What Is HHO Alternative Fuel?
Of all the myths about HHO (hydrogen-hydrogen-oxygen, or oxyhydrogen) generators, the biggest is that they don't work. While some academics and engineers assert that they can't possibly perform, the fact is that HHO generators often do increase fuel mileage. A commonly held belief is that the gas they produce acts primarily as a fuel in its own right, but the secret to HHO's success might well be a bit more esoteric.
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History
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The concept of oxyhydrogen gas--two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen--was proposed by Ruggero Maria Santini, a professor of physics at Boston university. Even though Santini's theories, such as applied Hadronic mechanics and the Magnacule Theory, put him on the fringe, a Philippino engineer named Daniel Dingle took him seriously. Dingle built a car powered by nothing but water-derived oxyhydrogen in 1968; that car forms the basis of all modern HHO-fueled generators.
Function
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HHO generators use a process called electrolysis to split the oxygen molecule (H2O) into its component atoms, which mix together to form a gas that's two-thirds hydrogen and one-third oxygen. HHO electrolysis involves passing huge amounts of electricity between two plates, which are separated by less than a quarter-inch of water. Once the electricity "breaks" the water molecule apart, the resulting oxygen and hydrogen bubble to the top of the cell, where it is siphoned off into the engine's intake with a hose.
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HHO as Fuel
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HHO gas can be used in one of two ways, either as a supplemental fuel or a fuel in its own right. Because it carries its own oxygen, oxyhydrogen gas can combust in the complete absence of air; this quality makes HHO-fueled engines a bit more powerful than air-reliant gas engines and works in a similar way to nitromethane or nitrous oxide. With a large enough cell, it is possible to build a car that runs on almost nothing but HHO, although you still would need a little bit of gasoline to start the engine.
Supplementation
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HHO saves fuel by supplementing gasoline, but it tends to work best on modern fuel-injected engines. Hydrogen's ideal stoichiometric ratio (the ideal ratio of fuel to oxygen) is a bit off of its 2-to-1 hydrogen to oxygen, so it requires augmentation from the engine to work. Fuel-injected engines use oxygen sensors that tell the computer what the engine's air-fuel ratio is in real time, allowing the computer to automatically reduce the amount of gasoline it injects. Essentially, the computer knows it is getting extra fuel from somewhere, so it reduces how much gas the engine receives.
Myth Busted
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While the commonly accepted argument against HHO is that the engine spends as much horsepower turning the alternator to make power for the cell as it gains from burning the HHO gas, this supposition fails to take into account some basics of alternator design. Going by the accepted logic, electricity equals horsepower, so turning on the radio should reduce fuel economy. In reality, 75 percent of the horsepower used to drive an alternator isn't used to make electricity; it's used just to keep the alternator spinning. This means that the alternator always has a certain amount of kinetic energy in reserve to run the HHO generator, so any extra fuel it produces can improve fuel economy.
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- Photo Credit Raster illustration of star, made by me in Photoshope. image by Aleksandr Fomenkov from Fotolia.com
