Sciencemadness Discussion Board

water electrolysis

-jeffB - 15-1-2008 at 12:48

One Faraday of charge will liberate one mole of H2 and one-half mole of O2.

One Faraday per hour, through four cells in series, should yield three moles of mixed gas per hour. You're sending approximately half that much, so you should get 33.6 liters/hour, or a bit over 550 ml/min.

I think you're double-billing the current -- assuming that when you send 26.8 Ah through an anode, you have to send ANOTHER 26.8 Ah through the cathode. In fact, they're both part of the same circuit, and so you only need 26.8 Ah total.

Klute - 15-1-2008 at 14:00

Are starting to work on that PICC idea Bio? Or is this for a totally different thing?

Good luck with it in anycase, sorry to say I can't be of much help here.

-jeffB - 15-1-2008 at 17:36

Quote:
Originally posted by bio2
How do I understand how 1 Faraday decomposes 2 moles
water which gives 2 moles H2 and 1 mole O2?

So what gives? I will probably be embarrassed to find out the mistake.

Overall reaction: 2H2O(l) = 2H2(g) + O2(g)

(needs 2 Faradays ?) seems logical just the numbers I measured are over unity.

The number of electrons passed is twice the number of generated hydrogen molecules and four times the number of generated oxygen molecules.


Don't say "over unity". ;)

To electrolyze two moles of water, you must pass four Faradays of charge. You can do this by passing one Faraday per hour (26.8 A) through a single cell for four hours. Or you can do it by passing one Faraday per hour through each of four cells for one hour. This latter is what you've done, by using four cells in series. It's not something-for-nothing, er, "over unity", because you use more voltage to drive the cells in series, and thus more power.

-jeffB - 16-1-2008 at 10:32

Yes, the H2/O2 flame is hot. But so is a carbon arc struck from your high-current supply, no? ;)

I guess I'm just not seeing anything advantageous about converting a primary energy source to electricity, then using that electricity to electrolyze water, then immediately burning the H2/O2 produced for power.

You can't avoid dissipating some energy as heat in the electrolytic cell. You can't avoid thermodynamic losses when you try to harness the energy from the burning H2/O2. And, even though incorrect calculations or measurements might imply otherwise, you can't create more energy than you put in. What's the point?

Xenoid - 16-1-2008 at 10:40

Quote:
Originally posted by bio2
Most totally reject the
operation of an IC engine using only H2 & O2 mixed gases generated from
water with an on board engine driven alternator. Yet many claim to have done this.

My belief is that universities, especially the prestigious ones have suppressed
many technological advancements all along.



WTF are you talking about ... :o

I'm glad they suppressed this loopy idea, why not just operate the vehicle with engine #1 and save all those extra, energy robbing, complex steps.

Dreamer!
Quote:
The little mini torch works great and will melt tungsten and even rocks!


My Mellors (admittedly old) states the temperature of the oxy-hydrogen torch flame is about 2800 oC. Even oxy-acetylene is hotter (3000 oC). The melting point of tungsten is ~3400 oC. I was under the impression that it could only be melted with an atomic hydrogen torch. What form was your tungsten in! Granitic and basaltic rocks melt in the region of 900 oC. - 1100 oC. so this is no great feat!

[Edited on 16-1-2008 by Xenoid]

Xenoid - 16-1-2008 at 16:07

Quote:

No second engine was mentioned. Ever here of a car with an engine driven alternator.


You state O2 and H2 is generated using an alternator driven by an engine (No.1).
You state O2 and H2 is used to drive an internal combustion (IC) engine (No.2).

That's two (2) engines! Please, please don't tell me they are the same one!
Quote:

Tesla was called a dreamer and maybe his dreaming paid off!


Tesla was a very intelligent man!
Quote:

The tungsten was a light bulb filament.


Yeah, thought as much!
Quote:

Next you will tell me a car engine has never been operated on H2 alone.


