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No, it takes more energy to make browns gas than you get from burning it. You can't get something for nothing. What you are proposing is no different than using a battery to run an electric motor to turn a generator to charge the battery. Can't work, perpetual motion is not possible.:doh:
:alien_dance: the alternator charges the battery and fires the electrolysis cell generally you double the size of the alternator, does your car stall when you turn the lights on, does turning your lights on increase your fuel usage by 100%, you drop a mere 50 revs!
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you drop a mere 50 revs!

 

And you gain less than "50 revs" by producing hydrogen with said amount of energy. Do you see where we're going? The energy used to electrolyze water plus the inefficiency of doing so is greater than the energy you get burning the hydrogen produced.

 

Electrolysis of water - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Scientific proof debunking the "run your car on water" scams

 

~modest

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And you gain less than "50 revs" by producing hydrogen with said amount of energy. Do you see where we're going? The energy used to electrolyze water plus the inefficiency of doing so is greater than the energy you get burning the hydrogen produced.

 

Scientific proof debunking the "run your car on water" scams

 

~modest

 

:evil:ot the car sitting idling at 700revs you turn the lights on and it drops by 50 revs to 650 revs hmmmm that means by my instumentation here we have about a 6% load to run the headlights, the energy to produce the gas through electrolysis required is headlight current, the same can be applied to superconductor motors (cooled to -270 with helium)they can propel a ship and the superconductors only need 20 ma to run so a generator can supply the cooling system needs and also run the superconductors

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:evil:ot the car sitting idling at 700revs you turn the lights on and it drops by 50 revs to 650 revs hmmmm that means by my instumentation here we have about a 6% load to run the headlights

 

By my reasoning, that's correct. A normal car driving at a normal speed might use 30 horsepower. Headlights might use 200 watts. 1 HP = 746 watts, so the electricity demands about a third a horsepower. Inefficiency in the process turns that into one or two HP. 2/30 = about 6 percent.

 

Now all you have to do is prove 200 watts of energy can make enough hydrogen to generate more than 1 or 2 horsepower for there to be any beneficial gain. In other words, you need to prove that 200 watts is greater than 746 to 1492 watts in order to keep within the laws of thermodynamics.

 

Good luck

 

~modest

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Now all you have to do is prove 200 watts of energy can make enough hydrogen to generate more than 1 or 2 horsepower for there to be any beneficial gain. In other words, you need to prove that 200 watts is greater than 746 to 1492 watts in order to keep within the laws of thermodynamics.

 

Good luck

 

I will head off your attempt at this by reproducing some sound science done by Tom Napier:

 

In electrolysis the output rate is a function of the molecular weight of the product, its valency and the total current passing through the electrolytic cell. One Faraday is that amount of current which will produce one gram.mole of a product with a valency of one. To split water, H2O, into H2 and O2 takes two Faradays per mole, that is two Faradays will convert 18 grams (about 0.635 oz) of water into Brown's Gas.

Two Faradays is equivalent to 193038 Coulombs. This equals the product of the current through the cell in amps and the time in seconds for which it passes. For example, if 5 amps pass through the cell it will take 193038/5 seconds or 10.72 hours to electrolyze 18 grams of water. Thus the output of a Brown's Gas generator operating at 5 amps would be 1.678 grams of gas per hour. At 500 amps the output would be 167.8 grams per hour and so on.

A cell running at 500 amps would produce 364 liters of Brown's Gas at atmospheric pressure every hour. (A liter of gas is about as much as a quart milk carton will hold.) My guess is that a welding torch uses some tens of liters of gas a minute. A practical Brown's Gas welder thus either has to operate at currents higher than 500 amps or must be operated in bursts.

Normally the current passing through the cell comes from a step-down transformer. At DC it takes some 1.7 volts to cause an electrolytic cell to operate. That is, our 500 amp cell is operating with a continuous power input of 850 watts. The AC input will be somewhat higher than this, depending on the details of the construction of the generator. Let's assume 1000 watts. That is, to generate 168 grams of gas requires one kilowatt.hour of electrical input or about 10 cents worth of electricity.

Suppose we wanted to run an internal combustion engine on this gas. How much energy would we get out? If we burn Brown's Gas we get pure water vapor. Burning 18 grams releases 242000 Joules of heat energy or 229.5 btu. (Allowing the vapor to condense would yield an additional 44500 joules, 42.4 btu, but in any conventional engine this output would only appear as waste heat and will be ignored.)

Thus if we drove an engine with 168 grams of gas per hour we would be putting 2.26 million joules per hour of heat energy into it. Operating at a plausible combustion temperature the thermal efficiency might be as high as 50% so we would get out 1.13 million joules per hour or 314 joules per second, that is 314 watts.

