When you first screw the plug into the reservoir, yes you would have some air in the gap above the electrolyte. Once the fuel cell starts making HHO, the air will be purged out of the reservoir and into the air cleaner box. I fail to see how the fuel cell can make air from the electrolyte. However, I'm a mechanical engineer, not a chemical engineer. And it's been 10+ years since my chemistry classes.
The fuel cell is seperating the hydrogen out of water, right? (Basic chem, H20).
That means that if it's seperating Hydrogen out, the oxygen has to go somewhere, right?
That my point. I wasn't talking about the air gap in the bottle or in the fuel cell (or anywhere else for that matter), but was referencing directly what the fuel cell was producing. My point is that at best, you're likely to have ~ a 2 to 1 ratio of hydrogen to oxygen....but no water is pure (certainly the system has "contaminates" in it, you are using a catalyst), so those will effect what's actually produced. So you could end up with other gasses being produced along with the hydrogen and oxygen.
So while the fuel cell might
displace ~1.6L of water in 1 minute, it's highly unlikely that gas is 100% hydrogen. Frankly if it was even 50% hydrogen I'd be fairly suprised. Even assuming a 2 : 1 ratio of hydrogen : other gasses (a very high ratio), you're only looking at ~1L of hydrogen per minute, at near peak conditions.
So while the "displacement" test certainly
looks impressive, it's only the first step in actually measuring how much hydrogen the fuel cell is producing.
It really would not be hard for you hardcore skeptics to make a fuel cell and do these tests you desire...
One of the mudders on here works at the local University. I don't expect the Uni to have the equipment to test and see what's the air composition (it's fairly small), but I'll ask him and see if he can ask around and find out. If they have the capability, and if the fee isn't terribly expensive, I'll throw one together and see the results I get.
But I'm sure someone's going to say "The Dutchman one is better! It produces at least 10 billion times more hydrogen!"
(Not you, since you're aleady looking at building your own. But someone I'm sure.)
If someone wants to send me a Dutchman one, I'll run the tests (again provided the capability is there) and am willing to pay shipping both ways.
I guess I need you guys to prove to me why I'm wrong and it's not actually improving gas mileage, as much as you need me to prove it's actually working. We can't accomplish that over the internet.
The trip odometer & gas pump volume readings are not lying to me as far as I know...
No one's claiming that your father isn't getting what you say he's getting.
Our concern is more of the actual
damage that he may or may not be doing to his rig.
In the one pic you posted (which is focused on the ground, so the spark plug is quite blurry unfortunatly), the plug (to me, and I am only an armchair "expert") looks
quite dark. I spent last night going through nearly every thread about spark plugs in the 80's section, and I saw plenty of pics of 80-120k plugs that looked in better shape than the one you posted.
But I don't know how many miles your dad's been running on those (if they've been in there 80k miles, then that'd be a big difference than say 30k). Could you post up some info on your dad's truck? (Milage, miles on the spark plugs, etc)
Heck, I remember my grandfather telling me a story about a friend of his who (back when everyone was panicked about a gas shortage decades ago) was making a LOT of money leaning out engines for folks (all on the side). He'd see up to ~50% improvements in milage. Unfortunatly a few months later several of the folks he had done this to became quite upset when they toasted their engine.....
It can take months for the consequences of running lean can show up. That's why I'm convinced that the "improvements" are mostly (or even completely) due to leaning out the engine, and everything else is just packaging. But that's just my personal opinion, and doesn't mean I'm not curious to see the results.
--pics of course) would really demonstrate whether he's running too lean or not.
