hydrogen for nothing

Hydrogenated Peroxide?
cuhulin

> wrote in message
...
> Hydrogenated Peroxide?
> cuhulin

I am a career chemist, cuhulin. Do you mean hydrogen peroxide?
It really wouldnt make any difference. There is still no free lunch.

In sci.physics, >
>
wrote
on Fri, 09 Feb 2007 21:12:59 GMT
> :
>
> "RichD" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>
>> When the battery reaches fully charge, it draws no further
>> current? Then where does the alternator output go?
>
> There is only minimal output when the battery is fully charged. The
> regulator
> senses the voltage and decreases the output from the alternator.

And how does it do that?

Two possibilities come to mind.

[1] The circuit from the alternator is completely cut.
This has some ramifications if done improperly (sparking)
but would lighten engine load, as the alternator is now
merely a bunch of spinning magnets, if that.

[2] A clutch is disengaged, stopping the alternator rotor
from spinning. This is probably not used on alternators,
but A/C units do use this sort of thing.

I'll admit I'm not entirely sure what would happen if the
circuit were not cut, since the battery would have no more
ions to effectively migrate. My estimation is that the
battery would heat, possibly damaging it.

>
> Think what would happen if you ran the alternator full tilt all the
> time...you
> would have much more frequent failures from heat AND your gas mileage
> would suffer a bit. If you generated, for example, 100 amperes of current
> at 14 volts,
> that is 1400 watts. Almost two horsepower...And you have to feed the
> horses.
>

The general power output of an automobile is on the order
of 70 kW, though it depends on where one's driving and
the general size of the vehicle.

But 1400 W would make for a fairly warm battery. :-)

--
#191,
/dev/signatu Not a text file

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

RichD wrote:
> Dear David A. Smith,
>
> N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc) wrote:
>>>>> www.nationalvapor.com
>>>> Electrolysis = electricity
>>>> Electricity =/= free
>>>> The amount of hydrogen liberated during electrolysis
>>>> represents less energy that it took to make it.
>>> The alternator is continually generating current,
>>> correct?
>> Correct. Some inefficiency in production and delivery, let's
>> pretend the losses are small.
>>
>>> Some goes to the regulator, for the car's electricity.
>>> Some of it goes to battery charging.
>> *All* production is regulated, else you fry the electronics and
>> battery (or do nothing).
>>
>>> And when the battery reaches full charge, it dissipates
>>> as heat...
>> It is heating while charging, and when fully charged, neither
>> draws current, dissipates heat, nor releases hydrogen.
>
> When the battery reaches fully charge, it draws no further
> current? Then where does the alternator output go?
>
>>> Especially during braking... regenerative
>>> braking, anyone?
>> Always a good idea, if heating water with 60% of it is not.
>>
>>> How much (over) charging current is lost as heat, normally?
>> 60%
>
> oh
> Well, wouldn't it be productive to do some electrolysis with that?
> (where does 60% come from?)
>
> Here's my simplistic understanding of automotive electronics:
> the crankshaft turns a belt which drives a generator which
> sources current proportional to the rpm. When the battery
> is fully charged, the overcurrent is wasted energy. This
> might power electrolysis, and explain the inventor's gadget.
>
> --
> Rich
>

It would serve you well to study some HS level electricity. However a
college level is a bit more revealing. The battery gets to the point
where its emf (electomotive force measured in volts) is large enough to
cause the circuit breaker to turn off the flow of electricity to the
battery lest it overcharge (a real battery killer.) Thus the generator
experiences an open circuit. That is equivalent to an infinite
resistance and no current is produced. The generator continues to
consume energy from the belt that drives it as it spins merrily along
without any current being produced. Rather like a dry cell sitting on
the shelf. It has an emf but produces no current at all sitting on the
shelf.
FK

"The Ghost In The Machine" > wrote in message
news:i2b1a4-
> > There is only minimal output when the battery is fully charged. The
> > regulator
> > senses the voltage and decreases the output from the alternator.
>
> And how does it do that?
>
> Two possibilities come to mind.

