4.000 devaluated dollars and the manufacturer claims you save 10% in fuel. I find hard to get your investment back, at these prices.

[WhiteBlue]

IMO it makes a lot more sense to utilise all that natural gas which is still burned and released to atmoshere instead of being used.

[ISLAMATRON]

second biggest hoax in the 2000's, only to the Nigerian prince's asking you to cash a check for them.

[Giblet]

I know a woman who fell for the Nigerian prince scam, when it (the internet) was relatively new to the public.

She handed them over 10k.

So sad... and I was the one that broke the news to her.

This device reminds me of that cyclone inducer you were supposed to put in your intake tube.

[gridwalker]

Why not strap a magnet to your fuel line (to make sure the fuel is correctly "ionized") whilst you're at it?
http://www.tinet.org/~sje/mag_fuel.htm

[ISLAMATRON]

electric turbocharger anyone?

[Ciro Pabón]

Well, I wouldn't disqualify the idea on first sight, altough I concurr on it being a bit shaky at the base.

The logical argument against is that you cannot save fuel when you're actually using some fuel to produce the hydrogen. The losses in the process would need a "perpetual motion machine" design for the idea to work.

In other words, you're using more gasoline to produce hydrogen than the energy you get back in the form of hydrogen burnt later in the cylinders.

However, I don't know if the regulator diminishes the field current to the alternator in an efficient way when the battery is overloaded.

Is there a chance to improve the alternator/regulator combination for this idea to work? How much energy uses an alternator when "coasting", because the regulator kicks in? Can this energy be used to produce hydrogen?

[Flummo]

I'm not sure at all if the alternator keeps producing current (and, thus, a load in the engine) when the regulator "switchs off" the current to the battery.
Can someone enlighten me on that?

The kind of alternator used in cars regulate output by adjusting the current to the electro magnet inside the generator, making the magnetic field stronger or weaker and thus making the generator windings put out more or less current. No current to the electro magnet = no magnetic field = the generator does nothing except cause some frictional losses.

The kind of alternator used on motorcycles is a diffrent animal, those use permanent magnets and regulate output by shortcurcuiting the generator a part of the time. Not as inefficient as it sounds, but there are losses for sure.

[peteskar]

It may save a very small amount of fuel, but the pre cat Oxygen sensor will go haywire not knowing what is being introduced to the system also putting the before the mass air flow sensor will do about the same as a cold air intake. The only way we have found to increase performance is by using the hydrogen as a booster and injected it into the combustion camber the same as N.O.S. I have not studied direct injected motors though.

[Shrek]

yes that's how they did it.