Electrolysis, how and whys?

[dkjones96]

Thermal runaway? As in, it starts to boil over?

I should work on some experiments in my apartment this coming weekend. I've got a few multimeters and a bunch of free time. Kinda sounds like fun.

[TerryG]

Originally Posted by dkjones96

I should work on some experiments in my apartment this coming weekend. I've got a few multimeters and a bunch of free time. Kinda sounds like fun.

If you email me at tadgesualdo@gmail.com I can send you one of my wire wound electrode set ups for a one quart mason jar like water4gas uses. I have moved on to more surface area than one of those can provide, besides the wall plug blanks are only $1.19 each at Lowe's, cheaper than the source for stainless wire I found locally.

It is fun experimenting with it, but make sure you have some ventilation I don't know what would happen if too much HHO would build up, it might explode. I open a window and put the hose from the electrolyzers into a glass of water so that their isn't a chance of the electrolyzer will blow up. Also take notes this way you can study the results of your tests to help come to conclusions. I don't know how you would be able to tell if it were boiling, there are so many bubbles in their already.

RW,
How did you come up with the 190 degree figure? With all these factors there has got to be points of diminishing returns on how hot the water is, how large the plates are, how strong the electrolyzer mix is, how much current and everything. This is what my bench experiments are trying to determine, ther is everything from soup to nuts on the internet with regard to these.

Terry

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Yep, starts to boil over...

Say you're losing 200W of heat into heating it, as it warms up it gets more efficient, then you're putting 250W of heat into it and it gets hotter still and you're putting 300W into it... So they can go from "a little warm" to boiling quite quickly if you're not cautious.

[TerryG]

Originally Posted by RoadWarrior

Yep, starts to boil over...

Say you're losing 200W of heat into heating it, as it warms up it gets more efficient, then you're putting 250W of heat into it and it gets hotter still and you're putting 300W into it... So they can go from "a little warm" to boiling quite quickly if you're not cautious.

Wow! this fits right into my observations lately, the hotter it gets the more current it draws, and the hotter it gets still. I think what I want to do is put a power conversion control on the unit so I can control the voltage and thus the current fed to it, along with a thermometer. This way I can give it more current at start up until it start rising in temp once it reaches 190 degrees I can back off the voltage to where it is not getting any hotter. This is more waist compared to your running the engines coolant supply through it, but this way I have control and can monitor the temp, voltage and current. I like knowing what is going on.

Terry

P.S. No one has answered my questions about whether it would be better to mix a sodium carbonate solution rather than sodium bicarbonate. Wouldn't this reduce the sludge problem presented by baking soda? Sure which I understood the electrolysis process better with regard to what is going on chemically with different electrolytes.

P.S.S. From what you said would it be better to mix a stronger electrolyte solution to where you were using less voltage than more. I think I could mix a solution of water and potassium hydroxide strong enough to where it would only need 1.2vdc to produce a fair amount of HHO. Would that then not make as much heat, or no heat based on what you said?

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

190 is a typical thermostat temp, the temp the engine coolant will be regulated to. Might be 180, or 195 in your car. So for a start it will be bringing the jar/cell up to 190F, you might have the voltage tuned to start producing a little bit lower, say 170F, but you're not putting that much extra heat in, and the coolant will either keep it warm up to 190F or absorb excess heat from it. I think it might be steaming a fair amount at that point though, but I believe larger concentrations of hydroxide will raise the actual boiling point somewhat. IF you have a "feeder tank is your bubbler" arrangement, then you'll probably recondense most of the steam in there and reclaim it.

I'm pondering floating mineral oil on top of a cell for the purpose of reducing misting of hydroxide into the gas flow when the bubbles burst at the surface, this may also prevent steaming to some extent.

Just gonna go look for a link I posted with some handy data in...

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Ah this was the one I was thinking of...
http://www.dow.com/causticsoda/phys/index.htm
but they don't have the handy dandy table for boiling point as they do for freezing point. At the top of the page you will notice it given as 293F for 50% solution of sodium hydroxide. However, note also that the freezing point is quite high.

[TerryG]

Today I induced thermal runaway, it was more difficult than I thought it would be, it took one hour at 4 amps at about 20v, I suppose I could have mixed a stronger electrolyte solution to make it happen faster. Anyway it is interesting, you can't tell very easy it is happening the larger bubble are the first clue, and the water level drops. I have these weird deposits above the water line, that don't mix back in with the water.

My engine compartment seems to heat up the HHO unit and thus heat up the water, so designing with higher water temperatures in mind doesn't seem to be a bad idea. I was also thinking of mounting the unit in front of the radiator to add to the cooling of it to prevent thermal runaway. I am filtering my electrolyte solution today to get out the sludge, I am hoping it doesn't reform, since RW said the solution changes as a result of the electrolosis. I don't know what my potassium hydroxide has morphing into since he said sodium bicarbonate changes into sodium hydroxide.

