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Steve,
To be honest, I don't think this is on the level. Some of the guys at work have asked me about the "wonders of hydrogen" and they basically initially expect to get some sort of free power or boost from water by "extracting energy" from it. When oxygen and hydrogen are already combined as in a state of water, it is like they are already a discharged battery or burnt fuel. When they are separate, chemical energy can be had from the burn, or re-combining of the atoms. Here is a site (
http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/page1.php?QNum=1532 ) that describes it simply, "Water itself is burned hydrogen, and the energy required to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen is equal to the energy released when the hydrogen subsequently burns back into water. Energy in and energy out. Just as in bicycling, if you want to roll downhill, you have to pedal uphill first.".
In that one could get better mileage out of diesel by adding hydrogen in a careful manner ...that may be true. The engine may burn less diesel for the same amount of power output. But the comparative equivalent would be to add gasoline to the engine to increase the power output and also burn less diesel. The financial flaw is that the engine is substituting some of the diesel fuel and burning a different fuel to make up for it. Adding gasoline would save diesel but at no better savings. Hydrogen is even more expensive than gasoline, since the cheapest way to make it is by reforming methane or natural gas. Right now electrolysis of water to get hydrogen costs more.
One of the guys was persistant in that the engine could drive the car
and run an alternator to make hydrogen by electrolysis and then the engine could burn the hydrogen to drive the alternator. Perpetual motion. But I'm sure you have noted that if you ever boost another car battery, a near dead one, with your engine running, that the alternator gives an audible moan and severely loads the engine until the idle control valve (on modern fuel injection) can kick idle back up to the correct rpm. Be assured that the engine is burning more fuel at a higher throttle setting to charge the dead battery even if all it does is maintain rpm at greater torque.
Perhaps by adding hydrogen to the mix one could cool the intake mixture and derive more power but that would necessitate the hydrogen being stored under compression and cooling under release. The work needed to compress it, which gives off heat, negates the gain from releasing it. This sort of thing is seen by using nitrous oxide injection and an engine can take the cooling advantage of either more efficient high compression ratio, or more commonly, higher turbo pressure. So besides just the extra oxygen available for burn, additional power is made from the cooling effect. But it is definately not cheap power, just a lot stored and conveniently burned in a small place at once.
Here is another more elaborate overall site on the future of hydrogen:
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy )
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