HHO Cell - Stan Meyer Design.

[peterpierre]

Hi Farrah Day

Nice to see you here again Anyways, I was real curious ... how far did you go down the path as to powering a HV Cell which had isolated electrodes and attack the water just by means of the HV field emitted by the electrodes (which in this case aren't really electrodes anymore - they are rather more "antennas" of sorts which emit a HV field)? The thing is that we cannot ever forget or ignore the fact that the bonds of the water molecule is 90% electrostatic and 10% covalent ... so u be the judge, does that sound like a proper approach or not? ... and I personally am indifferent if it complies with faradays law(s) or not because I don't believe anything written in books about physics. Total non-compliance here

[Farrah Day]

Hi Peter

Faraday's Laws of electrolysis are so simple and basic that they really cannot be wrong - I've looked into this a long time ago.

That is not to say that there may not be other ways of evolving H2 and O2, just that if it involves charge exchanging Faraday will always hold up.  Where I think people get confused is they try to involve efficiency, that's not what Faraday's law is about.  A very inefficient electrolyser will be abiding by Faraday's law just as much as a very efficient electrolyser.  That said, it is clear from some of the posts that most people have not even read Faraday's Laws of Electrolysis... let alone understood them!

Regarding my current experiments, things are still on-going.  So still dabbling with different methods at present, but finding it very hard to not to continually electrocute myself.

I know what I'm aiming to do (I think I've outlined that above too), but playing with HV always takes a little time and care so can be slow going - that and the fact that the kids are on their summer school break at present.

My copper coil around the glass jar is providing me with the most fun, as though the water inside is electrically insulated by the 1/4" glass jar, I can get a 1/2" arc to ground from the water when powering the open ended coil with my ignition coil HV cct.  I'm finding this intriguing and continually devising experiments. If I'm right the water should be being induced to ionise by the high electric field. I've just got to find a method of utilising those ions without killing myself.

The thing is that we cannot ever forget or ignore the fact that the bonds of the water molecule is 90% electrostatic and 10% covalent ... so u be the judge, does that sound like a proper approach or not?

Not sure what you mean by this, as the water molecule itself is a covalent bond of 2H and O.  But multiple water molecules cluster due to the electrostatic attraction - hence, surface tension and such-like... is that what you were refering to?

Farrah

[Farrah Day]

Hi Loner

Firstly, I think Peter was talking about the bond between water molecules that cause them to cluster when he referred to electrostatic bonds.  The 2H and O of a water molecule, to the best of my knowledge, forms a normal covalent bond.

Regarding current flow. We seem to be differing on this. According to my understanding, current flow does not have to be electron flow. Any movement of a charged particle/s constitutes current flow. 

I've always understood that current flow through a liquid is ionic, not electron, and two-way, and generally this I believe is the case. Liquid metals such mercury - or any conductive metal in liquid form - might not follow this rule.

There is so little in-depth information about even standard electrolysis to be found anywhere, that I do wonder if anyone truly knows exactly what is occurring at atomic and molecular level.  One thing for sure this chemistry is often taken for granted.

To the best of my knowledge we can forget talking about pure water as such, because as soon as it is exposed to the atmosphere, gases begin to dissolve in it.

Water itself is quite active. Give it a stir and molecules will be moving about for a very long time due to the electrostatic influences of the bipolar molecule - in fact I don't think water would ever become inactive as such - there will always be inter-molecular movement.  From time to time this movement provides enough energy for a molecule to ionise, but this lasts only for a few femtoseconds before the ions recombine. However, a certain percentage of 'pure' water is continually ionising and is the main reason why even 'pure' water will conduct to a degree.

Although only a little gas evolves when electrolysing pure water, it is more efficient than using an electrolyte where it takes a lot of energy to drag large electrolyte ions through the liquid medium - hence the heat.

Anyway, this is what I understand of what happens:

As soon as we apply a voltage across the water, any molecule ionising will then be drawn away from it's ionic partner toward the much greater charge on the electrodes.  The OH- is quite a big ion that travels through the liquid to the +ve electrode, while the H+ (as you say a proton) is a special case. This proton only exists as a single proton for a very short time before it latches onto the nearest water molecule to become H3O+.  The H+ charge then continues to the -ve electrode in a similar fashion to electron current, hoping from one water molecule to the next (actually no. It more likely simply pushes a H off a molecule nearest the -ve electrode, like poking a ballbearing into a tube full of ballbearings and having the end one pop out.