Terry

[TerryG]

Ok I can put to rest one theory as to why the water heats up. It is not because the plates get hot from the current and thus heating up the water. The first thing to heat up with higher currents is the solid stainless wires going to my plates. So I lowered the current in one test to just one amp, these wires and the plate have not gotten hot but the water is still heating up. My conclusion at this point is that the resistance though the water is what is heating up the water, the more resistant or weaker the electrolyte and lower the current the longer it takes for thermal run away to happen. For each electrode/electrolyte mix there is a point of thermal runaway, how long and under what ambient conditions is the question. So designing a electrolyzer that will not under most if not all conditions go into thermal run away is the challenge.

RW,
Do not all coolant systems of autos reach over 212 temperatures? If this is the case how will you get around your solution becoming too hot?

Terry

[TerryG]

Ok I have been running a HHO unit now for 9 hours at 12vdc with no thermal run away. It started out at 1 amp at room temp of about 80 degrees, and is now pulling 3 amps at 140 degrees. I don't think I will ever run it continuously for 9 hours in my vehicle, but you never know. The only problem I am forseeing is the ambient temperature of the engine compartment is usually warmer than 80 degrees, probably 100 on a hot day. Anyway that is the next test.

I am getting a LOT of brown sludge, and the stainless plates are now brown as well. As a results of my observations over the last 9 hours I have a few more theories. I now think the brown sludge is from oxidation of the stainless steel plates, it seems they get covered with a brown coating and it sluffs off making brown particles in the water. When one plate is producing pure oxygen almost anything will oxidize.

Another observation I now have now that the water on my bench is 140 degrees is that when big bubbles at the surface pop their is a little visable gas released, that could be the potassium hydroxy mist RW was talking about. Also at this point foam is not forming any longer on the surface, I have no idea why. The stainless connecting wires are still not hot (not even warm) so the amperage is still low enough.

Enough for today.

Terry

[TerryG]

BIGGER IS BETTER!! (in a way)

Well I have been experimenting today with a few things and figured out that the amperage making the unit go into thermal overload is directly related to amount of water since it acts as a coolant. For this one quart mason jar it seems if my unit starts with over 4 amperes it will eventually go into thermal overload, anything less than that is fine. That is in ambient temperature of less than 85 degrees.

Basically I found that with the same amperage and less water the same unit would go into thermal overload much sooner than with as much water as I could use in the same container. Also there seems to be something to this conditioning process both for the plates and the solution. I had one set of electrodes which comprised of one stainless AC outlet blank cut in half with corners cut off so as to attach conducting wires going for nine hours. It started out with slightly used electrolyte made with 1/4 teaspoon of potassium hydroxide per one gallon of distilled water. It intially started at just under 1 ampere with 12v at room temp it gradually, as stated above, climbed to 4 amperes at about 140 to 150 degrees. After letting it cool to room temp, it then when connected back up to 12v then read just under 3 amperes, and the HHO production was obviously increased by a large amount. I am looking for an exactly a one liter container to start measuring and logging HHO prodution. One last thing I have done is control the amperage at the levels I want with a larger set of electrodes (I added another AC blank plate to make four electodes [they all are cut in half]) by diluting the electrolyte with distilled water until the amperage was reduced to the previous level with only two electrodes. I know have an increase in HHO production at a lower amperage compared to before, I know by the number of bubble per 10 seconds. My test show about 20% increase in HHO production.

So the conclusions are at this point that I want to make an electrode with more plates making for larger surface area, with much more electrolyte for cooling, with amperage set so that it will not go into thermal run away. I am thinking 4 stainless steel AC plug blanks (possibly 6), in about 2 gallons of electrolyte. And my idea is to mount it in front but off to the side a little of the radiator to get it out of the heat of the engine compartment.

With regard to electrolyte, the more you use it the better it seems to get. I have kept filtering all this sludge out with coffee filters and reusing it and it seems to increase its HHO production the more I use it. I have two units I am working with at the same time although I am reporting only on one here. But an interesting finding happened yesterday when I thought about using my double spiral wound wire electrode in my best condition solution with the AC blanks, it did not produce any more current than its own solution, but the the wall plates produced more current in the same solution. But when I put the wall plates in the wire electrodes solution it didn't produce anymore current than the wire electrodes. So it seems there is a relationship that a specific electrode electrolyte combination makes, although the spiral wound electrode seemed to produce more HHO than in its own slightly conditioned electrolyte. I need to make more tests because this spiral wound electrodes I initially used with a baking soda solution and changed that once I got in some potassium hydoxide, so the baking soda may have messed it up to where I can't get maximum HHO for its surface area in potassium Hydroxide.

So bigger electrodes are better, just control the amperage with a more diluted solution or with less voltage operating the unit.

I have found opinions on the net that say that you need more HHO production than the wire wound units can provide if you want the best gas mileage that HHO can give. We will see, there has got to be a point at which their are diminishing returns though.

Terry