hydrogen combustion engines

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by ripleofdeath, Aug 4, 2001.

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  1. ripleofdeath Registered Senior Member

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    hey all

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    well i have not seen this topic discussed on the boards since my arrival so i shall raise a hair-raiser!

    Ceramic-hydrogen combustion engines have got to be the best thing since sliced bread in my books! ............. ?

    or have i missed something?

    I do realize that people have been killed and beaten up for the construction and research of these things so i would just like to say I’m not able to make one.
    Since we can guarantee that the oil baron’s will be hot wording such terms!

    Does anyone have Webster that has plans or tables or basic separation formula on them?
    MY DATES AND TIMES ARE APROXIMATE!
    In about 1940-somthing a New Zealand man designed and built
    a hydrogen combustion engine-he then sold it to the United Kingdom for 1.2 million pounds (a huge sum in those days)
    He lived in a coastal town called New Plymouth (near a big volcano called Mt taranaki)
    ...Well this was swept under the carpet until about 3-5 years ago
    when a 19-year-old man (in the same town) was working on the construction of the separation unit inside his garage (which he had locked himself into while working)
    3 unidentified men broke in and beat him so badly he was in intensive care for several days-all his equipment was stolen-
    And that was the end of the story until about a year later when on our new was a story about the daughter of the man who had made the engine back in 1940 something (news being that he had died)
    and his daughter was interviewed to see if she would do anything with the plans and diagrams that she supposedly had.
    Her reply was "nothing it has all been burnt"
    "I decided not to bother with it"
    Well you might just ask. "Why has it not been international news"?
    WE COULD SAY THE SAME ABOUT murder or UFO sightings,
    But the real hurdle is people don’t want to have their reality shaken too much: /
    I will end on that note for now so please post anything you have heard or know or have seen about the whole topic of HYDROGEN COMBUSTION ENGINES... please

    groove on all

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    Last edited: Aug 4, 2001
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  3. kmguru Staff Member

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    A few years ago, I read in popular science that they modified a bus to tun on hydrogen rather than natural gas. The byproduct of hydrogen is energy and water. So far so good. There is just a little problem. Hydrogen has much less energy (joules) than natural gas (per pound) and can not be sucked out of ground. If there is an accident, there will be a bigger boom than natural gas.

    I visted a place where there was an industrial accident involving hydrogen under high pressure and temperature. Only the wedding ring was found half melted.

    Therefore, no one uses it to run machineries except welding and as a catalyst in oil refineries among others.
     
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  5. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Much safer would be something like the Stirling engne.
     
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  7. ripleofdeath Registered Senior Member

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    stirling engine?
    please explain further.

    hey kmguru i have "echos" of nuke plants in the white noise

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    we just havnt explored the safe options of gas containment!
    what if we had a vacume with some form of molecular magnet in it?
    we can list all the possible types of problems except for exclusive wealth and major profit

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    .. too sad for most...hint hint.

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    kinda sounds cool though
    we have all the engine space needed!
    we just need the company to risk the bad wind of change and start pumping them out!

    ?
     
  8. kmguru Staff Member

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    This is slightly off topic here but I remembered something that the readers will find interesting. About 20 years ago, I was at University of Colorado taking a course in computer simulation. During that time, there was a world conference on solar energy being hosted there.

    I was sitting next to a professor of physics in the cafeteria. He was talking about how in ten years, we will have solar panels on every roof of the house, lawn and vehicle to provide cheap electrical energy. He said that they are having a problem as to mass produce these cells so they are working on amorphous cells that will revolutionize the manufacturing process.

    I think he took the money for research and retired on it. And the next person who got the money did the same.....

    We are playing with fuel cells for many years now. We should be able to buy one at a local home depot.
     
  9. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    Just as an asside ...

    Almost ten years after the end of WW II the U.S.Navy had a modified German Type XXI 'Walther' submarine tied up at New London Conn. Naval base and still under security status cover.

    The most interesting bit as far as I was concerned was it's unique, at the time, power plant: a Sterling Cycle Engine fueled by hydrogen peroxide. The catalytic conversion of hydrogen peroxide resulted in both fuel, hydrogen, and oxygen being available for the engines even when submerged. Fortunately the sub never made it to sea before WW II ended.

    For a modern application of the Sterling Cycle engine, check out:

    http://www.kockums.se/Products/kockumsstirlingm.html
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2001
  10. ripleofdeath Registered Senior Member

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    Hey all
    chagur- i went to the site and indeed it offers a new way for people to go....BUT...i think the key to the idea behind the H engine-
    is the concept of completeness...i have heard it has a magnesium oxide residue in some types.
    but i feel i need to alert all readers to diversionary tactics which would play-down the viability of such devices as mearly second rate, poor mans engines.
    Power and availability is the key and hydrogen IS powerful and i have heard it said to be the most prevalent atom in the solar system!

    cheers....
    and
    keep it comin on in all

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  11. kmguru Staff Member

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    NEWS

    DETROIT (AP) - Toyota Motor Corp. (news - web sites) on Wednesday unveiled a hydrogen-fed fuel cell based on its new Highlander sport utility vehicle.

    Toyota said the top speed of the FCVH-4, which stands for ``fuel cell hybrid vehicle,'' is 95 miles per hour and has a cruising range of more than 155 miles.

