H2 Combustion-Booster Claimed

Here's one I just read:

http://www.canada.com/montreal/montr...ry.html?id=cfe...

Some fellow is claiming he has a small device that will boost
combustion efficiency and save drivers lots of money, while reducing
emissions.

Obviously, plenty of claims have been made before, so I'm asking --
does this sound on the level?

It sounds reasonable that injecting H2 into your fuel stream can
improve the combustion. I assume that combusting the H2 in your
cylinders along with the regular fuel will boost temperature to give a
cleaner burn. Would the higher temperature harm your engine life at
all?

Since this device supposedly only holds a limited supply of distilled
H2O, KOH, etc which get periodically replaced, can I assume that it's
catalytically cracking some hydrogen from the hydrocarbon fuel stream
itself, so that hydrogen can improve the combustion of the remaining
fuel at the cylinder?

Is this somehow akin to a sort of turbocharger, but which uses hydrogen
instead of pressurized oxygen? Can it work for other things like
aircraft engines, in order to boost their operating ceiling?

Hmm, I dunno, I feel a little puzzled or suspicious of how he's
achieving a net energy gain here. Can anyone debunk any obvious
fallacies here?

Some fellow is claiming he has a small device that will boost
combustion efficiency and save drivers lots of money, while reducing
emissions.

Obviously, plenty of claims have been made before, so I'm asking --
does this sound on the level?


Water injection has been around for a long time, both for internal
combustion and aircraft jet engines, it does improve efficiency, reduce
temperatures and reduce some emissions. It depends what is being claimed for
the actual device.

Regards
Jeff

" wrote

It sounds reasonable that injecting H2 into your fuel stream can
improve the combustion.

Hmm, I dunno, I feel a little puzzled or suspicious of how he's
achieving a net energy gain here. Can anyone debunk any obvious
fallacies here?

I'm not up to trying to read all of the web site, but the answer is to save
your money.

Water injection has been around in high HP engines, running at high,
constant loads, for a long time. Will it become practical for your airplane
or car?

Car, no, because of the low HP, and non-constant loads.

For airplanes? Yes, if all you want is a boost of extra HP, for a short
amount of time. Some WWII fighter planes used them for an extra boost for
take-off and for other times, such as dog fighting, where the extra HP meant
life or death. Some air racers also use water injection.

Why not all of the time? LOTS of water is needed to make much of a
difference, and the weight for enough water to last for more than a few
short bursts would be impractical to carry around. It also needed a lot of
monitoring, which no doubt could be taken care of by modern micro chips.

Lastly, if it was a viable option, wouldn't all major manufacturers be using
it? You will have to ignore the oil company conspiracy theories, to answer
that one. g
--
Jim in NC

" wrote in message
ups.com...

Some fellow is claiming he has a small device that will boost
combustion efficiency and save drivers...

Any special reason why you felt the need to x-post this OT stuff to three
different newsgroups?

Vaughn

In article . com,
says...
Here's one I just read:

http://www.canada.com/montreal/montr...ry.html?id=cfe...

Some fellow is claiming he has a small device that will boost
combustion efficiency and save drivers lots of money, while reducing
emissions.

Obviously, plenty of claims have been made before, so I'm asking --
does this sound on the level?

It sounds reasonable that injecting H2 into your fuel stream can
improve the combustion. I assume that combusting the H2 in your
cylinders along with the regular fuel will boost temperature to give a
cleaner burn. Would the higher temperature harm your engine life at
all?

Since this device supposedly only holds a limited supply of distilled
H2O, KOH, etc which get periodically replaced, can I assume that it's
catalytically cracking some hydrogen from the hydrocarbon fuel stream
itself, so that hydrogen can improve the combustion of the remaining
fuel at the cylinder?
Separating out the hydrogen would probably take more energy than
it would add during the combustion process.

Is this somehow akin to a sort of turbocharger, but which uses hydrogen
instead of pressurized oxygen? Can it work for other things like
aircraft engines, in order to boost their operating ceiling?

If the invention is actually 'combusting' any hydrogen, the fuel/air
mixture in the engine computer would have to be altered to provide
enough extra oxygen. However, since the amount of air in each
cylinder is generally constant, it would actually require reducing
the fuel input. It doesn't sound too practical to me.

Hmm, I dunno, I feel a little puzzled or suspicious of how he's
achieving a net energy gain here. Can anyone debunk any obvious
fallacies here?

soaking up excess heat by turning water into steam is one obvious
way of increasing efficiency----but that's been done for decades.