You only need think of one in normal automobile application. The
semiconductor
regulator does this. No clutches, no switches.

There used to be kits that allowed you to remove the action of the regulator
and
take full voltage DC from the alternator. You could run AC/DC tools in the
field
this way. They dont draw much current, and this -although maybe - spooky
application didnt seem to hurt the alternators.

Lets assume you have, for example, 20 amperes current at 14 volts that you
could
count on from an alternator all the time. How much hydrogen could you
generate
per minute. It is a simple electrochemical calculation, and I leave it to
you to do.

> wrote in message t...
>
> "The Ghost In The Machine" > wrote in message
> news:i2b1a4-
>> > There is only minimal output when the battery is fully charged. The
>> > regulator
>> > senses the voltage and decreases the output from the alternator.
>>
>> And how does it do that?
>>
>> Two possibilities come to mind.
>
> You only need think of one in normal automobile application. The
> semiconductor
> regulator does this. No clutches, no switches.
>
> There used to be kits that allowed you to remove the action of the regulator
> and
> take full voltage DC from the alternator. You could run AC/DC tools in the
> field
> this way. They dont draw much current, and this -although maybe - spooky
> application didnt seem to hurt the alternators.
>
> Lets assume you have, for example, 20 amperes current at 14 volts that you
> could
> count on from an alternator all the time. How much hydrogen could you
> generate
> per minute. It is a simple electrochemical calculation, and I leave it to
> you to do.
>

For the benefit of any lurkers, alternators provide AC, although
those fitted to automobiles have inbuilt diodes to rectify that to DC.
14 volts at 20 amps is 280 watts, about 1/3 horsepower; that has to
be drawn from the engine.
Power stations have very powerful steam turbines to drive
their alternators, they do not spin by themselves and neither
do car alternators. There is no advantage to be gained from
hydrogen when it would be used for is to power the alternator.
Aircraft have an APU (auxiliary power unit) for an electrical
source when the main engines are not running, that too is
turbine driven.
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...cs/q0219.shtml

One can always recognise a totally ignorant ****head when he
says "I leave it to you to do."
There is only one solution to them. *plonk*

"Androcles" > wrote in message
o.uk...

> wrote in message
t...
>
> "The Ghost In The Machine" > wrote in
message
> news:i2b1a4-
>> > There is only minimal output when the battery is fully charged. The
>> > regulator
>> > senses the voltage and decreases the output from the alternator.
>>
>> And how does it do that?
>>
>> Two possibilities come to mind.
>
> You only need think of one in normal automobile application. The
> semiconductor
> regulator does this. No clutches, no switches.
>
> There used to be kits that allowed you to remove the action of the
regulator
> and
> take full voltage DC from the alternator. You could run AC/DC tools in
the
> field
> this way. They dont draw much current, and this -although maybe - spooky
> application didnt seem to hurt the alternators.
>
> Lets assume you have, for example, 20 amperes current at 14 volts that you
> could
> count on from an alternator all the time. How much hydrogen could you
> generate
> per minute. It is a simple electrochemical calculation, and I leave it to
> you to do.
>

For the benefit of any lurkers, alternators provide AC, although
those fitted to automobiles have inbuilt diodes to rectify that to DC.
14 volts at 20 amps is 280 watts, about 1/3 horsepower; that has to
be drawn from the engine.
Power stations have very powerful steam turbines to drive
their alternators, they do not spin by themselves and neither
do car alternators. There is no advantage to be gained from
hydrogen when it would be used for is to power the alternator.
Aircraft have an APU (auxiliary power unit) for an electrical
source when the main engines are not running, that too is
turbine driven.
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...cs/q0219.shtml

One can always recognise a totally ignorant ****head when he
says "I leave it to you to do."
There is only one solution to them. *plonk*


Fine. Please put me in your killfile. But I am neither ignorant nor a
****head.
If anyone wants to know how much hydrogen can be derived, then let them
calculate it, rather than just get on here and talk bull**** about hydrogen
generators.

