Partial Hydrogen vehicles & the kit costs only £1k

[ambulancekidd]

Just watched an interesting article on BBC Scotland's Landward programme whereby the Scottish Government have paid for a farmer to try out an on board hydrogen generator on his tractor.

The original unit cost £10k but apparently the cost has dropped to about £1k per vehicle, so this farmer has fitted one to his pick-up truck.

I'm not offering an opinion, I'm just interested in the technology.
I believe you'd be able to find the episode of Landward on the BBC i-player site it's episode 14 of the 2020 series & here is a link to the tech company.


Perhaps Gromett has an opinion which we would value?

Water Fuel Engineering

Water Fuel Engineering develops on-board autonomous electrolysers that reduce emissions and fuel consumption by introducing Oxyhydrogen gas (HHO) to conventional vehicles by accelerating the burning process in engines.

www.waterfuelengineering.com

.

 

[olley]

Been talked about before, general opinion is its a scam.

 

[ambulancekidd]

Been talked about before, general opinion is its a scam.

Farmers are by nature a pretty pessimistic & I should know, but the guy on Landward sounded pretty convinced, however, he may have been paid handsomely for his appearance.

I'm going to keep an open mind, we've got to move forward & its going to take the odd leap of faith.

 

[The Wino]

Looks like it would work in that electrolysis is proven but it can't generate more power than is used to produce the gas and when the gas is burnt it will provide less power as some will be heat like any ordinary engine. Sounds like a bit of a folorn hope to me.

 

[Grianan]

Asked my friend who’s one of UK experts in Hydrogen power.
She says ...
They’re a con. You will use more energy through the engine to make the hydrogen & because the amount created is so small it has zero impact on the carbon emissions. They say that other emissions are improved but there are no controlled comparative studies that ever shown that these technologies make a difference.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[olley]

Its been touted for quite a few years now but never been proved to work accept in the adverts.
A few more pushing it.

The Original Water4Gas is Back! – You've reached the official Water4Gas, founded 2006 by Ozzie Freedom

water4gas.com

Water for Fuel is under construction

www.waterforfuel.com

This dubunks it from 2009 https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a3983/4310717/

 

[autorouter]

It depends on what the overall objective is. First thing to say is, it won't reduce carbon dioxide emissions ('carbon emissions'). If anything it will slightly increase them. It won't save energy.

However it's possible that injecting hydrogen/oxygen mixture into the cylinder in controlled amounts will reduce the other pollutants like NOx and CO. But I'd suggest that farm tractors are not a big contributor to air pollution in cities.

There is a well-established technology of injecting LPG into diesel cylinders to reduce pollution. It also slightly reduces carbon dioxide emissions. It reduces fuel costs, but that's largely due to the reduced tax on LPG compared to diesel. It's not very popular because currently the break-even mileage is about 100,000.

But yes, the hysterical claims of free energy and running on water as fuel are a con

 

[DBK]

Overall pollution is only cut if the hydrogen can be produced from renewables. The vast majority of hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas or oil and CO2 is a massive by-product of the process. For example, methane mixed with steam at high pressure and with a catalyst creates this reaction:

CH4 + 2*H2O = 4*H2 + CO2

The issue then is what do you do with the CO2?

Hydrogen reduces pollution in cities but generating more greenhouse gases isn't the long-term answer.

Electrolysis of water works but it isn't very efficient.