Crazy Idea!!

[Omniata]

Guys, bit of a mad idea but came up with the idea whilst trawling the internet for inspiration.

Got this from "solar powered oxy-hydrogen generators", but thought I'd adapt.

You need to put water into the generator with some salt (electrolyte) and pop some rods in and set the feeds/outputs out.
If you use a couple of "carbon arc rods" (for gouging) and a stick welder as a power supply the rate at which gas gets produced goes up through the roof! Add a static tank to fill and then couple the output from it to a compressor and wahey! compressed oxygen...

Go easy on me, just an idea as I can't be arsed paying for oxygen when it accounts for about 50% of water...

Just bin the hydrogen to atmosphere or burn it to keep warm lol...

 

[rtbcomp]

You'll need a DC welder.

Somehow I guess the gas produced won't be the only thing going through the roof.

You can't use any old compressor as the oxyxgen mustn't come into contact with anything flammable, oil plastic and so on.

You add a slight amount of sulphuric acid, salt solution will produce chlorine. Having tried using carbon rods to electrlolyse water I found that they tended to disintegrate. Lead may be better.

Use the hydrogen to power a welding generator!

 

[nellway]

Ah, those wonderful British traits - curiosity, inventiveness, creativity, adventurousness, Heath-Robinson-ness, parsimony, short life-expectancy.....

 

[rtbcomp]

Ah, those wonderful British traits - ............. Heath-Robinson-ness, ......

Like this

This

 

[cobminor]

Oxygen and oil are the dangerous pair. They make a combustible mix without needing a flame. Plastic is not so much a problem as it is a solid, so any petrol products in it are not free.

 

[sharkey]

I think I've seen electrolysis oxy/hydrogen welders around on eBay ... some Russian brand perhaps? Can't seem to find them now, weird. No idea if it's practical, but its a cute idea.

-----sharks

 

[LimeGreen]

Hi,

First point is that water isn't a good electrical conductor at all. Add salt and you get chlorine gas at one of the electodes, add sulphuric acid and you still get chlorine at the same, but less.

Storage of electricity is an ongoing problem. Magnetism, in the 90's and Noughties, seems to be the way to go for off-line coal fired power stations.

Apart from fast breeder work, there seems to no magic solution for splitting the atom.

Cheers,

Matt.jw@tiscali.co.uk

 

[rtbcomp]

Hi,

First point is that water isn't a good electrical conductor at all. Add salt and you get chlorine gas at one of the electodes, add sulphuric acid and you still get chlorine at the same, but less.

You won't get chlorine if you add sulphuric instead of hydrochloric.

 

[Welderpaul]

If you want oxygen, why not ring BOC or AP who will deliver you a nice shiny cylinder of the stuff.
All sounds very dangerous to me.......

 

[Omniata]

I was trying to avoid the cost and charges lol...

NB: Chlorine shouldn't be generated unless there's a concentrated salt solution, I was only intending it as an electrolyte to raise the conductivity...

The significant problem here will be the compressor, it'd need to be a special alloy as the oxygen would undoubtebly get hot through compression and burn and burst the cylinder if it were steel...

I get ideas like this from time to time, usuall when bored or down...

Cheers guys, good to get some other ideas...

Jim.

 

[rtbcomp]

I was trying to avoid the cost and charges lol...

Nothing wrong with that, especially the VAT bit

The significant problem here will be the compressor, it'd need to be a special alloy as the oxygen would undoubtebly get hot through compression and burn and burst the cylinder if it were steel...

How about a ceramic? Or diamond which is an excellent conductor of heat?

I get ideas like this from time to time, usuall when bored or down...

Genius is next to madness


Jim.[/QUOTE]

 

[Omniata]

How about a ceramic? Or diamond which is an excellent conductor of heat?

And that will help cut down costs how??

Genius is next to madness

I'm inclined to agree, need to win the lottery and take a holiday somewhere nice, I might not be tempted to save money trying these things then...


Jim.

 

[LimeGreen]

Hi Moderator,

I give up.

