Before you buy your Hydrogen generator.

Let’s clear up some of the salesmanship and misconceptions so prevalent in sales listings today. I do not mean to discourage the sale of hydrogen generators. On the contrary, they do work and can improve the mileage of internal combustion engines to a noticeable degree. I use one and sell them myself. My issue is only with fantastic claims of invention and output as well as just plain error regarding the subject of electrochemistry. The laws defining this subject are credited to Michael Faraday and date back to 1832, so this is not new.

I will start with an explanation of their operation, which is, in the vast majority of sales, electrolysis.

All the following statements are based on facts, and first hand experience in subject over the course of years of experience.

Electrolysis is the electro-chemical process whereby which hydrogen and oxygen are disassociated from water.

This process is used for many other separation operations but we will concern ourselves here only with it’s application

involving water.

Simply put, it requires only the immersion of electrically conductive details called electrodes into a vessel containing water and applying a direct current to these electrodes. These electrodes come in many shapes and sizes which I will address later.

Pure or distilled water is non conductive so no chemical separation will take place until ions are added to make it so. These ions are merely soluble chemicals that raise or lower the pH level of the water and create the solution called electrolyte. The soluble chemicals range from acids to bases in the form of hydrochloric acid (battery acid) to sodium hydroxide (lye).

The chemical formulation for the electrolysis process of water is H2O -> 2H2 + O2.  The gases produced by the disassociation of H2O (water) are 2H2 (two diatomic hydrogen molecules) and O2  (one diatomic oxygen molecule). There exists no such gas as HHO or HOH. Elemental hydrogen and oxygen are diatomic due to the atomic force that cannot be overcome by electrical forces. Additionally both orthohydrogen and parahydrogen are diatomic and differ only by the spin direction of their protons.

Here are a few rules to remember. The stronger that the electrolyte is, the more electrically conductive it becomes. That is, the more current will be passed through the electrodes. This is a good thing for electrolysis, up to a point. That point is where the concentration is so strong that metallic electrodes start to dissolve. The more current passing through the electrodes, the greater that the volume of gas disassociated from the electrolyte will be. Again this is a good thing for electrolysis, up to a point. That point is reached by the inability of the electrodes to dissipate the current generated heat and boiling the water out of the electrolyte in close proximity and having no electrolysis taking place.

Electrode surface area in contact with the electrolyte is how heat build up is dissipated and that surface area is the largest contributing factor to the production of gas during the process of electrolysis. If there is anything that should be remembered about the subject of electrolysis it should be that the greater the electrode surface area in contact with the electrolyte the greater the volume of gas that can be disassociated. There is an operative word in that statement and that is “contact”.

Gas bubbles adhering to the surface of an electrode prevent contact with the electrolyte and must be removed in order for electrolysis to occur. There are various schemes to aid in bubble removal but the most effective is the imparted motion or flow of the electrolyte  across the electrodes. The worst is the injection of air across the electrodes. That method only increases the surface of the electrode not in contact with the electrolyte and lowers the volume of disassociated gases, but because of the added air bubbles and their appearance, claims of many liters of gas per minute are made erroneously. The best, from a cost effective and practical point of view is achieved though the design and placement of the electrodes. Vertical placement of the electrodes allows the gas bubbles to remove themselves by virtue of their own buoyancy.

Horizontal placement such as that used in the “washers on a stick” type are very inefficient by design but may be improved quite a bit by simply rotating the stick to horizontal.  I suspect that this vertical design is one of convenience or lack manufacturing skills but not the thoughtful application of knowledge in the subject.

            Size matters. This may sound repetitive, and it actually is, but I must say strongly how important surface area is in the production of gas through electrolysis. Surface area of an electrode is determined by its geometry. That is to say it’s shape. Most people can tell at a glance that a wire is smaller than a square plate but when confronted with many feet or wire screen, doubt starts to creep in regarding surface area. The formula for surface area of a flat plat is L x W x 2. It does have two sides after all.  To be fair, one should calculate the area of the edges as well. The formula for surface area of a wire or solid cylinder is 3.1416 x D x L. As an example a 2 x 6 plate type electrode  has 12 square inches per side and 2 sides for a total of 24 square inches. You need two electrodes, so the active surface area would be 48 square inches. How many inches of wire are needed to equal that is dependent on the size of the wire or gauge. When wire size is given in gauge size it must be converted to actual dimensions in order to perform the calculations. I will use a size of .032 inch, which is 20 AWG and, as a side note, has a current handling capacity of 11 amps. The answer, as you can check for yourself, is 477 inches or 39.78 feet. If you were to use .100-diameter rod you would still need 152.7 inches or 12.73 feet to equal the 2 x 6 electrodes. You would also need an industrial coil-forming machine in order to work with stainless of this size or at least a pair of monstrously strong hands. I have never seen a device for sale that is remotely close to that length. It is obvious that electrolysis devices using wire electrodes fall way bellow the mark in gas production. Additionally gas bubbles are often larger than the wire used and prevent many complete segments of the wire from contact with the electrolyte and promoting localized over heating.

