So I am reading this article on how to build your own home Electrolysis chamber and how it will produce hydrogen, but I seem to be missing some thing. Once you make the reaction happen, how do you store the hydrogen for use such as in a car engine. Seems to me if you pump it all into a chamber than the oxygen and hydrogen will get together again and make water again. Any Ideas?
The H2 and O2 are produced at different electrodes and so you don't have to capture them together.
No, the two gasses won't spontaneously form water again, you need to add a little energy to get the reaction started. You can just compress it into a cylinder and they'll stay separate. It's more efficient to just capture Hydrogen though, as there's all ready oxygen in the air. (capture hydrogen at the cathode).
However, it's a really, really REALLY bad idea to just pump hydrogen into an unmodified car. Even if your car all ready runs on gas/LPG or whatever it's called where you live, it's still a bad idea. Hydrogen has far more energy per liter then regular LPG, so just pumping it into your engine as if it were LPG will break your engine very quickly, if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, it could just blow up.
Don't even try hydrogen in a petrol car without extensive modification.
However, it's a really, really REALLY bad idea to just pump hydrogen into an unmodified car. Even if your car all ready runs on gas/LPG or whatever it's called where you live, it's still a bad idea. Hydrogen has far more energy per liter then regular LPG, so just pumping it into your engine as if it were LPG will break your engine very quickly, if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, it could just blow up.
Don't even try hydrogen in a petrol car without extensive modification.
QUOTE (Alcari+Jun 21 2008, 12:47 PM)
No, the two gasses won't spontaneously form water again, you need to add a little energy to get the reaction started. You can just compress it into a cylinder and they'll stay separate.
You're suggesting that it's ok to compress a highly flammable gas and oxygen together in the same cylinder. Didn't bother to consider compression will raise the temperature of the gas (both by the ideal gas law and because of waste heat from the compressor itself), thereby pushing the mixture closer to that magic moment of conflagration. If the cell should ever run dry, the anode and cathode could spark, igniting the gas. Hopefully the flame front doesn't advance all the way through the compressor and into the cylinder, or you'll have either a rocket or a bomb to deal with, or both.
You're suggesting that it's ok to compress a highly flammable gas and oxygen together in the same cylinder. Didn't bother to consider compression will raise the temperature of the gas (both by the ideal gas law and because of waste heat from the compressor itself), thereby pushing the mixture closer to that magic moment of conflagration. If the cell should ever run dry, the anode and cathode could spark, igniting the gas. Hopefully the flame front doesn't advance all the way through the compressor and into the cylinder, or you'll have either a rocket or a bomb to deal with, or both.
Absolutely awesome, thanks guys, I know enough to be a danger to my self, but this has helped me to put it in a safe perspective. I agree that compression of hydrogen is a bad idea, unless you cooled the compressor with freon or nitrogen, but then the energy used to do so would make the compression pointless. thanks for the help.
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