So the H+ reaches the -ve electrode where it takes up an electron to become H and it also finds a partner to become the more stable H2 molecule, and evolves as gas.

On reaching the +ve electrode, the OH- gives up it's electron to become OH. But now there is no longer an extra electron to share. The O no longer has a full complement of electrons in it's outer shell, so too the H. Now there is no reason for the O and H to remain together.

The next process is what puzzled me for a good while as it is not often documented. Originally I thought that the OH would split, with the O finding a partner to become stable O2. But this puzzled me because this would leave H at the anode, and we know that H2 does not evolve here, so what happens to the H atom?

As I now understand it, what occurs here is that once the OH- gives up it's electron, the OH then combines with three other OH to become 2H2O and O2 which evolves as a gas. I do not know enough about chemistry to understand why the OH simply does not become O and H, - and if you find out, let me know - but it clearly does not.

A paper I read on the properties of water stated that at any given time, there is only a certain specific proportion of water self-ionising, which if so, means that we cannot increase the level of ionisation unless we quickly remove the ions as they form.  Hence the closer together the electrodes, the more ions we can capture before they recombine, so allowing more ions to form more quickly.  So if this is true and the water replenishes ions in femtoseconds to maintain an equilibrium, then we are only limited by how fast we can pull the ions out of the water and have them react at the electrodes. 

I've rabbited for so long now that I no longer know if I've replied appropriately. However, as this post is now becoming 'Loner' size  , I'll leave it here.
 

[peterpierre]

Hi FD and Loner,

Maybe it's just me but I do disagree using the word current in association with this type system, because the system itself uses virtually no current (current = Amps) ... at most (at any time) around 80 mA the true work is done by means of a HV field only. This is not a 'inductive' system/circuit - it is purely 'capcitative'

[Farrah Day]

Personally, I consider only "Electron Flow" as "True" current, as "Proton" flow is so much slower, due to the massive amount of physical mass that is in motion.

Lightning is caused by ionisation of the air, the same as a spark gap. I don't think that the current that flows in these cases is electron.

I'm not sure how much slower proton current would be as I believe it uses a tunnelling effect known as the Grotthus Mechanism.  Though it's all relative, the speed of an electron through a conductor is not particularly fast, travelling I understand at around 3 inches per hour!

I also doubt if the OH- ion actually moves through the water solitary as we tend to visualise, but rather latching on to one water molecule, creating something similar to a moving chain.   

Using the tube full of ballbearings analogy to describe electron flow, then if we push an extra ballbearing in one end, we instantaneously have one pop out the other end. But, it is not the ballbearing that we just added to the tube that pops out - that will take time to again pop out the other end if we continue adding ballbearings.

If the proton and OH- ion use a similar mechanism of travel to the electron, then maybe these much more massive particles are not much slower. Afterall size is irrelevant in the ballbearing analogy, and we are only concerned with the charge that each is carrying rather than any specific proton or ion.  If you see what I'm saying. 

If anything, it is likely that moving from one water clusters to the next is what will slow the progress of the proton (or it's charge).

That said, clearly there always appears to be a slight but very perceptible delay between throwing the switch on the PSU and the appearance of gas in a standard electrolyser.

Hi FD and Loner,

Maybe it's just me but I do disagree using the word current in association with this type system, because the system itself uses virtually no current (current = Amps) ... at most (at any time) around 80 mA the true work is done by means of a HV field only. This is not a 'inductive' system/circuit - it is purely 'capcitative'

Hi Peter

It's all very well saying this, but getting a grip on and fully understanding the basics is always a good idea. It gives you a solid foundation to work from.

And as yet no one has put forward a theory as how we get voltage to produce gases and what reaction this would involve.

Furthermore, I'm not convinced SM's demo WFC on the bench in the video was doing anything exceptional.  They mention he was only using milliamps, well for 500 milliamps, if his WFC was very well designed and efficient you can get that amount of gassing. I was suprised just how much gassing I was getting at well below half and amp from my multitube set up. However, all this bubbling and frothing can be deceiving - it looks like a massive amount of gas, but it's not.  If you hook the ouptut up to a bubbler, as I did when getting visually a similar amount as demoed by SM, I was surprised by just how little gas was actually evolving.