Another project

[madcatmk3]

well since I couldn't do my other project me and my dad are going to figure out the most effective way to use hydrogen with cars. My dad says that he think it's best to make it right before using it and then ethier injeect it into the engine like we currently do or to simply use it to charge a battery.
The problem with that it what would you use to make the htdrogen? water? where would you store it?
My solution would be to store it in a tank and do like we currently do with fuel engines and have hydrogen re-fulling stations.
The problem with my idea is: The tank can't we be under more strain if it's an odd shape. The Main problem with my idea is one you highly compress hydrogen there is no structure small enough to stop it from slowly leaking so you have a sort of "use it or lose it" fuel were it will leak out and I
m sure nobody wants that. SO any ideas/sugestons/ideas of your own ?

[Pitch]

I like to mix Potassium Nitrate, Sulphur and Charcoal together.

I suggest adding that to engine. Drive it and see what happens! Report back (if you can!)

[madcatmk3]

sounds fun and when I say like a current engine I mean not a sompletly new type not just shove hydrogen in a gasoline engine.

[Pitch]

Please. I urge you to give it a try.

[madcatmk3]

with the explosive mixture you gave me? Anway I wouldn't do it with a car before it could work on a small scale if I ever even do it with a car.

[Áedán]

Hydrogen storage isn't too huge a problem. It has actually been solved in a number of ways already, varying from simple storage of compressed hydrogen, through to storing it in carbon nanotubes, through to storing it in the form of a metal hydride, through to decomposing another storage medium such as ammonia.

One of the problems with using hydrogen in a standard reciprocating engine is that of valve wear. Just using hydrogen means there won't be the normal lubrication for the valves and their seats.

[Staz]

Alot of people are under the false impresson that you get hydrogen from water. Then in a fuel cell the hydrogen is recombined with oxygen and the only biproduct is water vapor.

What many people don't seem to understand is that it takes a lot of electricity to break down the molecular bond to seperate the hydrogen and oxygen. That electricity must come from somewhere.

Storage is simple. Lubrication may be a problem in trying to convert an internal cumbtion engine, but if you are doing it for proff of concept it shouldn't be a problem and can be solved later in a design or materials change if a proto type is to be built. But how would you regulate the amount of hydrogen to be fed into the intake so that you don't blow something up.

[Samuknow]

Originally Posted by Pitch

I like to mix Potassium Nitrate, Sulphur and Charcoal together.

I suggest adding that to engine. Drive it and see what happens! Report back (if you can!)

Wouldn't this be called an "external" combustion engine?

Wow what a ride......lol

[Samuknow]

Originally Posted by Áedán

Hydrogen storage isn't too huge a problem. It has actually been solved in a number of ways already, varying from simple storage of compressed hydrogen, through to storing it in carbon nanotubes, through to storing it in the form of a metal hydride, through to decomposing another storage medium such as ammonia.

One of the problems with using hydrogen in a standard reciprocating engine is that of valve wear. Just using hydrogen means there won't be the normal lubrication for the valves and their seats.

Correct...you would need an addative to healp the lubrication process...like leaded gas use to be....oh the good ole days..

[noob]

Apart from the lubrication, and delivery (which could be similar to CNG), the biggest problem you face is the power output.

When you combust 2H2 with O2 you get 2H2O or 3 moles of gas into 2. This means to get a greater compression on combusiton the heat of the product (H2O) needs to be higher than the reactants (H2 and O2 in this case), and needs to be high enough to offset the 2/3 amount of gas volume and pressure of the product.

Petrol does this by having the moles of product higher than the moles of reactant and also the product at a higher temp.

Take pure octane as an example of petrol (yes we all know petrol isn't, its an example)

2C8H18 + 25O2 -> 16CO2 + 18H2O which is 27moles in and 34 moles out which in gasses creates a greater volume - or in the case of the same volume a higher pressure (assuming perfect combustion, imperfect combustion actually creates a more moles of gas).

EDIT

An experiment I did in a stage 2 chem paper was to do with combustion of products.
We heated a tube to 105C with a spark generator and pressure gauge. Inside I had one with octane and oxygen, in another I had Hydrogen and oxygen. These I used the correct proportions to create total combustion.

I used 300kpa as my base, and while hydrogen had a peak of around 310kpa (forget the exact amount) it settled at around 200kpa, while octane and oxygen which started at 300kpa finished at around 380 - and peaked at about 420kpa. Big differences in power output.