The bottom line is that we have put in about a kilowatt of electrical energy to get out under a third as much in mechanical energy. Considering that the efficiency of an electric motor would be over 85% there is no justification at all for using a Brown's Gas generator and an internal combustion engine. An electric motor would do better at less cost and with far greater reliability.

 

-Brown's Gas

 

Also, check out Tom's faq on free energy - worth it's weight in free energy. I think I just became a Napier fan :)

 

~modest

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I looked at several threads about using browns gas as a supplement to give a car better gas mileage but it seems no sure yes or no to this mileage booster was given. The Internet is full of adds to use browns gas generated on board you car as you drive to give huge mileage boosts. To me it looks a lot like perpetual motion.
I’ve seen these, too. Nearly all of them appear sensational, pseudo-scientific, and designed to defraud scientifically poorly educated people out of money for videos, plans, and equipment to add worthless equipment to their cars. I’ve read several testimonials from people who claim a modest improvement in their cars’ fuel economy, which I suspect is due to a combination of not wanting to feel silly about wasting money, labor, and possibly damaging their cars, wishful thinking, outright lying, and real improvements in fuel efficiency due to simply driving slower and more smoothly, maintaining proper tire pressure, etc.

 

Has any definitive answers been found for this?
I’d say the definitive answer is well known – you can’t get more energy reacting hydrogen and oxygen to form [ce]H2O[/ce], whether by combustion of something like a fuel cell, than was used to disassociate the [ce]H2O[/ce] into hydrogen and oxygen, whether via electrolysis, steam reforming, or other means – as you, Moontanman, have done a good job of pointing out in this thread.

 

Brown’s gas, according to its wikipedia article, is just oxyhydrogen a mixture (rather than the usual compound, water) of hydrogen and oxygen gas, usually in the usual 2:1 ratio. His main interest was in using it as a welding – it’s hotter than oxy-acetylene, but cooler than a couple of other welding gas flames. Electric arc welders have since taken over the welding biz, as they’re hotter than the hottest gas flames, and don’t yuck-up the metal with a reactive gas. I get the impression oxyhydrogen torches are still popular for cutting and polishing glass.

 

Last Xmass, I got a little toy oxyhydrogen generator that shoots a little rocket a hundred feet or so into the air. It runs nicely on 6 D-cell batteries (9 V in series), though it has annoying built-in soundtrack of bubbling noise, random science facts, and a claxon after a fixed time interval warning you not to shoot yourself when you press the igniter button, and for reasons I’m unable to guess, barely works under about 10-15 C outdoor temp. :shrug:

Steven Harris seems to the main proponent of this idea, he has impressive credentials, is he on the up and up?
I’d not heard of Roy McAlister and Steven Harris before this thread, but they do seem at first glance to be pretty credible, if obviously pros interested in selling videos and books, not giving out info gratis. As best I can tell, they specialize in describe practical engineering details of making and storing hydrogen, burning it in engines or using it in fuel cells. I’ve seen nothing connecting McAlister and Harris to any Brown’s gas fringe theory/conspiracy theory/run-you-car-on-water scam, though some of these folk into these appear to know about them, and reference them in their fringy/conspiratory/scammish writing.
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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't think the doc is to far off.. this is just the same song a dance from you guys..

the whole problem seems to be the thinking that we are braking laws , I don't believe we are.. and the fact that it's being done seems to escape those that just say it can't be done.. my thinking is those that are doing this and it's working for why would they want to come here just to be told what they are doing can't work when they are setting their the cars doing it..

 

I'd have reservations to share this with non believers too to think about it,

you'll be left with your questions that you can't answer solely because you believe laws are being broken and the guys making these are simply saving their fuel money..

 

like I said in the thread I started I know two guys that are using these and are improving their mileage,, why would they want to come here just to argue with you??? that doesn't make any sense to me I guess they are indeed a bit smarter than I am just for that fact alone..

.. if you believe it doesn't work solely banking on the laws you are trying blame it on you will continue to be the losers in this knowledge..

as I mentioned before there is more to what's going on here than we know the why's to and you won't to check out things for your selves, you just sit and look for answers the others before you have written but remember if they have been mistaken that makes you as wrong as them correct? you can't say it can not and has not happened..

you prove nothing by just quoting others that you don't even know I on the other hand know two guys that it's working for,, this to me means you loose we win..

it's as simple as that.. show me more articles that only tell us it can't be done and I'll tell you,, if you say you can't do something then, YOU can't to it , in a nut shell you've limited yourself by the limits you've set for your selves

 

but you will not limit me by your ideals of writes of those that you don't know, have not met, and hey,, by the same token they made money from you guys by you reading their books. I think we should write a book it would make as much sense to most people. I'm not saying science is not valid but it's is in cases fallible ... you all have a great day

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I don't think the doc is to far off.. this is just the same song a dance from you guys..

the whole problem seems to be the thinking that we are braking laws , I don't believe we are.. and the fact that it's being done seems to escape those that just say it can't be done.. my thinking is those that are doing this and it's working for why would they want to come here just to be told what they are doing can't work when they are setting their the cars doing it..

