August 13th, 2011, 05:59 AM
what is the most efficient form of water electrolysis?
how much electricity does water electrolysis require?
how quikly can electrolysis turn water in hydrogen and oxygen?\
why the hell isnt it applied in modern day science? it sounds like a game changer as far as earlth friendly energy is concerned?
Originally Posted by Rocket
If you are suggesting that we could electrolyze water and then use the hydrogen produced as an energy source for a net gain, then I'm afraid that you are barking up the wrong tree. The energy needed to electrolyze the water can never be less than the energy you could get out of burning the hydrogen. Considering that no process is 100% efficient, you would end up with a net loss of energy.
It's a handy way to use up wind and solar during off peak hours when it isn't being consumed. The efficiency is somewhere around 60% (you lose 40% of the energy you started with) in creating it.
Electrolysis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most of the generators that convert hydrogen back into electricity also are around 60% efficient (you lose 40%), so you're losing 40% twice. After the complete cycle, you end up with 36% of the energy you started with (so in total you've lose 74%). For wind and solar, and even coal (during off peak hours) that means you're getting 36% of something, instead of 100% of nothing. People who approach the question emotionally will be distracted by the fact that 36% is less than 100%, instead of noting that what they're really getting is 36% instead of 0%.
Fuel cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a nice site that tells you how to set up your own electrolysis machine. It's probably not one of the ones that gets 60% efficiency, though.
Electrolysis
There are likely better ways of storing off-peak energy though (flywheels, capacitors, etc.). That said, what they usually do is just shut down some of the turbines until they're needed.
Such as pumped-storage hydroelectricity, a commonly used method.
Pumped storage is the best in terms of efficiency between conversion and reconversion back. However, hydrogen allows you to store it in nearly unlimited amounts, especially if you convert the hydrogen into Methanol. I'd say to use it as overflow when the pumped storage and fly wheel options are completely full. That way you never risk having to allow any electricity to go entirely to waste.
Hydrogen storage is dangerous, and any additional processes you subject it to will accumulate additional energy losses. Plus, if you energy storage is getting full, you have too little.
I'm sure there are many more reasons it's not done. The people that build these things for a living have all the tools and knowledge to do a complete cost-analysis of the various options and have apparently decided hydrogen isn't worth using.
At present, there are very few applications for hydrogen as a fuel. Fuel cell-powered cars are only just taking off - give it a decade or two, and hydrogen could be set to replace petrol.
Prince has pointed out elsewhere that hydrogen embrittles many metals when in contact with them, but palladium can hold up to 900 times its own volume of hydrogen at room temperature. Theoretical voltage for electrolysis of water is 1.24 volts but this presumes resistance of said water is zero ohms, most unlikely.
January 30th, 2012, 01:26 PM
So this might be a dumb question so excuse me if it does not make sense.
First let me say that I don't debate that energy is lost when you use electrolysis to generate hydrogen. I also understand the point that you can't get 100% efficacy when you convert energy from electricity to gas back to electricity. With that said, I think of electrolysis as a type of refinement. It is a process to generate fuel from water by creating hydrogen. I mean were not talking about perpetual motion or something that is impossible to science. We are adding fuel that is consumed in order to generate electricity. In my head I see it almost like pumping oil out of the ground and refining it to make gas. The amount of energy put into refining the oil must have some gain in order to have any energy left to operate a car, right? I guess the question is does electrolysis take more energy than what an engine running on hydrogen is capable or producing?
I hope someone can set me straight on this cause it keeps going around and around in my head.
Yes. Think about what is happening. When you burn hydrogen as fuel you are combining it with oxygen which forms water. You are just basically reversing the step of separating the water and hydrogen. When you separate water to oxygen and hydrogen you are supplying the energy that you will extract later. This is different than refining petroleum, as the energy stored in petroleum is there already when we pull it from the ground. Refining just makes it easier to use.
Thanks that makes a lot of sense.
