# I Need Some Outbackers Smarts.



## sleecjr (Mar 24, 2006)

OK so i guy i work with showed me this today. It looks like it would work and there is some logic to it. Just for some history the guy i work with built a small test model in his kitchen. It produced hydrogen very fast. What do you think?
Link to the story

Link to the site


----------



## OregonCampin (Mar 9, 2007)

Wow - I would be inerested in knowing if this actually works as well.


----------



## PDX_Doug (Nov 16, 2004)

Interesting concept... but I am leery of the claims.

I worked on a similar project to this when I was in school, except in our case, the goal was to produce - via electrolysis - all the fuel the vehicle would use from an on-board water supply. No gasoline at all, pure hydrogen power. There turned out to be rather significant problems with this however. First and foremost, it took more energy - in the form of electricity from the vehicles electrical system - to produce the hydrogen than was then contained in the resulting hydrogen fuel it produced. In other words, it used more energy than it produced.

Secondly, we found that in order to promote efficient electrolysis, we needed to add a 'catalyst' to the water. These easiest and cheapest solution was salt. This in turn created it's own set of problems with residual salt build-up that tended to muck things up in fairly short order. As this device is obviously also an electrolysis based system, it's hard to see how they are promoting the electrolysis with plain water, much less distilled water. My guess is that the unit is not particularly efficient. On the other hand, it does not need to produce the quantity of hydrogen that we were trying to accomplish, so that may not be a huge issue. Also, there will be an expense involved in providing distilled water for the system, not to mention storage requirements and the added energy required to haul that extra weight around (we all know the difference between pulling our Outbacks with full tanks vs. empty).

What is intriguing about this product, is that it's not replacing the gasoline, but supplementing it as an additive to promote a more complete burn. But even in this, I could speculate there could be issues making the overall benefits less than what might be suggested. One, hydrogen is a relatively slow burning fuel. If it's burn rate is significantly different than that of the gasoline also being burned, there could be significant issues with untimely detonation, and the damages that can cause. There may also be issues with the effect the hydrogen would have on the lubricity of the fuel in an engine not designed for it. I would also have to wonder that, if this system is simply a method of delivering a gasoline supplement that promotes more complete burning, there are already plenty of products on the market that are much cheaper and less complex (just open a can, and pour it in the tank!).

Now don't get me wrong, there is not a bigger believer on the planet that the use of hydrogen is the best way to fuel our vehicles than me. When hydrogen powered vehicles actually hit the showrooms, I will be at the front of the line to buy one! Nor am I saying that this unit will not work. As I mentioned, it is a very intriguing concept. But, as with most 'something for nothing' schemes I would really have my doubts about the actual performance of the product, and it's economic viability.

BTW, just as a side note... I would not put a lot of stock in the figures quoted by the WPTV.com article. They were not even close on the percentage increases the mileages they claimed amounted to. If their writers could not even get that simple equation right, how much trust can we put in the rest of it.









In any case, I would love to see a more in depth review of the product by a legitimate testing lab. Until then, I'll hold off.

Happy Trails,
Doug


----------



## W4DRR (May 17, 2005)

If you could release more energy by re-combining the Hydrogen and Oxygen (combustion) than what it took to separate them (electrolysis), you could build a perpetual motion machine.
In other words, the product of the combustion of Hydrogen is water, and if you could then take all of the energy released in the combustion to generate electricity to once again separate the Hydrogen from the Oxygen in that water, you could repeat the cycle over and over and over. But this would be impossible, because some energy is always going to be lost to heat from friction and electrical resistance. The energy to sustain this has to come from an external source. In the case of this device, it is the alternator and battery. If it is drawn from the alternator, that is energy that is produced by the engine, so that would not be a net gain. The only thing left is the battery. So while you drive down the road, the battery is running at a net discharge to provide energy for the electrolysis. This might work short term, but eventually the energy in the battery will have to be replaced by recharging.
At least that is my $0.02 worth.

Bob


----------



## sleecjr (Mar 24, 2006)

You would be shocked how many youtube videos there are of people making hydrogen. One guy is making about 1 liter per min from about 7 amps. J


----------



## Nathan (Jan 2, 2007)

When I see "new technologies" that will save us, I always think back to the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, and then to a poster my High School chemistry teacher had: Entropy - The worlds going to hell!









I'm sure there are ways to improve efficiency of things, but be very leery of someone claiming to near (or exceed) 100% efficiency.


----------



## NobleEagle (Jul 8, 2006)

I'm not a professor, nor am I a scientist, so I can't really comment on the technology of the concept. However, if this idea and others like it will switch our dependancy on oil and other fossil fuels, I would have thought we as a nation would have implimented it already and not let things go as far as they have. I say we throw in the towel and give up all "green" efforts and just buy the fuel we have been using for many years no matter what the price.