    The Japanese automaker is conducting road tests with the vehicles in Japan and the United States.

    A fuel cell creates electricity through a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen leaving water as the only form of emission.

    Some fuel cells being developed can use natural gas or gasoline as a fuel. A reformulator extracts hydrogen from those fuels, but those vehicles emit some greenhouse gases.
     
  12. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Much like the electric car, it sounds as if there is still quite a bit of work to be done. That's fine for driving in the city but on the open road is a whole nother catagory. One of the problems with new ways is that it will take a while to build the infrastructe to support it. Do you want to stop every 150 miles to refuel or replenish? Most will not except that. And so far it is one of the reasons that the electric car has gone no further along with the cost of batteries. Even hybrids don't get all they are touted to be.
     
  13. ripleofdeath Registered Senior Member

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    hey all

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    but what about all the batery packs that NASA use in the satalites?
    would they not be of any use?
    with photo cell roofs one would(me anywho

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    )
    imagine they were able to maintain a level of chatrge to extend the range.
    the only thing i have heard is the charge rate is too slow for practical purposes.

    i see noting wrong with 300kmph
    although the infrastucture is not exactly up to standard currently in most places,
    so to introduce a new fuel would create yet another example of
    badly managed resources :/
    if the fuel is free then we have no problems!

    thoughts....?

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  14. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Battery packs from NASA could prove to be quite expensive. You could easily spend your life savings to purchase these specially designed items.

    Solar recharge panels would be nice but at present they simpy do not have the output to get meaningful charge at the rate you would need. In another post I made mention of the Helois which is a solar powered unmanned aircraft. It produces 40KV which would probably be sufficent for recharge but it has 240 some foot wingspans, Maybe we need to widen the highway a little bit, eh?

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    Are you suggesting that we drive only on sunny days?
     
  15. dhersey Registered Member

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  16. viperjeffers Registered Member

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    Hi all,

    On the topic of energy from the sun i have this little interesting tidbit. A few years ago Harvard Uni developed a new type of silicon solar cell called "black silicon". If you know about this then just ignore me otherwise read on.

    Black silicon works on the same principle as a normal silion cell however has one difference. When the cell is manufacturered the silicon is generally flat with very few ridges on a microscopic level, this doesn't allow all the light to be caught and tus most bounces straight off, thus the best cells produced today can get (i forgot the actual figure but its low) a maximum 48% effeceincy.

    Harvard university came up with the idea of cutting ridges that leave spike-like crevasses in the silicon with a laser on a microscopic level. This created more area for the light to strike thus whatever light bounced off would hit another wall and be absorbed entirely. Thus it is called black silicon because it appears black due to all light being fully absorded and none being reflected.

    Effeceincy of black silicon... 99%.

    We are talking 1 cell could power a room in your house all day long and store enough power all night long at reletivly the same cost as a normal silicon cell.
    If you covered you car it would run it no problem during the day with very minimum need for battery storage.

    This product is on the market today but gets zero publicity, no doubt because of our friends at the oil companies throwing people off the back of trains.

    Cheers all
    Putz
     
  17. kmguru Staff Member

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    Company name and website address please...
     
  18. Boris2 Valued Senior Member

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  19. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Free hydrogen is not found anywhere on Earth. This may limit the practicality of H fueled vehicles.
     
  20. Maast AF E-7 Retired Registered Senior Member

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    Background: I've been a renewable energy nut for years; even to the point of making a brakedrum windmill (a la Hugh Piggott).

    Hydrogen has some real problems with it
    1. There is really not much energy in a cubic foot of hydrogen, it has to really compressed or liquified to reach decent energy densities and thats hard to do and requires a lot of energy
    2. Storage, the stuff will seep through metal walls, weakening them in the process (has to do with grain boundaries in the metal) it'll seep through glass too.
    3. Gas pressure, if you have a leak, it VERY quickly expands to a large volume, one spark and you have a fuel-air bomb.
    4. You have to make the stuff from something else, which takes more energy

    Thats not to say hydrogen fuel cells aren't great, its just to overcome the generation, storage, and transport issues of gaseous hydrogen it takes too much energy and is so difficult to deal with the costs very quickly outweigh the benefits.

    Its much easier to deal with hydrogen if its bound into a liquid fuel of some sort (alcohol, liquid or gas methane, etc), then use whats called a "reformer" to crack out the hydrogen at its point of use.

    Thats why I'm such a fan of hybrid cars, they're a perfect transitional for moving over to fuel cells. And using hydrogen bound into a liquid fuel allows us to continue to use all the infrastructure that we've already spent a huge amount on.
     
  21. Maast AF E-7 Retired Registered Senior Member

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  22. Maast AF E-7 Retired Registered Senior Member

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    Also, the highest efficency of any solar cell I know of was something like 40 percent, and it was expensive and difficult to make the 4 sq cm cell. DARPA is working on a 50% cell but I don't know the status of that one.

    Cell efficiency is almost irrelevent though to the home user, price per watt is the big issue, that is how much do you have to spend to buy a cell to generate 1 watt of power. Currently its about $3.70 US per watt. Its believed by industry experts that the explosion of use point will be when it hits about $1.00 per watt.

    We're getting there, costs are coming down
     
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