The Naked Scientists
  • Login
  • Register
  • Podcasts
      • The Naked Scientists
      • eLife
      • Naked Genetics
      • Naked Astronomy
      • In short
      • Naked Neuroscience
      • Ask! The Naked Scientists
      • Question of the Week
      • Archive
      • Video
      • SUBSCRIBE to our Podcasts
  • Articles
      • Science News
      • Features
      • Interviews
      • Answers to Science Questions
  • Get Naked
      • Donate
      • Do an Experiment
      • Science Forum
      • Ask a Question
  • About
      • Meet the team
      • Our Sponsors
      • Site Map
      • Contact us

User menu

  • Login
  • Register
  • Home
  • Help
  • Search
  • Tags
  • Member Map
  • Recent Topics
  • Login
  • Register
  1. Naked Science Forum
  2. Profile of CycleGuy
  3. Show Posts
  4. Thanked Posts
  • Profile Info
    • Summary
    • Show Stats
    • Show Posts
      • Messages
      • Topics
      • Attachments
      • Thanked Posts
      • Posts Thanked By User
    • Show User Topics
      • User Created
      • User Participated In

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

  • Messages
  • Topics
  • Attachments
  • Thanked Posts
  • Posts Thanked By User

Messages - CycleGuy

Pages: [1]
1
Technology / Re: Does hydrogen and oxygen fed to a petrol engine improve performance?
« on: 14/10/2015 18:18:36 »
I have a theory about why some people experience an increase in fuel efficiency when feeding HHO into the intake of their engines... the HHO isn't... at least, it's not all HHO. It's actually a mix of HHO and vapor carrying hydroxide (OH-) radicals into the engine.

The two main processes during combustion are below. You'll note that water (and specifically the hydroxide radical derived from water) is essential for combustion to even take place:

This process occurs at higher temperatures:
OH- + H ==> H2O
H2O + O ==> H2O2
H2O2 ==> OH- + OH-

This process dominates at lower temperatures, and competes with the above process at higher temperatures:
OO + H ==> HOO
HOO + H ==> H2O2
H2O2 ==> OH- + OH-

The above two mechanisms are very active at stripping hydrogen from the hydrocarbon fuel.

Now consider that we're not just burning hydrogen in the engine... if the hydrogen combustion process finishes fast enough (ie: before the exhaust valve opens), we get to burn CO to CO2:

The above two processes strip the hydrogen from the hydrocarbon fuel, leaving behind the carbon, which combines with oxygen to form carbon monoxide:
C + O ==> CO

Because the two processes above are competing with the C => CO => CO2 process for oxygen, and they're faster, the only method really left to convert CO to CO2 is via hydroxides.

CO + OH- ==> CO2 + H
H + OH- ==> H20
H2O + O ==> H2O2
H2O2 ==> OH- + OH-
Go to top and repeat.

As you can see, the hydroxide radical plays an important role in converting carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide, as well. And that process adds additional heat which can be converted to additional work.

So, my theory is that the HHO fed into the engine aids rapid completion of hydrocarbon combustion such that the CO => CO2 process can take place before the exhaust valve opens, adding additional heat to the cylinder, which is extracted as work.

Of course, there's no need to expend all the electricity to generate the HHO... putting a voltage across a container of water such that the voltage doesn't exceed the water's ionization constant merely divides the water into OH- (hydroxide) and H3O (hydronium) (ie: the low pH and high pH constituents of water).

So putting just enough voltage across the water to cause that separation of the water into its high and low pH components (but not so high a voltage that you exceed the ionization constant of the water by much, thus keeping current to negligible levels, and not splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen), then pumping from the OH- side of your water tank and injecting that hydroxide rich water into your engine will jump-start the combustion process (because the hydroxide already exists, it doesn't need to be split from water in-cylinder, thereby skipping two steps as outlined above and immediately commencing with stripping hydrogen from the hydrocarbon fuel and burning it), thus allowing the hydrocarbon burn to complete faster, thus allowing the CO => CO2 burn to initiate faster, thus adding to cylinder heat, thus increasing efficiency.
The following users thanked this post: chris

Pages: [1]
  • SMF 2.0.15 | SMF © 2017, Simple Machines
    Privacy Policy
    SMFAds for Free Forums
  • Naked Science Forum ©

Page created in 0.075 seconds with 27 queries.

  • Podcasts
  • Articles
  • Get Naked
  • About
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe to newsletter
  • We love feedback

Follow us

cambridge_logo_footer.png

©The Naked Scientists® 2000–2017 | The Naked Scientists® and Naked Science® are registered trademarks created by Dr Chris Smith. Information presented on this website is the opinion of the individual contributors and does not reflect the general views of the administrators, editors, moderators, sponsors, Cambridge University or the public at large.