Electrolysis Basics Project Page 2

Adding the salt has not improved efficiency of this cell. It merely improved the ability of that cell to carry more current, thus increasing gas production. To improve efficiency you have to get more gas production out of a given amount of electricity.

How is this possible? Well with straight DC electrolysis, also known as "Brute Force" electrolysis, the secret to improved efficiency lies with voltage; more precisely, the reduction of that voltage per cell.

You see the energy you consume to create electrolysis, is comprised of Voltage and Amperage. Think of a river and you will be able to understand that voltage is how fast that river is flowing and Amperage is how wide that river is. The wattage would therefore be equivalent to the total Gallons flowing down the river.

Wattage = Voltage x Amperage. So if you have 10 volts at 2 amps that equals 20 Watts. It is exactly the same power rating (Wattage) as 5 volts at 4 amps, or 2 volts at 10 amp. -I think you get the picture. They all equal 20 watts of power.

In brute force electrolysis, voltage reduction within the cell is the key to higher efficiencies. That's because gas production is related to one thing, and one thing only. Amperage!

Later I will show you how to test this statement, to see for yourself that Amperage is the only thing controlling gas production. Your voltage, as long as it is not too low, does not matter when it comes to gas production.

Read that last sentence again. It's very important and most people fail to fully grasp its implications. For sake of argument, let's just say that each amp produces 1 bubble every second. Given that "rule" it means that for 10v @ 2a (20 watts)... you would get 2 bubbles per second.

You with me so far? What now if we use 2v @ 10a? -That's still just 20 watts of power ...right? -Yes Indeed! But the big difference here is for the exact same power (wattage). You're now going to get 10 bubbles per second.

You've just increased your efficiency from 2 to 10 bubbles per second. And you didn't spend one extra electron of power to do it. 20 watts, is 20 watts, is 20 watts. It's that simple.

If you feel like you've just been hit between the eyes with a hammer, GOOD! Most everyone ignores this simple but amazing fact about "brute force" electrolysis.

They hook their single electrolyzer cell straight to a 12v car system or something and proceed to WASTE gobs and gobs of power.

Why not make that process as efficient as possible?!!! -Anyone can see the advantage in that!

So how do you easily reduce your voltage? Well since we're running from a DC source, it would require some expensive equipment to lower our voltage to this one cell.

OR ...we could just start adding cells together in a series.

-What in the heck?? What do you mean adding cells together in series?

The phenomenon that I'm referring to is exactly the same thing that happens in thousands of battery applications every day. By putting 2 flashlight batteries into the flashlight tube, you turn those 2 (1.5v) batteries, into a series. They become a 3v power source. Your battery voltage is multiplied by the number of cells (batteries) in your series.

If you had one of those big "Mag-Lights" that takes 5 "D" cell batteries, you would have 7.5v (1.5 x 5). It's that simple.

Well by putting our electrolysis cells in series with one another, you're doing the exact opposite thing. You're dividing the source voltage by the number of cells in the series. So if you have a 12v (car) source, and use just 1 cell. You're pumping 12v into that cell. But if you have 4 cells in series, then you're only pumping 3v into each cell.

The awesome part is that the voltage is divided, but NOT the amperage. Let's look at a practical example: Let's say that you're using a 12v source (battery) and it's pushing 20a ...that's 240w (12v x 20a = 240 watts).

Now just for the purpose of this example we'll continue to say that each amp = 1 bubble of gas per second. Based upon the numbers we have above, voltage is ignored, so we'd get 20 bubbles of gas per second in our cell. We're pushing 20a ...remember.

But if we put 4 cells in series, now we're dividing that voltage by 4. We're pushing just 3v into each cell, but still passing the FULL 20 AMPS through each of the cells in the series. It is still just 240w of power, just like before with the 1 cell, but now you're using that power 4 times more efficiently. You'll get 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 bubbles per second. 80 bubbles per second for the exact same amount of power input. -That's freekin Awesome!!!

If you don't believe me, please remember to try this experiment for yourself later on once you see how to make some simple cells that will let you capture your gas output and measure it over time. I love to have people verify my results... so please do so!

You can view my experimental setup and results for the experiment I describe above on pages 30 and 31 of my Electrolysis project: http://oupower.com/index.php?dir=_My_Projects/_Over_Unity_Related_Projects/Electrolysis&PageNum=30

Again, I welcome anyone doing independent validation of this test.

So what have we learned so far? Well we've learned that passing a DC current through water produces electrolysis. We've learned that adding a good electrolyte to that water increases the current that can be carried. We've learned that voltage does not matter when it comes to "Brute Force" electrolysis. We've learned how to easily divide our source voltage up to get lots of extra work out of it for efficient electrolysis.

Remember early on in this guide, when I said that adding salt to your water would allow it to carry more current? Why do you think that is?

Basic electronics dictates that amperage is a function of Voltage divided by Resistance. So if you have a car battery source, that could push a LOT of amps for a short time. Well over 100 amps if we let it do so.

Resistance is the thing that keeps the amperage at a manageable level. Look at a simple headlight in a car. It runs from the 12v source, but certainly can NOT handle 100 amps of power. So it is created by the manufacturer in such a way that the filament inside only allows a small amount of amperage to flow. They do this by making sure that the filament has a very specific resistance. Thinking back to our river analogy, you can think of resistance as a sort of beaver dam ...it only allows a small amount of the water to flow down our river. Just like the damn is resisting the flow of water in our river, so too, is the wire (filament) resisting the flow of electrons in the bulb.

Too much resistance, and your amperage flow is feeble, too little resistance and your amperage flow is HUGE, often causing the destruction of parts due to severe heating. The filament in a bulb is designed to take the heat created by its resistance and turn that into light. Your cell is probably NOT going to be designed to take anywhere near that kind of heat.

In your electrolytic cell, you also have resistance. Your resistance is determined by 2 factors: 1) The distance between your + and - terminals and 2) The amount of electrolyte in your solution

So if you have too much resistance you will have very little current (amperage) flow and hence, low production rates. Too little resistance and you will have gobs of current flow which creates lots of gas but also lots of heat.

Testing has proven that you want to target about 1/2 of an amp per square inch of terminal.