            Less obvious regarding surface area is the use of metal screen electrodes. Using the original wire size of .032 inches and mesh opening of .064 square let’s do the numbers for a 2 x 6 inch piece. The wire count, rounded up, for the 2 inch side is 21 wires each 6 inches long. The wire count, rounded up, for the 6 inch side is 63 wires each 2 inches long. As so often happens in mathematics and geometry, a proportional relationship shines through the calculation and becomes sensible with after thought. That is, that the surface area of 21 wires 6 inches long is equal to the surface area of 63 wires 2 inches long. Look at the numbers and think about it. It is really kind of cool. That surface area is 12.666 square inches for the size we used. Adding the two groups of wires we have a result of 25.332 square inches. Not even close to the flat plate by almost a factor of 2. When you consider all the dead spots where the wires cross each other, the resistance to electrical conduction at these points, and bubble the removal issue it should not be surprising to find that one needs a screen electrode that is more than four times the size of a flat plate to achieve equal output. How anyone can claim the use of screen for greater surface area is beyond me. It is only greater than plain wire and performs poorly when compared to flat plate.

            Perforated plate seems to appear from time to time with claims of increased surface area, enhanced cooling, or some such creative sales concept, but if you apply reason, you will know that every hole that decreases surface area decreases gas production when all other items are equal. The exception to this geometry is where the hole depth exceeds one half the hole diameter. For example, a 1 inch diameter hole in a 1/2 thick plate where the surface area removed from the two sides is equal that exposed by the revealed cylindrical edge. Scale this down to a 1/8 diameter hole in 1/16 thick sheet and you will get a 2 x 6 plate with holes that has an equal surface area to a 2 x 6 plate without holes. Any thinner and you will lose effective surface area. This is most often the case because of decreased punch life in manufacturing holes to this ratio. That is not to say that holes like these do not exist. It is just that it is not common at all to manufacture out of stainless on a production scale. The ratio is more on the order of 3 or 4 to 1, punch to material thickness, which results in decreased surface area.

The round pipe electrodes in various grades of stainless steel does perform comparably to flat sheet but has an electrical polarity issue when used in a concentric ring configuration. Recognize that the inner electrode is smaller than the outer. The assumption is that most electrolysis units are promoted and purchased mainly for their hydrogen production. Hydrogen is produced at the negative electrode (cathode) and oxygen at the positive (anode). These gasses are produced at the ratio of two to one from their respective electrodes so in this electrode geometry you have a choice. This arrangement will produce less hydrogen when the smaller electrode is connected to the negative than it will when connected to the positive. Although I have not addressed electrode erosion, suffice it to say that the majority of erosion takes place at the cathode and that round pipe, by virtue of its thickness, will have a longer life cycle by suffering less from this condition.

        All metallic electrodes experience erosion and will completely disintegrate with use and time. Their life cycle is determined by their thickness, the strength of the electrolyte, the amount of current pushed though them, and the hours of operation. Regardless of claims to the contrary, they cannot last forever and you must expect to replace them when they fail, as they eventually will. Don’t be alarmed with the prospect of a hydrogen generator failure. Ominous as it sounds, most units can last a year or more and their failure, more often than not, is only evident in the blown fuse when the disintegrating electrodes short out.

            Commercial units use carbon or graphite electrodes. That should say it all but I’ll throw in that they are expensive and have special machining and handling requirements that are beyond most amateur builders. They will have the longest life cycle even under the most extreme operating conditions.

            Devices using pulse width modulation will not increase the output of an electrolysis cell. They will however, allow you regulate the gas production and run cooler electrodes. This alone is worth their use. An added benefit is that the metallic electrodes will last longer.

            An electrolysis cell applying harmonic or resonant principles has yet to be proven to function by these principals. There are many parts available for sale that mimic the drawings of the Stan Meyer patents and many people unsuccessfully attempting to replicate his results despite years of effort and CD sales. Because the resonant frequency of water is in the gigahertz range, or microwave region, the difficulty and cost, as well as the precision needed to maintain the first or second harmonic in the constantly changing environment of a bubbling container of water leaves me with little hope that some shade tree experimenter will truly be able to achieve this end.

Best regards,

Jungle Jim