Talk is cheap. You are proof of that, cocksucker

In sci.physics The Ghost In The Machine > wrote:
> In sci.physics, >
> >
> wrote
> on Fri, 09 Feb 2007 21:12:59 GMT
> > :
> >
> > "RichD" > wrote in message
> > oups.com...
> >
> >> When the battery reaches fully charge, it draws no further
> >> current? Then where does the alternator output go?
> >
> > There is only minimal output when the battery is fully charged. The
> > regulator
> > senses the voltage and decreases the output from the alternator.

> And how does it do that?

You control the field current which in turn controls the output voltage.

Once the battery voltage equals the output voltage, the potential
difference is zero and thus the current is zero and power out is zero.

In reality it goes to a tiny residual value.

The load on the engine is now just the bearing/belt/pully friction.

Before semiconductors, the regulator (that's the box that does it) was
built with voltage sensitive relays and the duty cycle was controled.

With semiconductors, it is linear control.

There are no permanet magnets in an automotive generator/alternator.

<snip remaining>

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

In sci.physics,
>
wrote
on Sun, 11 Feb 2007 17:15:02 GMT
>:
> In sci.physics The Ghost In The Machine > wrote:
>> In sci.physics, >
>> >
>> wrote
>> on Fri, 09 Feb 2007 21:12:59 GMT
>> > :
>> >
>> > "RichD" > wrote in message
>> > oups.com...
>> >
>> >> When the battery reaches fully charge, it draws no further
>> >> current? Then where does the alternator output go?
>> >
>> > There is only minimal output when the battery is fully charged. The
>> > regulator
>> > senses the voltage and decreases the output from the alternator.
>
>> And how does it do that?
>
> You control the field current which in turn controls the output voltage.
>
> Once the battery voltage equals the output voltage, the potential
> difference is zero and thus the current is zero and power out is zero.
>
> In reality it goes to a tiny residual value.
>
> The load on the engine is now just the bearing/belt/pully friction.
>
> Before semiconductors, the regulator (that's the box that does it) was
> built with voltage sensitive relays and the duty cycle was controled.

Yes, and those relays occasionally fail. :-) It was an issue with my
previous car, if memory serves.

>
> With semiconductors, it is linear control.
>
> There are no permanet magnets in an automotive generator/alternator.
>
> <snip remaining>
>

Ah. Fascinating. I'll admit to some curiosity as to
how one gets field current into an alternator that is
supposed to be generating current but that would probably
lead us into electrical motor/generator design, which
probably isn't all that interesting except perhaps to
motor/generator designers. :-) Besides, a "starter"
coil and/or magnets would probably take care of that,
or one can simply do something fancy with the battery.
I'd have to look.

As for the amount of hydrogen generated by 2000 W (which
was the OP's question, IIRC) -- come to think of it,
one danger in standard lead-acid batteries is in fact
hydrogen, from electrolysis of the electrolyte therein.
I'd frankly forgotten about this issue.

There's actually a few issues in
electrolysis, which are summarized in
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../electrol.html
at a fairly basic level. Briefly put, an electrical
system has to pump in 237.1 kJ -- the Gibbs free energy --
per mole (2g) of hydrogen produced. However, 282.1 kJ in total
is required; the rest (around 45 kJ) is extracted as heat
from the environment.

Since it's an automobile application, there's plenty of heat. :-)
Presumably this could be construed as a weird sort of cooler,
except that the water cell also functions as a resistor. I don't
know the resistance offhand, though, but presume that if it's
low enough some of the current will be dissipated as heat.

So...that 2000 W will generate a little more than 1 g
of hydrogen per minute under ideal conditions. Of course,
those conditions include supplying 9 g of water per minute,
with appropriate salting.

Where that water comes from is another question.

