Is it the water or the electrolyte?

[mustbeaway]

Hi, this is my first posting in this forum. By the way it is great with so much information.

I am a bit confused. From everything I read these hho generators are based on extracting hydrogen from water. From what I can see it is extracting it from the electrolyte. Without the electrolyte the gas is not made.

Call me argumentative, but instead of extracting gas from water with the aid of an electrolyte, shouldn't it be extracting gas from the electrolyte with the aid of water?

[PDJ]

Hi mustbeaway,

I can understand your argument - It certainly seems that way.

There are two parts Hydrogen and one part Oxygen liberated from a HHO generator, or to put it another way (H2+O). Without the electrolyte you still get gas, but only smaller amounts, the electrolyte simply increases the conductivity of the water to get more gas.

There are experiments with different pulse widths of the current and harmonics being done at the moment, this is getting close to the same amount of gas as using Electrolyte. The trouble is that the equipment needed to get these results is far too expensive at this time for the average person to get.

You could argue that you should use salt because it is the best conductor - Not a good idea. Salt (NaCl)may increase the conductivity of the water, but the chemical composition of salt is Sodium Chloride. Use this in a HHO gen and you also liberate Chlorine Gas from the Cl and the Sodium part ends up coating the plates making them progressively less effective. This is what is used in Salt Water pool Chlorinators.

I think you will find that everyone exploring HHO are more interested in the results - mainly Hydrogen to increase combustion and reduce fuel costs. If they could effectively and economically get it from coffee or sodapop they would.

[PDJ]

Here is a test you can run to determine the volume of Hydrogen and Oxygen liberated in a HHO Generator.

Get two slender SS plates and connect a wire to both. For the sake of this experiment you could use large SS spoons.

Get two plastic soda bottles and cut the bottom off each - leave the caps on and tight.

Get a flat container and place the two SS plates standing upright and reasonably close together.

Fill the container with a mixture of water and electrolyte making sure the water level is well over the plates.

Secure the two soda bottles above each SS plate after making sure they are filled with the water and electrolyte mix. The cut out bottoms of each should be positioned just above the two plates not placing the plates inside the bottles.

Connect the two leads to a power supply.

Electrolysis will commence and you will see bubbles forming on the plates.

Depending on how much electrolyte you use and how close the plates are together you will get different gas volumes produced.

As the gas starts to rise to the surface of the water, make sure you have a water and electrolyte filled bottle over each of the plate to catch the gas.

Over however much time it takes for your experiment, you will notice that one of your bottles will literally have twice as much gas in it as the other - One bottle will have Hydrogen Gas, and the other will have Oxygen. The hydrogen gas volume will be literally twice that of the Oxygen - or H2O

This should answer your question for you.