One of the early drivers in the emissions reduction was to run the combustion with an excess of air (lean) so that the catalytic converter had some oxygen to burn the hydrocarbons and CO all the way to CO2. This was too lean for best economy! Since the control was pretty gross, they had to include some margin (even leaner). To keep the lean mixture from detonating, the timing was also delayed. The first ECUs just controlled mixture, timing, etc based on a preprogrammed map. Economy went down the toilet. But it was the price we paid for lower HC and CO emissions.

With modern computer fuel injection systems, the engine can run closer to ideal mixture. No extra safety margin is required because it's a closed feedback system. Timing is controlled by a ping sensor, again closer to ideal because the computer can prevent detonation by continuously listening. The ECU can still fall back to the mapping system if the sensors don't look right. And it turns on the check engine light.

This is why I think that better economy on an older engine can possibly cause higher emissions.

 

I have thought of one possible explanation as to how anyone can dream these thing "might" work: if the engine is producing surplus power that is not being used (but petrol is being used to make it) so that the extra drag that the alternator puts on the engine to power this thing is not causing more petrol consumption then there is a chance it can work, mind you doesn't it drain your battery ?

it works like this:

Petrol goes into the engine lets say 100 Watts worth.
engine is 35 % efficient (and that's about the best any engine will get)
so from 100 W of petrol we get 35 Watt of mechanical power
now the alternator is 80 % efficient at converting mechanical power into electricity, so from 35 W of mechanical power we get 28 W of electricity.
electrolysis is 50-80 % efficient
so from 28 W of electricity we get 14-22.4 Watts of Hydrogen

so you see it took 100 Watts of petrol to get 14-22.5 watts of hydrogen thats 14 - 22.4 % of the power put in to make it to use it in the same engine again so we might as well used the original 100 watts of petrol to make 35 Watts of mechanical power in the engine and use it to drive the car.

now if the engine is making more mechanical power than needed due to the dificulty in so pricisely controlling it to be 100 % efficient in all driving conditions if there is extra power that we are not using well yes then perhap this thing might help but it certainly is not perpetual motion or anything.

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Or you could use a hybrid car which skips the electrolysis and stores the energy in batteries.

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hm yea but would need added weight for the electric motor

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And less weight as no electrolysis unit or hydrogen storage medium is required plus a greater over all efficiency.

You also forgot that the 22.4W of power you saved from your engine will only become 7.84W of useful power when it's sent back to the engine.

Batteries are about 75% efficient and a motor is as efficient as a generator, plus you can also do regenerative breaking so hybrids clearly win.

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yes I suppose an electric motor might help, yea I know the 22.4 W of power will become only 7.84 W of mechanical power in the end thats what i was trying to put thru, as i said it would only be of any use if the engine was creating more power than needed but i don't understand the complicated art of optimizing an engine for consumption as driving has many potential situations to it it is hard to predict all that

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Thunderchild ! So what your telling me from your exsplination is that I was thinking this little unit that i put on my car is 20% increase but in reallity it is 35 percent increase. For the fact that I noticed a 20% increase and I am not taking in to account the power it took to run the altrernator which I didn't figure. Buy the way the the Hydrogen unit pulls 300 watts continuous while on. Am I not correct that if I didn't figure in the 300watts it took to power it, then My increase is more than I thought? ANd if I can get more volts without all this amp draw. I should be able to produce more hydrogen? volts produce hydrogen not amps. I wonder how many cubic feet of air travel through a 5.7 liter motor at 2000 RPm -[114.000 cu.ft ??] and how many cubic feet of hydrogen is in a gallon of water?Gibbs

 

That's not true, the gadget he's talking about will only increase fuel economy by 7.84% and there are more cost effective ways of increasing efficency than that.

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you have totally missed my point, you gadget needs 6 times the power in petrol to make the same in hydrogen, if you want to make 1 W of hydrogen you need 6 W of petrol so you mask a loss in the end by adding strain to the engine to make fuel that will be burned in the same engine, it is like trying to turn an alternator with an electric motor and powering the motor with what the alternator makes, this is impossible because 1 W into the electric motor will come out as like 0.65 w in the alternator and will not run the motor, you are talking perpetual motion and this does not exist.

all I am saying is that if your car engine is producing more mechanical power than needed (using more petrol than really needed) then the hydrogen maker will use that surplus power without putting any more strain on the engine and petrol consumption,

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You're not listening!

That makes no sense whatsoever!

You are far better off with a hybrid car!

Also the extra mass added will reduce the miserable 7.87% extra efficiency even more!

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well tell the chap trying to promote this thing anyhow before trowing in the weight factor measure the extra batteries and motor weight but as i already said that hydrogen thing is no use really eccept in those occasionla circumstances

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There is a little problem with this electrolysis cell. First, it will always (rules of the universe, no exceptions) take more energy to break up water into hydrogen and oxygen than can be recovered by their recombination. Your engine has to put power into the alternator, so it cannot possibly get better mileage - even if a significant volume of gas does get produced.

As far as the energy that might go into the engine goes - consider what power is used to do the electrolysis. Say that you manage to push 10 amps into the cell. That is 120 watts expended. At an impossible effeciency of 100%, that's 120 watts of "extra" power into the engine. One horsepower is the equivalent of 768 watts. So you get a sixth HP boost. Whoop.

There is also a certain level of danger in this particular setup. The teeny quantity of gasses that do evolve from the electrodes (no possible magic in using SS, by the way) are collected in the same container. While hydrogen comes off one electrode, oxygen comes off the other. Mixtures of H2 & O2 are explosive. There is a small possibility of personal injury associated with this device.

Frankly, I'd be more likely to try cow magnets on the fuel line than this device. At least the magnet has some other uses.

 

First First First It is not amps that seperate Hydrogen it is volts, step charging, pulsing hrz. to pull apart the water molecule.

 

He did account for electrolysis not being 100% efficient.

You're still ignoring the fact that the electrolysis cell and somewhere to store the hydrogen will all have a fairly large mass. In fact all of the aforementioned will likely have a similar mass to a battery and motor except be more expensive and less efficient.

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I would like to know how much air travels through a 5.7 liter v8 at 2000 rpm? How many cu. ft ? and lets say this car get 20 miles to the gallon. Then tell me how much gas is going through that same car in 60 miles, and the gas ratio to cubic ft of air. then tell me how much hydrogen can be produced out of one gallon of water. then tell me the ratio between the gas and the hydrogen. Considering that hydrogen is 2.5 time more powerful thant gas. How much hydrogen do you think it would take to run the same motor?