July 11, 2008

What's the deal with hydrogen for fuel?

Making Hydrogen Gas From Water?
Using Hydrogen for Fuel.

There's a good chance that you haven't given hydrogen a thought since eighth grade chemistry. Heck, there's a good chance you didn't even give it a thought then, much less now in your everyday life. But with gas prices on an apparently endless march upward, hydrogen has become a fixture in the news and in a lot of people's life.

So you may be asking what's the deal with hydrogen? What it is it and, much more importantly, how can it save me money? If I inhale it, will it make me talk funny? Can I use it to disinfect cuts?

Okay, maybe not the last two. But just for the record... It won't make you talk funny, and I wouldn't use it as a wound disinfectant when your cat scratches you, expecially since liquid hydrogen is so cole it will to turn your flesh to solid ice. Which, admittedly, probably would stop your cut from getting infected.

Hydrogen is an naturally-occuring element - one of the basic building blocks of the universe. In fact, hydrogen is the most common element of all, comprising more than seventy five percent of the universe. That's universe, as in, EVERYTHING.

It's also one of the components of water, and makes a powerful fuel. It's highly combustible, and incredibly clean burning. That, along with hydrogen's abundance and availability, is the reason that you're seeing a lot about hydrogen power and HHO it in the news.

The more futuristic way to use it is by way of hydrogen fuel cells. A fuel cell is more or less a battery that never runs out of power, with the caveat that you need to keep refueling one of the chemicals. It turns hydrogen and oxygen into water, a process that releases energy that is then used for power.

While all this is really great and wonderful, it's not especially handy for those of us who aren't living in the future. But there is something that CAN help you use the power of hydrogen right now. And that comes in the form of a modification, or conversion, you can make to your automobile that allows it to run on water.

This hydrogen car conversion is not difficult and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg for the necessary parts... But to do it, you need to follow the proper steps and find the necessary parts to put it all together - And you can accomplish it all simply by following the conversion guides and partlist in the Water4Gas system.

What this 'water car' system does is use electrolysis, the same process fuel cells use, to turn ordinary water into a hydrogen gas that your car can then burn in place of oxygen. Normally, your car mixes oxygen and gas to power the engine. Obviously, this works, but it's shockingly inefficient. And it's noxiously polluting.

But by allowing your car to mix the hydrogen gas with gasoline, it cuts gasoline consumption by close to 50% - which means that you can go farther with every tank of gas. This means you'll have to fill up less often, which means you get to save money.

All by using the simplest, most common thing in the universe - water.