Ooh hydrogen additive hey.
Yeh I've done plenty of research on that. There was a guy on the news in Melbourne running hydrogen along with his Petrol, and getting good economy improvements, so I did some research.
There's a group of people in Melbourne researching it, under Climtech solutions, or also called HOH, run by Cameron Ashton.
HERE'S THE CONCEPT (at least for the one I'm talking about):
The key with this is NOT trying to run just hydrogen, or make a SUPER efficient system, but just generate enough hydrogen to assist the fuel burning, improve combustion, and improve efficiency.
Adding hydrogen to normal petrol combustion is a known good combination. Petrol needs oxygen to burn, hydrogen also burns, and also combined with oxygen produces a more thorough burning of the petrol, and the result of burning Hydrogen with your Oxygen is H20 (water - but in vapour form because of the heat) along with all the other emissions caused through burning the petrol etc (CO2 and CO). This results in a much cleaner (although still with plenty bad stuff) exhaust emission.
The method these guys use is a container (or 'cell') with water in it (sometimes other chemicals are added to assist the reaction) and you pass electric current generated by your alternator through it (yes, there is a loss due to extra current drawn on alternator... read on).
The cell seperates the water (H2O) into Hydrogen, and Oxygen (both excellent additions to petrol to help it burn!). It also produces some water vapour, etc, which is also handy. Kind of why these guys call it HOH cos of the Hydrogen, Oxygen etc combination of seperation that you get chemically.
EXPLOSION NOTE: because of the very low volume of hydrogen produced as you go, it is not in any danger of explosion, and these systems have flashback arrestors (found in welding systems) to stop any such flame getting back into the 'cell'. I have personally tested this myself, and lit a small, continueing flame off the end of the hydrogen supply. This is the advantage of generating the hydrogen
on board rather than storing it in a tank that IS a big explosion risk.
RE-TUNING NOTE to achieve the best improvements from this, you SHOULD adjust your engine management to supply less petrol for a given airflow. You can either use a cheap airflow sensor interceptor, or get engine management reprogrammed. How much you do this directly affects how much fuel savings you may get. But you can also use the stuff without doing this, or even on a carby car, and still notice savings.
RESULTS hopefull speak louder than words:
So, the results that have been seen from doing this have not been anything
crazy or
revolutionary like some have claimed, especially on some crazy sites in the US, or as tested by Mythbusters. BUT you can see consistent fuel improvements, in the order of 15% to 35% and in really carefully tweaked cases a couple of people have got closer to 50% improvements. These results are
overall results, so this takes into account the power loss due to extra drain on the alternator.
These guys have had a CSIRO scientist also check out some of their claims, and the validity is definitely there. In a way it's again similar to adding water mist as well, plenty of things can be done to improve engine efficiency, but it's up to whether you want the hassle.
Personally I think it's pretty cool, and would have continued looking at it and testing it if I'd had the time and money.
If people are interested, have a look at this site. You can buy existing kits, etc from there. There's even a group you can go join in with and test out results, and look at their demonstrations in Melbourne. Any questions just ask! I may be able to point you in the right direction.
The site in Melbourne is:
http://www.climtechsolutions.com/
NOTE guys, there will always be some fanatics with anything like this, so don't let them put you off some of the valid results and findings that are there too.
Hope that's helpful and interesting! :)
And if I've stepped on anyone's toes in saying any of that, I haven't meant to, just an interesting topic, and hopefully that sheds some light on it. I'm no expert though, and only have a basic understand of the chemistry of combustion, so if you find errors in the stuff above, I'm open to correction.
:beer