Mark Borgerson

Only conversion going on here is converting your money into his money.

Jack G


" wrote in message
ups.com...
Here's one I just read:

http://www.canada.com/montreal/montr...ry.html?id=cfe...

Some fellow is claiming he has a small device that will boost
combustion efficiency and save drivers lots of money, while reducing
emissions.

Obviously, plenty of claims have been made before, so I'm asking --
does this sound on the level?

It sounds reasonable that injecting H2 into your fuel stream can
improve the combustion. I assume that combusting the H2 in your
cylinders along with the regular fuel will boost temperature to give a
cleaner burn. Would the higher temperature harm your engine life at
all?

Since this device supposedly only holds a limited supply of distilled
H2O, KOH, etc which get periodically replaced, can I assume that it's
catalytically cracking some hydrogen from the hydrocarbon fuel stream
itself, so that hydrogen can improve the combustion of the remaining
fuel at the cylinder?

Is this somehow akin to a sort of turbocharger, but which uses hydrogen
instead of pressurized oxygen? Can it work for other things like
aircraft engines, in order to boost their operating ceiling?

Hmm, I dunno, I feel a little puzzled or suspicious of how he's
achieving a net energy gain here. Can anyone debunk any obvious
fallacies here?

In article . com,
" wrote:

Here's one I just read:

http://www.canada.com/montreal/montr...ry.html?id=cfe...

Some fellow is claiming he has a small device that will boost
combustion efficiency and save drivers lots of money, while reducing
emissions.

Obviously, plenty of claims have been made before, so I'm asking --
does this sound on the level?

It sounds reasonable that injecting H2 into your fuel stream can
improve the combustion. I assume that combusting the H2 in your
cylinders along with the regular fuel will boost temperature to give a
cleaner burn. Would the higher temperature harm your engine life at
all?

Since this device supposedly only holds a limited supply of distilled
H2O, KOH, etc which get periodically replaced, can I assume that it's
catalytically cracking some hydrogen from the hydrocarbon fuel stream
itself, so that hydrogen can improve the combustion of the remaining
fuel at the cylinder?

Is this somehow akin to a sort of turbocharger, but which uses hydrogen
instead of pressurized oxygen? Can it work for other things like
aircraft engines, in order to boost their operating ceiling?

Hmm, I dunno, I feel a little puzzled or suspicious of how he's
achieving a net energy gain here. Can anyone debunk any obvious
fallacies here?

I read the web page ad, and every single paragragh had at least one
outright falsehood. Some paragraphs had several. Most also had
classical marketing misdirection and dissimulation.

The bottom line? YOU CAN'T GET SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
Everything this guys says violates conservation of energy and both the
First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.

It's a simple bilko scheme.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

Well, why do you equate H2 injection with water injection? From what I
see here, while water spray can act as an atomizer to increase surface
area, the H2 is itself combustible. Isn't there a difference?

" wrote in message
oups.com...
Well, why do you equate H2 injection with water injection? From what I
see here, while water spray can act as an atomizer to increase surface
area, the H2 is itself combustible. Isn't there a difference?

I'm sure it said H2O, when I read it. Yeah, that's my story, and I'm
sticking to it! g

I'll try to read better, next time. I've only been at it for about 43
years! ;-)
--
Jim in NC

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 00:03:47 -0700, wrote
(in article . com):

It sounds reasonable that injecting H2 into your fuel stream can
improve the combustion. I assume that combusting the H2 in your
cylinders along with the regular fuel will boost temperature to give a
cleaner burn. Would the higher temperature harm your engine life at
all?

Don't know about a cleaner burn. Higher temperatures mean mire nitrogen
compounds. In fact, a pure H2 and atmosphere engine will produce the nitrogen
compounds that make up smog. To be clean, you need a pure O2 for oxidizer,
not air.

The fuels we use are hydrocarbons and there is plenty of hydrogen there
already. In a perfect burn, as in stoichiometric combustion with O2, all you
get from gasoline is water and CO2. Octane is just 8 carbons surrounded by 18
hydrogens. Adding hydrogen and decreasing gas might get a hotter fire, but we
run about as hot as we need (or can stand) now for long engine life. Hotter
might help prevent oddball bits of hydrocarbon from being unburned (handled
by catalytic converter) but increase NO2, etc.

The link didn't lead to whatever you saw, so I can't comment on the thingy.
It probably works as well as putting magnets on your fuel lines.

-- Charlie Springer