Let's talk about Browns gas (HHO)

There is roughly 150...200 ppm (parts per million) of Heavy Water D20 in all natural water. In this special isotope of water the normal hydrogen is replaced by heavy hydrogen (deuterium) atoms. This is a fact that not too many discussing Brown's gas seem to be aware of.

I've been wondering what happens to D2O in an electrolysis cell, and how will Deuterium affect the properties of Brown's gas if it is mixed with "normal" hydrogen.

There is a web page that describes the findings of a Finn experimenting with Brown's gas. According to his notes, the electrolysis using a stacked-electrode electrolysis cell and a DC voltage of about 1.2 volts does produce gas that burns, but the electrolysis reaction will slow down gradually when new water is added to replace the consumed water. Eventually the gas production will stop completely even if there is plenty of water in the cell. Obviously the remaining water is not the same water than what originally was poured in the electrolysis cell, but rather remains of something that is found in small amounts in the water and that can't be split into its elements as easily as normal water. That "something" seems to be heavy water D2O, or at least I can't find any other reasonable alternative.

However, when the electrolysis voltage is raised over 2.0 volts, there is gas production as long as there is water in the cell, i.e. there is no remaining water residue any more. This gas seems to produce a much hotter flame in an oxygen-assisted welding torch than pure, commercially available hydrogen. These are the observations of the experimenter. It is assumed that it is actually deuterium that causes the some of the anomalous behavior of Brown's gas.

The web site mentioned above is in Finnish only, but I might ask the author if the page could be made available in English as well. I might assist in translating the text. Anyway, the excellent illustrations won't need much translating.

reply to post by Johnmike
Russia uses Hydrogen Peroxide as their main antibioticand have for over 25 years. The only reason we don't use it over here is it's only 60 cents a bottle. Russia are also still awaiting their first outbreak of MRSA.

Neil

Originally posted by ObamaMomma
reply to post by ViewFromTheStars

 

Ok i'm a bit off topic here but you are bugging the hell out of me with this "welding" stuff.
you don't weld with an open flame you "braze" and you "cut" with it also.

"braze" and "cut"
period, got it?

hehe. yea.. got it.

Wasn't watching the thread, I thought it died.. sorry about that.


Sri.. cool what you are doing to your car.

Let me get caught up.

Originally posted by ObamaMomma
Ok i'm a bit off topic here but you are bugging the hell out of me with this "welding" stuff.
you don't weld with an open flame you "braze" and you "cut" with it also.

"braze" and "cut"
period, got it?

I kindly suggest you read some books about welding. Brazing and welding with open flame are totally different procedures.

Quoting from a very good welding manual by U.S. Army:

"Brazing is a group of welding processes in which materials are joined by heating to a suitable temperature and by using a filler metal with a melting point above 840°F, but helm that of the base metal. The filler metal is distributed to the closely fitted surfaces of the joint by capillary action."

To continue with my own words: In welding, both the base metal and the filler metal are melted in the joint, and the filler used is essentially the same as the base metal, although the filler may have a slightly differing composition from the base metal. In some cases no filler metal at all is needed in welding.

In brazing, there is always a filler metal, and it is totally different from the base metal by the definition. In a brazed joint, the two different metals are not mixed together as only one of them is in molten state during the operation. Usually there is only a thin diffusion layer where both metals are present. Typical brazing filler metals for iron and steel are different brass and silver alloys.

The third method for joining metals is soldering, where the melting point of the filler metal is clearly below 840°F (449°C). This is typically used for joining copper and brass, and in some cases aluminum. However, I'd like to call certain aluminum joining methods (Techno-Weld and the likes) rather brazing than soldering, regardless of the low melting point used in the filler metal.

I hope this clarifies any confusion there may be...


[edit on 31.7.2008 by Doc Lithium]

Experimenters,
HHO doesn't exist under the conditions you are working with. It is just a mixture of H2 and O2. Be careful when playing with hydrogen-oxygen mixtures. When you add energy to split water, the energy contained in the gas is about 75% of all the accumulated energy you put in to split it. This is because of resistance losses that generate heat. The amount of spark needed to cause the gases to recombine and blow you into hot pieces is really small and that potential can be generated merely by a rapid flow of the gas mixture. Try to keep the gases separate, if you can.