 

I'd have reservations to share this with non believers too to think about it,

you'll be left with your questions that you can't answer solely because you believe laws are being broken and the guys making these are simply saving their fuel money..

 

like I said in the thread I started I know two guys that are using these and are improving their mileage,, why would they want to come here just to argue with you??? that doesn't make any sense to me I guess they are indeed a bit smarter than I am just for that fact alone..

.. if you believe it doesn't work solely banking on the laws you are trying blame it on you will continue to be the losers in this knowledge..

as I mentioned before there is more to what's going on here than we know the why's to and you won't to check out things for your selves, you just sit and look for answers the others before you have written but remember if they have been mistaken that makes you as wrong as them correct? you can't say it can not and has not happened..

you prove nothing by just quoting others that you don't even know I on the other hand know two guys that it's working for,, this to me means you loose we win..

it's as simple as that.. show me more articles that only tell us it can't be done and I'll tell you,, if you say you can't do something then, YOU can't to it , in a nut shell you've limited yourself by the limits you've set for your selves

 

but you will not limit me by your ideals of writes of those that you don't know, have not met, and hey,, by the same token they made money from you guys by you reading their books. I think we should write a book it would make as much sense to most people. I'm not saying science is not valid but it's is in cases fallible ... you all have a great day

 

No Dan it's that human beings who can think want more than "he said" as proof before the spend hundreds of dollars and possibly screwing up their cars. In my state what these guys are talking about doing could prevent you from getting an inspection sticker, you can save lots of fuel if you can't drive your car. it takes a lot more than anecdotal evidence before I am willing to risk these things. Especially when it obvious that what is being proposed violates the basic way the universe works. For the same reason you can not use a battery to generate electricity to make browns gas to run a motor to turn a generator to make electricity to charge the battery, what is being proposed should not be possible. If indeed some other effect is taking place that has nothing to do this basic truth the mechanism needs to shown in detail. Nothing else will do when making claims of this magnitude.

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Dan, people are not saying the devices don't improve gas mileage.

What they are saying is that the improvement in gas mileage is either:

1) Not because the hydrogen is being produced as a fuel.

2) The hydrogen that is produced is produced outside of the vehicle so no net gain is apparent.

3) If as an additive, no one has isolated the mechanism that allows the fuel to burn more fully.

 

All we are asking for is some study to the effect.

How much hydrogen is produced and in what amount of time.

How much harder does the engine have to work in order to produce the hydrogen.

How much fuel mileage improvement is there if the O2 sensor hack is employed WITHOUT adding any hydrogen?

 

Test these things out, report your results and you may get people to take you seriously.

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fair enough

 

did any one take look at the electronics I need built to see if it's a sound way of using it on the duel generator, this was my first and only concern in the first place to why I came and started my other thread ..

 

thanks for the help

 

You can answer this over in the other thread, but I really don't understand the claim. Is there a link to it?

 

As far as I've ever know, alternating current (be it sine, triangular, or square waved) is less capable of electrolyzing water into hydrogen than direct current. You are considering using a DC power supply so I can't figure why you're considering square waves.

 

But, I'll withhold any opinion until I've seen the claim. :hihi:

 

~modest

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Dan, people are not saying the devices don't improve gas mileage.

What they are saying is that the improvement in gas mileage is either:

1) Not because the hydrogen is being produced as a fuel.

2) The hydrogen that is produced is produced outside of the vehicle so no net gain is apparent.

3) If as an additive, no one has isolated the mechanism that allows the fuel to burn more fully.

 

All we are asking for is some study to the effect.

How much hydrogen is produced and in what amount of time.

How much harder does the engine have to work in order to produce the hydrogen.

How much fuel mileage improvement is there if the O2 sensor hack is employed WITHOUT adding any hydrogen?

 

Test these things out, report your results and you may get people to take you seriously.

 

1 amp for 1 hour will produce 6 litres of gas

it is about a 3%load on the alternator

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You can answer this over in the other thread, but I really don't understand the claim. Is there a link to it?

 

As far as I've ever know, alternating current (be it sine, triangular, or square waved) is less capable of electrolyzing water into hydrogen than direct current. You are considering using a DC power supply so I can't figure why you're considering square waves.

 

But, I'll withhold any opinion until I've seen the claim. :hihi:

 

~modest

 

dc current will electrolize water ac wont

you will also need a large variable resistor and a heap of hight wattage globes to adjust the dc current through the fuel cel to ground

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1 amp for 1 hour will produce 6 litres of gas

it is about a 3%load on the alternator

 

Excellent! Thank you for the information.

Now, how much fuel efficiency improvement will you get from that 6 liters and will it last for an hour?

The 3% load on the alternator, how much extra gasoline will be needed to cover that?

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