That 1 g of hydrogen per minute can also be expressed as
813.86 coulombs per second -- or 813.86 Amps -- since

2H+ + 2e- = H2

and there are 6.022 * 10^23 H2 molecules per mole, but
only about 6.2415 * 10^18 electrons per Coulomb. Since
P = I^2*R that yields a resistance of 3 milliohms, which
looks rather unrealistic unless one has a large facility.

Pure water has a resistance of 250000 ohm meters according
to
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc...0/phy00787.htm
though the actual value apparently has a very strong
temperature variance, plus the amount of contaminants
in solution;
http://hypertextbook.com/physics/ele...ty/resistance/
mentions a value as low as 12740 ohm meters when the
water is near boiling. (This isn't exactly highly conductive
compared to, say, copper's 17.1 ohm meters. I'll admit
to some puzzlement as graphite is claimed to be a lot more
conductive than copper, though.)

If one contemplates 0.01 m^2 plates (10cm x 10cm) spaced
0.01 m apart, that gives me at best a resistance of
181 Kohms, though I don't know precisely how that will
be affected by pH. Since pure water is pH 7, one might
contemplate a pH 2 solution of HCl or H2SO4 at being 1.81
ohms (since there's 100,000 more H+ or HO3H+ ions flitting
about therein, per unit volume, than in pure water).
Admittedly, one gets contaminants in the cathode --
either chlorine or SO2 given these two acids -- at the
cathode if one uses acidified water. (The latter would
probably stink.)

A 10cm x 10cm x 10cm "cube" might get as low as 181
milliOhms (mostly because there are 10 subchambers,
connected in parallel). One can also play with the
spacing.

Disclaimer: This is of course highly theoretical, and
I've not built any of these devices. :-) Presumably,
greater minds than mine have worked out a lot of these
details, as hydrogen is routinely produced for, among
other things, food consumption -- and is a bit of a
villain nowadays from a heart disease standpoint but
it thickens up polyunsaturated oils nicely. :-)

--
#191,
Linux. Because vaporware only goes so far.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

The Ghost In The Machine wrote:


>>Before semiconductors, the regulator (that's the box that does it) was
>>built with voltage sensitive relays and the duty cycle was controled.
>
>
> Yes, and those relays occasionally fail. :-) It was an issue with my
> previous car, if memory serves.
>

Yeah, the contacts would pit and wear out, or they'd weld together. Damn
junk, you could never make them last more than 100k miles ;-)

Seriously, I am AMAZED that something so primitive as a "buzzing" relay
worked as well (and as long) as they did.

>
>>With semiconductors, it is linear control.
>>
>>There are no permanet magnets in an automotive generator/alternator.
>>
>><snip remaining>
>>
>
> Ah. Fascinating. I'll admit to some curiosity as to
> how one gets field current into an alternator that is
> supposed to be generating current

Alternators aren't "self energizing." They HAVE to have at least a weak
source of current to supply the field in order to start generating. It
can be really weak, so as long as the battery has any voltage at all, if
you can get the engine running to turn the alternator it will start
charging. But an old GENERATOR is completely self energizing due to the
fact that it does have a residual magnetic field and you used to be able
to push-start a car with a stone-dead battery when cars had generators.

but that would probably
> lead us into electrical motor/generator design, which
> probably isn't all that interesting except perhaps to
> motor/generator designers. :-)

Not that complicated. Alternators are VERY old technology. The main
electromechanical part of a car alternator is IDENTICAL in configuration
to the synchronous generators that produce power at all the powerplants
in the US and most of the rest of the world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternator. The difference is that although
car alternators generate 3-phase AC current internally (and by the way,
the frequency of that AC varies with engine speed), a diode bank
rectifies it to DC before it comes out of the alternator. That's why
alternators didn't appear in cars until Chrysler put the first one in
production about 1960- very rugged, relible solid-state rectifier diodes
were necessary and those didn't come about until the late 1950s.