Why on earth would I do that! there is no problem with running an IC engine on H2! I've even considered doing it myself. I think they did it on Mythbusters a while back. At least the O2 comes from the air, so you don't need to carry some means of generating O2 around with you!
Quote:

..... water electrolyser flame welder only imagining they are welding?


Water electrolyser flame welders have been around for ages, so what! I think there is even a thread here on science madness!
Quote:

and to Xenoid, you were in diapers when I read Mellors so
thanks for stating the obvious.


Well, all I can say is you must be extremely old, if this is the case! When was your 80th birthday!

[Edited on 16-1-2008 by Xenoid]

not_important - 16-1-2008 at 19:07

It is one and the same IC engine, making the whole thing a type one perpetual motion machine. In some cases the system is not referred as a PP1C, instead it is stated that the generated gas is simply a mileage booster used with ordinary gasoline (or occasionally diesel). In a few of those cases they're not claiming anything astonishing, staying within the realm of high mileage IC engines using modifications that don't stray very far from conventional science.

There's a lot of ... interesting claims for the gas generated by such systems. While it should be easy to verify the production of excess energy when burning the gases, apparently standard methods fail to do so for a variety of reasons. One of the more intersting reasons given is that 'HHO' doesn't heat water when burned, although it can melt refractory substances both electrically conductive and insulating (special electrical/electronic states are often invoked when explaining HHO)

http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/RhodesGas/index.html

http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Hydrogen_Technology_Appl... (check the "how it works links)

I should note that many of these electrolytic systems are reactive loads, using capacitive coupling and non-sinusoidal waveforms. These are often difficult to get proper power measurements on, few investigating these devices used proper methods of measuring.

It appears that bio2 has deleted their posts and fled.

[Edited on 17-1-2008 by not_important]

-jeffB - 16-1-2008 at 20:06

Quote:
Originally posted by not_important
It appears that bio2 has deleted their posts and fled.


So I guess I'm allowed to edit my assholish follow-up. I do apologize for the mischaracterization, @bio2.

[Edited on 1-18-08 by -jeffB]

bio2 - 17-1-2008 at 09:37

.....Now, that's odd. My experience with the over-unity folks has been that they're incapable of embarrassment...

No notimportant, I have not fled, just tired of people putting words in my mouth and
jumping to conclusions with their snide comments.

In all my years in this forum this is the first time this has happened.

So delete this thread and let these two go bother someone else.

I will not repeat myself for their benefit but I certainly never said I believed or achieved this "over-unity" nonsense, merely that I wanted to see for myself.

BTW proper power measurements are not difficult with varying wave forms (true RMS
meter, etc.) and an inductive disc watt hour meter of course is what is usually used used for billing customers by the utility regardless of it's ultimate accuracy. A demand meter is usually applied for large noisy loads like arc welders or noisy half waves etc.

MagicJigPipe - 17-1-2008 at 10:04

Bio2, I don't think anyone was trying to be combative with you. They were just expressing their concerns with the loss of energy in all the steps. You just didn't explain yourself well enough.

You need not worry about Xenoid anyway, he's just a silly goose.

P.S. I don't think bio2 is an "over-unity" loony. You all blew one comment of his WAY out of proportion. He seemed to be stating that his calculations came out "over unity", therefore, they were obviously incorrect.


[Edited on 17-1-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

bio2 - 17-1-2008 at 10:14

Yea, OK.

Check this puppy out! This is what I am after as already stated. Pretty cool, huh?

http://www.eagle-research.com/browngas/machine/homebuilt/hom...

chromium - 17-1-2008 at 11:28

Quote:
Originally posted by -jeffB
Yes, the H2/O2 flame is hot. But so is a carbon arc struck from your high-current supply, no? ;)

I guess I'm just not seeing anything advantageous about converting a primary energy source to electricity, then using that electricity to electrolyze water, then immediately burning the H2/O2 produced for power.