There was a dude back in the 70s that said he had found some sort of resonant electrolysis cell that produced more gas than was predicted by the half rxn energies. Most people believe that it was a bunch of crap (myself included). He did get a patent though, and he was killed within a year of that patent. So makes me wonder what he found... the patent is black now, so no one can see it 0.0 will look for links
It seems there are a lot of people on the net that claim they can improve the output of the gas. I seriously doubt that any of the clams are real as you can't find any actual science behind it. Most of the crap you read is some weirdo in his basement playing with electricity.However, it does make you wonder when some of these people suddenly die after making an announcements about how true it might be. I don't personally believe 99% of the crap you read on the net but you never know.
I'm glad I posted my question though as I have some friends that want to get a HHO generator to improve gas mileage. Based on the responses above it sounds like these generators are bunk.
A FOOL and his $$$$$ are soon parted- Have fun
What do you mean "the patent is black now"? All patents from the 1970s are online. What was the name of the inventor and/or patent number?
Stanley meyer was the man's name,as for the patent #, I would have to do some Research. Personally, I use the heat and a turbine to produce the voltage and the current off the engine and the exaust and a dynamo that uses a downhill and a braking system also to produce more voltage and current. The water is preheated , so I have to use a heat sink and a fan that runs off the motor to make the system work better hot water doesn't seperate well but cool water does.
You need to remove the salt from the water and ad potassiun hydroxide as the electrolite' By the way when you use seawater when your reaction stops not only will you have deuterium you will also have tritium.
I have a vision of solar powered hydrogen production facilities that generate hydrogen from seawater for use as automotive fuel. I visualize them supplying fuel for tropical island nations that have plenty of sun and seawater but are petroleum poor. The hydrogen plants could be located on barges. The barges could be designed to be submergable to avoid severe weather and could double as platforms for fish and shellfish farms.
Myth Busters demonstrated on TV that regular automobile engins will run just fine on Hydrogen.
How efficient does a process have to be if all the raw materials are free?
There was some discussion of the solar barge idea on this thread. solar power economics
The barge is not free, and has a pitifully small area for the production of hydrogen. It will use up a lot of the fuel produced just to propel itself around to avoid bad weather. The amount of hydrogen produced would not be enough to pay the crew.
I did a very basic project on electrolysis using different electrodes and different amounts of salt. I'll post more information soon about how it went soon.
I will answer these questions in order.
1. In my experiment, I used copper and graphite electrodes with distilled water, tap water, a .1 molar salt solution and a .5 molar salt solution. My results showed that graphite was the better of the two electrodes. It also showed that the more salt, the more gas was generated.
2. I used a simple 9v battery.
3. I was able to collect a small test tube filled with hydrogen in 5 minutes.
4. Hydrogen is very explosive and dangerous.
May 24th, 2012, 10:31 PM
The most efficient form of electrolysis is to use the desalinated sea water and distilled. use a u shaped thick glass container with a float to keep the water at a certain level, use potassium hydrate to act as a reaction agent put 1 platinum wire and several perforated platinum tubes or plates as platinum is a noble metal and is nonreactive to most acids and bases1 series of plates goes into 1 cylinder and the other goes in the other. 12 volts will react fast and when you add mass current it will react faster ,keep the tubes in the water as to keep the tempature at a low rate because the hotter the tempature the more watervaper you get . 1 cylinder will produce oxygen and the other will produce hydrogen.
why the hell isnt it applied in modern day science? it sounds like a game changer as far as earlth friendly energy is concerned? Can we say OIL BARRONS DON'T WANT IT KNOWN!!!
Everbody knows it. The problems are many once you create a bunch of low pressure hydrogen gas, how do you use in a cost efficient manner.
May 28th, 2012, 06:50 PM
That's why you mass amp it to produce more gas and then you can put it into a liquid state there by making it usefull in several applications like making electricty pure water and if you use the decompression state by using a pinhole effect you now have refergeration!
??????????
I did not get all your questions. But, I think I can answer few. The electrolysis of water does not require high current and voltage. It can be performed in the laboratory by using three to five 1.5 v batteries. Electrolysis can be be done quickly. I think it is applied in modern day science because it is the process to get hydrogen and oxygen.
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