Anyone kept track of numbers?

[joe]

to perfect electrolosys, we need to get the highest gas production for energy in.

just wondering if anyone's kept track, and if people are keeping track then we should get a thread going to compare scores because if we can perfect that then we can encorporate the hydrogen on demand design to a vehical EASILY. and i think we can, very soon.

alternators can run at 150amps duty cycle. also the steam produced from exhaust can drive a steam engin to produce more electricity.
does anyone have a steam generator to experiment with?

-joe

[joe]

To calculate the efficiency do this math

1. First make the following measurements carefully and simultaneously:
>>Collect the hydrogen produced with a test tube: The test tube should be initially filled with water (by submerging it) and positioned over the negative electrode, with the open end submerged and the closed end pointing upwards (such that the tube is completely filled with water at the start of the experiment). Run the experiment until the water level inside the test tube matches the water surface level. At this point the pressure of the hydrogen will equal ambient pressure. Stop the experiment when this level is reached.
>>Measure the current I in amps: Do this by placing an ammeter in the electrolysis circuit - have someone read the meter during the experiment to get a good idea of the average current. Make sure you express the result in amps, which may require conversion from milliamps.
>>Time the entire experiment with a stopwatch in seconds. (This may be a large number).
>>Measure the ambient (room) temperature in Celsius degrees.

2. Calculate the volume of hydrogen produced at ambient pressure in cubic meters: Measure the dimensions of the test tube, and the length of the tube above water. Make sure you answer is expressed in cubic meters. For example, if you initially calculate the volume in cubic centimeters, divide your answer by 1 million.

3. Now calculate the theoretical (maximum) volume of the hydrogen produced, also in cubic meters, from the other data for the current and the time, using "Faraday's First Law":

Vtheoretical = (R I T t) / (F p z),

where R=8.314 Joule/(mol Kelvin), I = current in amps, T is the temperature in Kelvins (273 + Celsius temperature), t = time in seconds, F = Faraday's constant = 96485 Coulombs per mol, p = ambient pressure = about 1 x 105 pascals (one pascal = 1 Joule/meter3), z = number of "excess" electrons = 2 (for hydrogen, H2), 4 (if you're measuring oxygen production instead).

4. Finally, calculate the efficiency by comparing the volume produced to the theoretical maximum volume:
Efficiency (in %) = 100 x Vproduced / Vtheoretical .

5. Discuss the possible sources of inefficiencies/errors, such as
-Failure to capture hydrogen and oxygen at once.
-Energy lost to heat.
-Various measurement errors.
-Note weather of not the water was distilled , filtered or straight from the tap. For puprose of comparable results, it'd be good if we could get a standardized method of water purification.
-electrolyte (personally i'd rather we didnt use any so that the gases and fuel line is clean as possible)

[joe]

Liters Seconds Volts Amps LPM Watts
2 65 12 15 1.85 180

Efficiency
97.5


good shit, i think 12 volts is good to base our research on.

also i think that jumper cables hooked up from your car when it's idle, to the experiment will produce more practical information we can use.

if you do that, note what kind of car you have, and the amp's produced. we will assume you have a stock alternator.

[Chris]

Joe, I already posted a spreadsheet doing much of what you are proposing people do manually here. The truth of the matter is that most won't care to read and understand the difficult math involved in what you were writing.

I made the spreadsheet for an easy way to compare efficiencies between ourselves. Anyone can then take the numbers from the spreadsheet to further calculate the important efficiencies.

http://oupower.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17

That will show you the spreadsheet that I'm talking about.

[joe]

chris where do u think i got those beautiful numbers from??

also another thing to consider is the surface area of metal touching the water. since there's 2x the H as O, the electrode producing the O should only have to be half as big..

surface area for a cylinder (if your doing a pipe inside a pipe design) is
2 (pi) r2 + 2 (pi) r h
pi as you all know is 3.1416


i know most people wont bother doing the math, no one even bothers to do experiments. but if its usefull for one serious person (like yourself maybe), then we get that much closer to finishing and driving for free.
I havent got a working computer right now but as soon as i do i'll write a nice script to automate the math and cataloging of information.

[joe]

oh shit i didnt realize the spreadsheet calculated the values for u..

nice work

[kevinsatterfield]

hey joe ,i read in dave cortels design to put a 1 mm gap between the pipes.is that the best or can there be a bigger gap?

[joe]

Havent tried it yet, my broke situation forces me to do other things to make progress but let us know how yours turned out and the specs u use.

I know a bigger gap will work but i dont know how it'll effect the over all performace. 1mm gap x the surface area of both pipes is prob still a lot in the end, but 1mm might be hard to keep from shorting out so go nuts, let us know

[Chris]

Joe you made me laugh.

Yes of course it did the calcs for you I wouldn't have it any other way. Now I'm not doing some of the extra calcs that would be desired for higher specificity, but for some quick and general numbers... for a way of simply finding out rapidly, just how one is doing compared to others; the spreadsheet should be quite useful.

That's why I encouraged people to download it and use it.

The way I have it set up, the lower your final number, the better your efficiency is!

My parts finally came from usplastics.com and so I can now work on finishing the rest of my new reactors. I took a few pictures of them the other day and will try to post descriptions about them shortly.

[Bill]