Why HHO Works by Danny T Wilder 2/5/09
Firstly, I’d like to state that I’ve been a car mechanic since 1978. 1978. I have studied all fields of physics on my own since then as well. Plus, I have a degree in computer engineering technology. Basically, I’m not some newbie to these technologies. Combining hydrogen and oxygen in the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine creates water vapor. Actually, the burning of hydrocarbon, like gasoline, creates water vapor as well. This is significant, significant, as I will explain. Also, hydrogen burns about 100 times faster than octane (gasoline). Knowing these two things can help you understand why HHO will increase your gas mileage. Before I go on, let’s acknowledge the debunkers. Many people will tell you that the energy you put into separating the hydrogen and oxygen (electrolysis) offsets the energy you gain when the elements are recombined in the combustion chamber. In other words, they say that the amount of energy you get from burning the HHO is less than what it takes to create the HHO. Well, they are right. (Huh?) What they don’t consider is the mechanical energy gained by the creation of the water. The primary function of an internal combustion engine is to convert heat energy into mechanical energy. As the elements burn in the combustion chamber, the the gasses expand and create a force that pushes the piston and turns the crankshaft. In a physics course, you might be taught that an internal combustion combustion engine is 33% efficient. This means that one third of the energy created by the burn is converted to mechanical energy. The rest goes out as heat – about about one third out the tail pipe, and about one third out the cooling system. This is considered ‘waste’ energy. In reality, the energy efficiency of most modern car engines is between 25 and 30 percent, depending on its design. design. A poorly running engine might be 20 percent or less.
Now let’s consider the microseconds during the combustion of our mixture of HHO, octane, and air. (Before you get upset, I know that gasoline isn’t pure octane.) The air is only 21 percent oxygen, at best. When ignition first starts, the HHO will combine into water before the octane burns. This means that the water is available while the octane is burning. As the octane burns, the water will absorb the heat and expand, which increases the amount of heat energy that gets converted to mechanical energy. This is what we want in an internal combustion engine – heat energy converted to mechanical energy. In other words, this process is taking some of the heat that would normally become waste and converting it to mechanical energy. This means that less gasoline is needed to create the same amount of mechanical energy – the engine becomes more efficient. It’s like we’re going back to the old steam engine, but instead of heating the steam externally, we’re heating it within the combustion chamber. This is why engines that burn pure hydrogen are about 40 to 45 percent efficient. I remember in the late ‘70s when turbo chargers were becoming popular on sports cars. The biggest problem with these devices was that they would overheat because they ran off of the exhaust fumes. Well, Renault came up with a way to inject water in the combustion chamber when the turbo would kick in. The result would be a cooler exhaust that wouldn’t burn up the turbo charger. However, they discovered a side benefit of increased engine efficiency because the water converted the heat to mechanical energy. (The article’s writer played this down, as though it wasn’t significant.) This system never caught on, because of the need to store in the vehicle pure water that could freeze up and aid in corrosion. In fact, this is the major problem with HHO systems. As a side note:
An HHO add-on would probably not make a turbine engine more efficient. Turbine engines can be as high as 60% efficient. With that said, Another side note:
much of the research in creating hydrogen engines is being done with turbine engines. Steam engines? Finally, I’d like to say that adding too much HHO to your internal combustion engine can actually decrease its efficiency, because too much water in the combustion chamber can cool the burn too much. This varies depending on the engine design. Well, I hope this little lesson has helped you understand why HHO makes your engine more efficient, and therefore saves on gasoline use.
On the next two pages, you will find a simple design for a pulse width modulator to drive your HHO system.
Simple Pulse Width Modulator by Danny T Wilder 2/5/09
This circuit is not the most stable in the world, but it’s it’s probably the easiest to make. The resistor and capacitor values here will give a frequency of about 900Hz, which will provide good performance for an HHO cell. The MOSFETS can be just about any size. I suggest the IRF540. Allied Electronics has these for about 70 cents each. These are rated at 40 amps and by putting 2 in the circuit, they can share the load. I definitely recommend recommend heat sinks if you’re pushing more than 1 amp. You should put a fan on them if you’re going more than than 5 amps.
The next page shows a circuit board layout (it’s not to scale) and a silk screen overlay for this circuit. I added a power LED indicator to it. This design only requires a single single sided board. God bless.