----------



## campingnut18 (Mar 11, 2004)

lee i say its a great idea. i would love to see it in-person. 
so if you want to be a test dummy please do.
if it would save just 1/2 the gas i have ill buy it.
thanks for posting this.

lamar


----------



## hatcityhosehauler (Feb 13, 2004)

> They were not even close on the percentage increases the mileages they claimed amounted to. If their writers could not even get that simple equation right, how much trust can we put in the rest of it.


Which equation did they do wrong, or are they just miss stating their results? 9.4 is roughly 40% of 23.2, the diffence being roughly 60%. But their stated results are almost 2.5 times better then the unmodified vehicle. Of course, we can only comment on the dynamometer results, as they never stated the pre-mod street mileage

Tim


----------



## gregjoyal (Jan 25, 2005)

hatcityhosehauler said:


> > They were not even close on the percentage increases the mileages they claimed amounted to. If their writers could not even get that simple equation right, how much trust can we put in the rest of it.
> 
> 
> Which equation did they do wrong, or are they just miss stating their results? 9.4 is roughly 40% of 23.2, the diffence being roughly 60%. But their stated results are almost 2.5 times better then the unmodified vehicle. Of course, we can only comment on the dynamometer results, as they never stated the pre-mod street mileage
> ...


Tim, you are entirely correct with the 40-60 split, but it's their choice of words that is completely wrong... So just to be anal why I think they are wrong...

Take their 9.4 mpg and say you get 61% better mileage... That would be:
9.4 + (9.4 * 0.61) = 15.1 mpg

So to go the reverse, you take 23.2 and divide by 9.4, multiple by 100...
23.2 / 9.4 * 100 = 247% so really that's 147% better mileage (since you were already getting the original 100%).

What would be correct is to state that prior to installing the device, they only got 40% of the mileage they now get. Just doesn't work the other way around. I'm thinking that the respective 147% and 71% improvements were just too wild to report and that someone came up with the other way of reporting it to make it sound more credible and messed it up.


----------



## NobleEagle (Jul 8, 2006)

Just out of curiosity, if there was ANYTHING someone could do to improve the MPG for the price we are paying right now, wouldn't it interest anyone? I know if I got a 25% increase in MPG, I would look into what they did more closely. 100% - 140% increase? it's unbelievable but I would definitely be happy. I would not be looking to file a law suit because it increased 100% instead of the 140% they advertised LOL


----------



## W4DRR (May 17, 2005)

I'm sorry, but I would have to classify this as snake oil. And I wouldn't spend $1200 to find out, either.
Just my humble opinion.

Bob


----------



## Lady Di (Oct 28, 2005)

I've heard the term - 'If it sounds too good to be true it likely is' too good to be true.


----------



## Nathan (Jan 2, 2007)

I see this station is in Florida, and I assume they must not have emission checks in their area...








Internal combustion engines are a balancing act between power, efficiency and emissions (This of course assumes that you design it to withstand the pressures of whatever you are working to







)

So, if you want power, the thing limiting you is oxygen available to burn the fuel. Therefore, you would ensure there is always enough fuel to use all of the air available (running rich).

If you want efficiency, you would run lean, shutting off fuel whenever possible (the air is free).

(Don't get bound up the details, these are gross generalizations and of course there are exceptions to any rule.)

If you want emissions, then things get more complicated







. However, if you run lean, the engine produces NOx which is bad, and hard to deal with. If you run rich, then you get soot and raw fuel, which isn't great either. This is most evident with an old diesel. Normal light load operation you don't see anything, but it is running lean and therefore producing NOx. Step on it and the fuel dumps in to consume the air, maximizing power, but dumping the leftovers out the pipe and you see the soot.

Now gas engines have Catalysts that help deal with the exhaust, but the combustion still has to be tightly controlled for them to function correctly and survive long term. Diesel's now have particulate filters for the soot, and the new government regulations for 2010 will mean even more emissions control devices. This will hurt fuel economy just like it did for gas engines.

Now enter the miracle aftermarket bolt ons: Some aftermarket devices are modifying the combustion to the extent that your emission controls will either not work properly, or will fail prematurely. That's a big no-no in the eyes of the Government that regulates these things.








The onese that don't do this probably won't produce a noticeable improvement either.

Ok, so this was a bit of a ramble, but I guess my point is that if an automaker could improve fuel economy for $1000, they would do it in a heartbeat (They would do it for a lot less than doubling the fuel economy too







). Each automaker has 100's of engineers employed with the specific tasks to research new technologies (They were right near the top on R&D spending in the US last I checked). Any manufacturer who can make a breakthrough in this area will reap huge profits, but even this would be more like a 25% improvement in Fuel economy, not 150%....


----------