For those burning hydrogen, watch out because the free flame is not very visible, especially in daylight. The burner heads are cooler because the flame is not in contact with the orifice and there are no hot particles in it radiating heat. You won't feel the flame from the side until you are in it.

Electrolytes containing halides will produce the corresponding halogen. Salt or calcium chloride will produce chlorine, bromides will produce bromine, etc. You won't like these at all and if your engine has aluminum components, it won't either.
A good electrolyte is KOH but it is nasty because of its propensity to dissolve skin and especially eyes, if splashed or blown around in an explosion. Should it become entrained in the feed to your aluminum engine, it will dissolve it. It will generate a little more hydrogen when it does, but you engine won't like this either.
Bicarbonates are safer but much less efficient because of their low conductivity. Live [literally] with inefficiency for backyard experiments without proper safety equipment.
Stay safe, play carefully, and have fun trying to beat the system.

reply to post by Ben236


First of all the air compressor itself creates most of the drag and fuel consumption when you drive with the A/C on.

Secondley you do not get as much energy out of electolisis as you put in but by adding the gas to the air fuel mixture you exponetially increase the efficiencey of the engine through the more complet burning of that mixture thereby geting better millage even though you have a slightly higher drag on the engine!!!!!!

reply to post by pteridine


And most of all respect the nature of the beast, Don't go making the guns and other things you see unless 1 ) You know how to do it safely and 2) Running a car requires on to think about filtering the final product especially to make sure water doesn't enter the engine. 4) don't be afraid to experiment with others idea, use that as a base and work tword your own, design.
rember this is very dangerouse, your letting 2 genies out of the bottle hydrogen as well as oxeygen. both are gasses that can react with other things. you may not be aware of. In other words if your foolish enough to light cigerate in an enclosed non vented room, and you get blowed up, that was your fault.

O2 or oxegen if I remeber right also can saturate clothing jsut like water saturates ones clothing.
Hydrogen, well we all know what that is.

and voltage, if you ramp up the voltages and decide to use 110 and above, one had better know there insulaors, in this case I would be using ceramic insulators.

also one will need to take into con sideration that there isn't a real need to go this high I would think 24-32 would be goodenough.

This also would be a good time to talk about using an inverter.
and invterter that you buy at Wall mart actually couldsave you cars electrial systems, you can easy step down the voltageto 12 volts or 24 or even to 32 volts. (A 32 volt adapter can be found off of any printer like an HP or LexMarc that has a seperate power suply .

Also the car inverter has built in fuses should any thing majorly goes in error. Alsomost invertters have on off switches. which means you can turn the unit off at will.

I'm looking into constructing a small HHO torch setup for my glass work and have been considering different options for the plates of the electrolyzer. I found one really intriguing idea that uses stainless steel wool seperated by fiberglass for the anode and cathode, apparently the idea behind this is vastly increasing the surface area of your 'plates', and the source I was reading claimed this increased your gas production by a couple hundred percent. Does that sound reasonable? I've seen arguments for wet cell vs dry cell, plates vs coils, which is best in you guys' opinion?

The idea of using brass wool and a bubbler for a flashback arrestor is kind of unnerving as well, but given the 'on demand' nature of the system I want to build, there isn't going to be a large amount of gas being stored at any one time, but there's got to be a better way of preventing flashbacks than a bubbler and diffuser. It seems to me that all the systems I've looked at take flashbacks as 'it happens', but I'd like to take that completely out of the equation if possible. Typical welding equipment isn't designed for HHO, and apparently the usual flashback arrestors aren't suitable, I'm assuming this is largely due to H2 molecules being smaller than say acetylene?

I'm also really curious about the properties of HHO combustion, no ultraviolet rays is pretty appealing to me as a glass artist, but how is that possible? Sublimating tungsten is no small feat, but from a flame that has an inital ambient temperature of a couple hundred degrees, that's fascinating.

Any information you guys have on setting up an on demand HHO system capable of at least 3lpm would be great, the idea of using water for glass work is kind of exciting.