You are right - mixing sulphoric acid to water will not give off chlorine at one of the electrodes. Seriously bad advice there!

This is probably why I tried it instead of salt. Also, only the slightest trace of acid needs to be added to pure water to make it reasonably conductive.

Really, I should think before I type!

Also, the origional poster should realise how much the electricity will cost to produce a continuous supply of bubbles. After this, then you would have to collect, filter, and compress the oxygen.

Hardly worthwhile money wise.

Sincerely,
Matt

 

[rtbcomp]

Actually in years to come could be oxygen will be produced by electrolysis if we develop a hydrogen economy. IIRC Nottingham are experimenting with a hydrogen powered bus, but I'm not sure how the gas is produced in this instance.

I'm convinced that producing hydrogen using micro-generated electricty is more efficient than distributing the electricty. Also I understand it is more efficient to distribute power as a gas rather than as electricity.

Back to the original post, do we need a compressor? If you use a variation of the U-Tube laboratory electroysis equipment you could use the head of water to pressurise the gas.

 

[Drains]

My mate makes his co2 for welding from his small beer production facility (read, bucket). Reckons he gets enough for about a metre of weld a day. Which doesn't sound much, but for diy/hobby purposes, is probably plenty.

Reading up, it turns out that the fermentation process is a standard industrial way of producing co2.

 

[rtbcomp]

........

Reading up, it turns out that the fermentation process is a standard industrial way of producing co2.

I remember an item on the wireless about a tomato grower who used CO2 from a nearby distillery to feed his plants.

 

[LimeGreen]

Well, the last thing I was expecting was producing O2 from an ecological standpoint.

Normally, air separation plants produce large amounts of N2/O2/CO2/Ar by compression and liquid distillation. For as long as gases have been available in bulk, liquidfaction has proven to be the most energy efficient means of separating air into it's component parts, and thermodymicaly proven high speed inflow micro compressor turbines are mature technology.

However, wind tubines and solar panels might be able to electrolise water provided that the low energy transfer is acceptable - modern batteries will be more usable for electronic devices.

Give a look at fuel cell technology if you want to better store electrical energy as opposed to generating gases.

Yours Matt

 

[rtbcomp]

O2 will be produced as by-product if the primary task is to generate hydrogen. Fuel cells turn gas into electricity.

The thing about micro-generation is that all the small devices produce electricity to feed into the grid. This is very wasteful as the power from a windmill has to be rectified, fed into a battery, inverted, stepped up and synchronised with the mains. If you just rectify the output of a windmill and electrolyse the water you just need to pump the gas into a pipe.

Matt is quite right that electronic equipment should be powered off DC. Perhaps the house of the future will have a 12v DC mains, especially if LED lighting is used. Then mains power would only be used for washing machines and the like.

There's a fortune to be made by inventing an efficient, high capacity lightweight battery.

 

[Omniata]

I brew my own wine so adapting the beer process might get some luck...

Have to see how things go. There are plenty of "solar hydrogen" generator plans out there that waste the O2. Just a matter of turning the process round to keep the oxygen...
There probably won't be enough power from using the hydrogen as a fuel source to make electricity to drive the electrolysis, but it's a idea if someones got room.


Jim.

EDIT: Like the U-Tube idea, remember those from high-school, nice one rtbcomp!!!

 

[LimeGreen]

rtbcomp

Surely, beer has to be aged to get a decent taste? Glass bottles or metal cans also take a lot of energy and man-power to produce.

Would a better bet be to brew cider for a quicker throughput of fruit to yeast CO2 waste product, plus some bio-ethanol thrown in as a bonus. Any remaining pulp would be pig nector.

Simondrns

I agree, personsal micro-generators, either wind or solar, are only really appropiate for a single household or street. Attempting to transfer the small amount of power to the national multi MegaWatt grid would be fultile.

As for high capacity batteries, NiMH are just starting to have usefull power density J/g compared to fuel cells, and are a fraction of their price.





I'm sure if this discussion is vearing off the point of the thread.

Faithfully,

Matt