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Electrolysis hho generator

harry095

Jun 17, 2020
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Hey guys. So I made an hho generator (i used an adapter 12v 1A) and when i plugged it in nothing much happened... there were a few bubbles and the water turned greenish but it didnt work. I have another adapter ( 12v 2A) if i use this one then will anything go different?

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ChosunOne

Jun 20, 2010
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Hey guys. So I made an hho generator (i used an adapter 12v 1A) and when i plugged it in nothing much happened... there were a few bubbles and the water turned greenish but it didnt work. I have another adapter ( 12v 2A) if i use this one then will anything go different?

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Yes. Assuming everything else you're using is the same (water, electrodes, AC or DC adapter output), then one of two things will happen.
(1) The few bubbles and greenish water will form faster; or...
(2) The adapter will toast itself, or blow an internal fuse; or if it doesn't have an internal fuse, it might blow a household fuse or trip a circuit breaker.

Are you serious?
 

BobK

Jan 5, 2010
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Water separated into hydrogen and oxygen. Many falsely believe you can get more energy back by burning it than it took to separate it. Which is nonsense.

Bob
 

Ylli

Jun 19, 2018
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Nah, water is H2O. When electrolyzed, it breaks into a gas mixture of H2 molecules and O2 molecules. Twice as much H2 as O2. 'HHO' does not exist as a physical structure in solid, liquid, gas or plasma phases.
 

Harald Kapp

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@Ylli Assuming this is for "improving" a motor's fuel efficiency, don't expect scientific clarity in the nomenclature ;)
 

Ylli

Jun 19, 2018
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Yeah I know. Just trying to 'tickle' the OP into looking a bit closer and recognizing all the misinformation out there.
 

ChosunOne

Jun 20, 2010
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HHO isn't the conventional way to write H2O (dihydrogen oxide), but it's not exactly wrong, just as it's not wrong to write water as hydrogen hydroxide, HOH. In certain chemical equations, it's convenient to think of water that way, e.g., 2Na + 2HOH --> 2NaOH + H2.

I don't dispute that there's a lot of woo-woo misinformation about the uses of hydrogen as fuel; but in the late 70s there was serious research into using hydrogen with gasoline to significantly increase fuel efficiency. Prior to Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion (CCVC) and electronic fuel injection, a bit of hydrogen injected along with gasoline into combustion chambers allowed carburetors to use a very lean mix of fuel/air for more efficient burning. Hydrogen will ignite and in turn would ignite the gasoline, with very lean fuel/air ratios. I read up on this too many years ago to remember all the details, but apparently the CCVC approach won out with auto manufacturers. Engineers apparently never got past the problems of electrolyzing H2 as-you-go to mix in the fuel injection to make cars run more efficiently--all woo-woo claims to the contrary.

I'm highly skeptical of the conspiracy theorists that claim the hydrogen technology was/is suppressed. The auto industry seems too competitive for that to be feasible. In the 70s and 80s, the research looked promising, Hydrogen isn't that hard to make from water on an industrial scale, given abundant cheap electricity from also-promising solar and wind technology; but the engineers never were able to get past the problems of H2 storage, which is more complicated than one might think.

Now if someone has serious research (excluding miraculous sales claims) to show me my information is out of date, I'd love to see a link to it.

All that being said, since the OP hasn't yet said what s/he's trying to do, we're just speculating. Back in high school, I made a homemade H2 generator to fill baloons; but I used a chemical approach. I played with electrolysis, but didn't know how to make or use a DC power source back then; so I gave up on it.
 

Ylli

Jun 19, 2018
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When written as HOH it is taken as a structural formula. i.e. The oxygen atom is bound to two hydrogen atoms. Written as HHO implies that one of the hydrogen atoms is bound to another hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom. Since hydrogen has only on binding site (one electron to give away or room for one more), then HHO can not be right. Yes, there was some work on hydrogen injection that allowed leaner mixtures to be used, but then there was that nagging problem of hydrogen embrittlement....
 

ChosunOne

Jun 20, 2010
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When written as HOH it is taken as a structural formula. i.e. The oxygen atom is bound to two hydrogen atoms. Written as HHO implies that one of the hydrogen atoms is bound to another hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom. Since hydrogen has only on binding site (one electron to give away or room for one more), then HHO can not be right.

You're right. Thank you, I stand corrected. It's been quite a while since I studied any chemistry. Yesterday was the first time I read the term "hho generator".


Yes, there was some work on hydrogen injection that allowed leaner mixtures to be used, but then there was that nagging problem of hydrogen embrittlement....
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about that particular problem. Thank you again. The one outstanding problem I remembered was the shift in equilibrium at very high pressures of the two allotropes of molecular hydrogen, which causes the gas to heat up as it expends from very high pressure; to the point that it can ignite itself if not carefully regulated. That limits the pressure at which H2 can be stored safely, no matter how strong the storage tanks.

Browsing on the Net, I'm not surprised to learn that serious research is still being done on ways to store H2 effectively. I haven't given up on H2 as an energy storage medium, but the woo-woo crowd isn't helping.
 

hevans1944

Hop - AC8NS
Jun 21, 2012
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HHO appears to be woo-woo shorthand for an unseparated mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gasses produced simultaneously from the electrolysis of water. Also called "Brown's Gas" and "Knallgas" or "bang-gas". By whatever name the mixture of H2 and O2 (typically created by the electrolysis of water) is called, it was originally discovered in the nineteenth century and was called oxyhydrogen. It has some limited applications as a welding gas mixture, for example to melt acrylic plastics, but most welding is today performed with oxygen and acetylene gasses or, in the case of plastics, electrically heated air produced by a flameless heat gun.

Be that as it may, @ChosunOne noted in his post #9 that @harry095 hasn't told us yet what he is trying to DO if he can successfully electrolyze water to produce HHO gas mixture. Definitely sounds like we are about to follow Alice down yet another rabbit hole on this thread. For more information about "HHO" check out these links for "HHO Scam" and "HHO Generator Scam" and "Brown's Gas" and the Wikipedia article "Oxyhydrogen."

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Image from the Wikipedia ariticle showing how to produce oxyhydrogen in the Nineteenth Century... ah! the Golden Age of Almost Science as hundreds... maybe thousands... of folk try to learn and understand chemistry, physics, electricity and light.
 
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