Wow, learn new stuff everyday! See?

What did we learn from this thread?

-The Inner workings of an alternator
-It takes a lot more energy to get Hydrogen than the gain we'd get from it
-Steve can turn Lead into Gold!

Thanks, guys... still, even now we've pretty much established the end game of this little science project, I'd like to see what result is from someone who's doing it to their car(s). It's like a horror flick, you know they all die in the end but you watch it anyway!

 

oh yeah, Steve, I was gonna ask, do you take paypal for the lead>gold thing?

 

Of course I can, Paypal accepts payments from any sucker out there.

 

I know of a shop out here in California who does the hydrogen conversions for $1,000 bucks. He claims he got his crx to get 50mpg from around 30 mpg normally. Now I do agree with those who have sited the Thermodynamics law. It would seem that any created energy from extracting hydrogen would be lossed in the process of creating it, causing a "wash" at best. However, after looking at the set-up in his car it allows you to adjust the fuel ratio through a switch in the car that's tapped into the fuel line. So basically your leaning the car out by restricting the amount of fuel. In theory the extra hydrogen from the kit should make up for the loss of fuel so there's no adverse effects from running the car lean. So this is what I'm waiting to see if all these engines burn up from leaning them out? But he does claim he got his car smogged with the set up. So we'll see? What other probelms could occur from leaning the car out?

 

reaction potential for water hydrogen electrolysis is 1.23V, this is what it takes to make hydrogen. From that you need to campare it to the energy given off from hydrogen combustion (which is what you're engine does). There is probably some benefit to doing this, as when the water is gone, you fill the cell back up for ~5cents. This 5cents and 1.23 volts (1.23 volts multiplied by the number of reactions per cell of water) is what you're "spending" to get a few miles from hydrogen. The combustion enthalpy of gasoline is -210kJ/mol, compared to the enthalpy of combustion of Hydrogen, which is -286kJ/mol. This is basically the willingness to combust for a certain compound. Hydrogen is more willing, therefore it takes slightly less energy to combust.

Don't shoot me if you disagree, it's been awhile since thermodynamics, but this is one of the best ways to look at it.

P.S. I'm not doing this to my car!