You can't avoid dissipating some energy as heat in the electrolytic cell. You can't avoid thermodynamic losses when you try to harness the energy from the burning H2/O2. And, even though incorrect calculations or measurements might imply otherwise, you can't create more energy than you put in. What's the point?


Point is that every heating device has its own ups and downs. It is not only efficiency and highest temperature that counts but a lot of other properties like stability of heat, ability to concentrate energy to specific area (large, small, specific shape) unwanted emissions, acoustic noise, longevity of device, complexity of repairs, general safety etc. Usefull arc furnace btw is much harder to build than oxyhydrogen torch.

In case of hobby science efficiency is almost last thing that counts because we use so few kilowat hours for our experiments that power adds no expenses to our hobby even if we need to multiply it.

[Edited on 17-1-2008 by chromium]

[Edited on 17-1-2008 by chromium]

Klute - 18-1-2008 at 09:47

As a side note, I can only say it's very regretfull such discussions finish off like this.
Rejecting innovative ideas, being worth it or not, just feels out of place here. I just don't get the point of doing this. Trying out such experiments can only be benefecial in our actual context, as long as they are safely conducted, of which I doubt not, knowing Bio. Rejecting such ideas, just doesn't bring anything construtive IMHO. I feel that some comments were wortlhessly condescending.

But I'll shut up know, I've no intention of controversing, it's just that this attitude seemed totally out of context, knowing that Bio is IMHO a very knowledgeable and helpfull person.
Please see no offense or personal attack in this post.

But I'm sure Xenoid is working for oil companies :D ;)

froot - 6-3-2008 at 03:31

Electrolysis of water to produce HHO using complex AC waveforms?

Finally some maths and a bottom line on this, how true it is, well feel free to pull it apart and point out the inaccuracies. If you have a bit of time, an interesting read.

http://www.rexresearch.com/puharich/1puhar.htm

woelen - 6-3-2008 at 10:34

They say at the beginning of the article that electrolysis of water to form H2 and O2 requires less energy, than what is produced from combining H2 and O2. So, electrolysing water to make H2 and O2, using an ideal cell without losses and then recombining the gases again to water would create an excess of energy. At that point I decided that I can better spend my time on other things :P

bio2 - 6-3-2008 at 13:56

Yes, statements like that are unfortunate yet I intend to do some experimentation
using resonant frequencies to determine for myself what if any the effects are. Claims
are made that if the frequency of the input power is matched to the resonant frequency of the electrodes great increases in gas output are attained.

One way this is done is by using concentric pipe electrodes which are tuned to match
by cutting slots. The pipes are hung on a string and tapped sort of like a tuning fork principle. The frequency of the electrolyser is then matched using a hard square wave
at a partial duty cycle.

My 2KW water electrolysis cell has been finished for a while and works quite well.
As expected the best efficiency I've measured so far is about 70% which is apparently
very good from what I have read. It was necessary to install a cooling coil to keep the electrolyte temperature below 70 degrees.

I'm using it for a flame welder and have connected a portion of the output to a 1.6KW generator running the engine on an about 50/50 mixture of H2/O2 and gasoline to observe the effects. Works quite well and quantitative measurements on the amount of both fuels are in progress.

This from the article above. I wonder where these numbers
came from? Can anyone easily find the correct energy (enthalpy?)? I am now looking.

........H2O Electrolysis + 249.68 Btu Delta G ==> H2 + (1/2)O2 per mole of water (1 mole = 18 gms.). (1)

This means that it requires 249.688 Btu of energy (from electricity) to break water by electrocal fission into the gases hydrogen and oxygen.

H2 and (1/2)O2 === catalyst ===> H2O - Delta H 302.375 Btu per mole of water. (2)

This means that 302.375 Btu of energy (heat or electricity) will be released when the gases, hydrogen and oxygen, combine................

[Edited on by bio2]