Electrolysis of water - GIF

[Altair]

Electrolysis of water is the process decomposing water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity.




Previously:

Crystallization of sodium acetate - GIF
Briggs-Rauscher oscillating reaction demonstration - GIF
Timeline of chemical element discoveries - photo
Elemental gases in front of a Tesla coil - GIF
Gallium in water - GIF

[nova_robotics]

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the foundation of how we're all going to be tricked into greenwashing the car industry.

[Frank S]

And basically this is little more than a middle school science experiment. Where we separated the hydrogen from the oxygen and allowed the gases to collect in test tubes above. However if both gases are collected in a single vessel then you have what is called Brown's gas
Yull Brown: Brown's Gas (Hyfuel); US Patent # 4,014,777

[nova_robotics]

And basically this is little more than a middle school science experiment. Where we separated the hydrogen from the oxygen and allowed the gases to collect in test tubes above. However if both gases are collected in a single vessel then you have what is called Brown's gas
Yull Brown: Brown's Gas (Hyfuel); US Patent # 4,014,777

Have you seen the little HHO torch kits you can buy online? Super cool. Fill them with water, plug them in, and you have a small very hot torch for... whatever. I've seen guys flame polishing acrylic with them. Very neat stuff. It's on my list of tools to buy then never use.

[Frank S]

Sometime about 2000 or 2001 A couple of guys were leasing a small area in my shop experimenting with making one of the gas generators.
I machined the parts for it for them when they had it functioning they had a few problems #1 was the amount of electrical energy required to keep it functioning I think they were trying to come up with a way to circumvent the patents but I don't know as I largely stayed out of their way as long as they didn't blow the place up or themselves things were cool. They did manage to make the gas cut steel if you could call it that more like just melted it apart and they managed to get a small lawnmower engine to run on the stuff for a short period of time. Actually it ran pretty good just by holding the torch nozzle to the intake But I could do that with act or propane so I was not impressed at the time. I don't think they ever got their little fuel injected 4 cylinder engine to run on it because they couldn't get anyone to understand how to modify the injectors to a light enough opening pressure, before Jimmy decided to go off on his own leaving Christopher holding the bag.
I think if the idea of transforming petrol engines to run on this stuff with proper research and governments staying the heck out of the way until the systems were perfected it would make the current EV craze take a step back again.
Remember electric vehicles at one time in the early 1900s were growing in popularity for city delivery usage then Diesel became a much more viable source of power.
Now electrics have made a resurgence with a vengeance 100 years later. Why couldn't water fuel do the same thing that Diesel did almost 80 years ago

[nova_robotics]

Electricity -> Water Electrolysis -> Hydrogen -> Running a Combustion Engine has horrid, atrocious efficiency. Like comically bad. Just light your wallet on fire and save the extra steps. There's a whole host of other issues like hydrogen embrittlement of heads and cylinder walls, crazy pre-ignition and detonation issues, completely loss of piston dome cooling (fuel spray is actually used in gasoline engines to cool the piston surface), high pressure storage and filling, no lubrication for injectors, pretty substantial power reduction (gaseous fuel displaces much more air than liquid fuel, greatly reducing power output), crazy hot cylinder temperatures that jack up NOx through the roof, and probably a ton of other problems I don't know about. There might be a case to add a little bit of hydrogen to a conventionally fueled engine though. I've read that it can provide a light catalyzing effect, which is interesting.

You can almost make the case if you produce hydrogen then run a fuel cell, but it's still not great, basically marginally better than gasoline. Plus we have to build a whole new infrastructure to supply, distribute and deliver hydrogen to the end user. Some car manufacturers are going that way (Toyota) by producing electric cars with PEM fuel cells. Ideally you just take the electricity and put it in a lithium based battery and skip all these inefficient chemical conversions.