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Some of you may have seen my F35 Topic which is my serious racing side but i've got a really old 100cc go kart for fun now i was thinking how easy would it be to convert it into a Hydrogen burning engine because from what i've seen it doesn't look to hard to extract Hydrogen from water if you use something that appears similar to electrolysis and i was thinking that I could have a great little project which could be produced for next to nothing.
i've seen Formula Zero before on the internet but this is a different kind of hydrogen system as they use the hydrogen to create electricity for a motor rather than using electricity to create hydrogen for an engine.
soooo... any1 know anything about this sort of thing???
How are you going to safely store and carry this hydrogen? I suspect that issue may be the toughest part to accomplish.
From what I have read, making hydrogen is easy. They usually have to compress it to a iquid, and store it in a pressure container. Then, it's just a matter of regulating the release of hydrgen gas into a fuel system, and delivering it to the combustion chamber.
I agree with Dave regarding safety and I have to add since greenpower dude reloaded mentions old racing cart that probably means 100 ccm two stroke racing engine which is everything but not good for experimenting with fuel. Some 4 stroke lawn mover engine designed for more elasticity and lower rpm would be much better choice. Even if that old cart engine is 4 stroke it is a bad option for fuel experiments.
Last edited by manchild on 10 Jan 2006, 00:29, edited 1 time in total.
1) The energy density of Hydrogen is not as great as for Hydrocarbons - therefore you won't get as far on a tankful of Hydrogen as you would for a tank of gasoline
2) I think the reason most people use fuel cells with hydrogen is that they efficiency is much higher than using an internal combustion engine.
From your ID I guess you are into green energy, as such I would say that using Hydrogn in an internal combustion engine is a good way to throw away large anounts of energy!! The laws of thermodynamics say that you can't do what you are proposing without losing lots of energy throughout the process, notwithstanding the technical challenges you face in storing the Hydrogen and delivering it to the engine.
However, if this is simply a technical exercise then good luck, please let us know how you get on, but be safe...
The Hydrogen doesn't need to be stored anywhere as it will be pumped straight in to the engine as soon as it is taken from the water and i was also thinking about how easy it would be to use some of the water produced as a product of the reaction again obviously you'll loose some of the energy somewhere but its a start. lol and yes this is just an experiment and so yeah im sure that there will be a lot of energy lost but its just an aleternative to petrol.
Kudos to you green, not only for exploring concepts, but in support for a greener and better environment. Go for it, because progress comes from people like you, willing to explore concepts others just poo-poo.
if it's a 2 stroke, things would be more difficult than a four stroke, as manchild suggested. Including lubrication, which in a 2 stroke usually comes from mixing lubricant in the fuel, or being injected.
100 ccm two stroke racing engines like Rotax or Parilla run over 20.000 rpm and make 25 hp (more-less). They are sometimes difficult to get going even on normal fuel not to mention exotic fuel like Hydrogen.
Also, two stroke engines always pass some mixture into exhaust before it is returned into cylinder (with good resonant exhaust) and I don’t see how that would be possible with Hydrogen that is highly explosive.
Even 4 stroke karting engines are originaly tuned for specific fuel and high rpm so best thing for you to do is to get some used lawn mower engine with long stroke, low compression ratio and big flywheel.
Having a tank of Hydrogen between my legs is a thought that scares me the most
My sense is that unburned hydrogen will not be a bigger issue than conventional fuels - Indeed hydrogen is highly flammable, but so is gasoline - typical flash points for gasoline are in the range -20°C to -30°C, so they would certainly burn if they could - nevertheless, it is important to get the stochiometry correct so that there is not too much oxygen in the exhaust stream and that there is sufficient in the inlet charge for optimum combustion.
You will need to have some intermediate storage for the hydrogen, otherwise you will be rev limited. Either you need to store the Hydrogen under pressure, so that you can feed the engine via a throttle valve, or you will need to have a metering pump to deliver it at a rate to enable greater/lesser amounts to increase engine speed.
I did not intend to criticise your efforts in my earlier post greenpower dude - However, in looking to greener fules it is important to be certain that the alternative is truly greener - If you look at the whole cycle of energy generation the laws of thermodynamics state that energy will be consumed as you generate the Hydrogen from water. This itself will not be 100% efficient, so there will be a loss of energy as it takes effort to split the water into oxygen and hydrogen. The you will burn them to make water gain. An internal combustion engine (esp a 2 stroke) probably has a thermal efficiency of around 20% (so 80% of the heat energy is wasted) - and a mechanical efficiency of about 90%, giving you an overall efficiency of about 18%. I took a look at fuel cells - apparently they run at between 30 - 90% thermal efficiency (depending upon whether they recover the heat) - so that's why people tend to use hydrogen to generate electricity, rather than just burn it.
This is an interesting project and certainly in terms of emissions would be a (relatively) clean engine, but in energy terms it will not be efficient.
It just occurred to me - How will you lubricate the engine?? normal 2 strokes use a fuel/oil mixture to lubricate the crankshaft and cylinder lining....?
I just read today that the American department of energy have said that water has somewhere in the region of 40% more energy than conventional gasoline. however as im sure u all appriciate theres a big difference between there being energy within something and being able to extract it to anywhere its full potential.
Now atm this is only a concept and i am looking a different materials for lubrication such as Graphite for example which some of you may find hard to belive but is actually a very good lubricant(next time you have a drawer that gets stuck easily just "colour in" the runners with a normal HB pencil and you'll find it moves alot easier, it can admittedly be messy but i'd rather use graphite on certain applications thn grease.
Now most people will just veiw the heat loss as exactly that but i'm just trying to think of other ways to utalise such energy and i will explain a bit more in due course however i am in college atm and i'm kinda supposed to be designing sum box or something for graphic products lol
cheers for all your input guys it's greatly appriciated
greenpower dude reloaded wrote:...Now atm this is only a concept and i am looking a different materials for lubrication such as Graphite for example which some of you may find hard to belive but is actually a very good lubricant(next time you have a drawer that gets stuck easily just "colour in" the runners with a normal HB pencil and you'll find it moves alot easier, it can admittedly be messy but i'd rather use graphite on certain applications thn grease....
Valve liners contain graphite, that's an old story. There is also graphite lube that can be bought in tubes or cans as well as the powder.
Graphite is a good solution - it works in the dry, and furthermore is an excellent lubricant. One other attribute (and I'm not sure at this stage whether it's a positive or negative one!!) is that it will burn! - Being an allotrope of carbon the reaction product will be Carbon oxides (CO, or CO2 depending on how much oxygen is available). So, as in a conentional 2 stroke engine the lubricant can be combusted (but will then contribute to emissions).
yeah im not sure whether or not the fact it burns would be benificial or not however i could see a problem arising with using graphite is that it would be difficult to replenish becuase obviously oil is Liquid and can easily be topped up but graphite on the other hand is solid making it far more difficult to keep at an effective level.
Just forget that 2 stroke engine especially since it is very racy and difficult to adjust to different fuel and purpose. 4 stroke long-life engine will save you time and money.
