HHO Cell - Stan Meyer Design.

[Farrah Day]

Peter

Having only just found this thread - unusual place to put it - I have just read through it completely. I'm impressed with your engineering skills in which you appear to excel, but I'm rather interested in what your take on the electrochemistry involved is... or whether you have even given this any thought at all.

The cell build is the easy part, getting lots of gas from very little current is where it tends to get a bit more tricky.

My problem with Meyer-type WFC's is that everyone seems to think voltage alone can pull the water molecule apart, yet no one can offer any balanced chemical equation for the reactions that must take place in order for this to happen. Nor can anyone explain how doing this will ultimately evolve H2 and O2. 

In my experience die-hard Meyer fanatics tend to live in their own little world and simply and conveniently overlook or ignore the electrochemistry as if the science behind this is of little or no consequence... naively assuming, 'it just happens'.

However, anyone who fully understands how standard electrolysis works, will understand too that Faraday's laws of electrolysis, in their simplicity, are quite infallible. Which of course is why educated men often give little credence to voltage based WFC's. 

With ion current and the exchanging of charges on the plates of a standard electrolyser, it all makes sense, it adds up and chemical equations balance. Not so with voltage only, so... any thoughts on this rather crucial matter.

Good luck with your project.  Look forward to the next instalment.

[peterpierre]

Hi there,

Thank You for your feedback. For one - Stanley Meyer "fans" (well they are not really fans else they would pay more attention to his works and explanation) are in the pursuit of fame and money - the easy way - and indeed - the process the original Stan Meyer describes, has nothing to do with electrolysis per-se. For second: current is not what will give you high gas yield, on the contrary it will make it harder if not even impossible to release any significant amount of hydrogen and oxygen (That falls under brute force). There is no balanced chemical equation for the process because it never has been written except for what Stan has recorded so briefly and certain things of course were left out. I agree - standard electrolysis very well falls under Faradays law - no doubt and no question - however if you change one or more parameters on a process defined in a law of physics, you cannot expect that the very same law is still applicable and indeed with accuracy ... the working potential in electricity is voltage, not the current. Hope I was able to shed some light on the matter for you.

[Farrah Day]

Thanks for replying Peter.

It's not that I need any light shedding on it, I actually have my own theories on what is occuring. It's just that I was curious to know how you would explain the 'work' that voltage alone does to evolve the gases given you have put so much effort into your build.

It is not a dig, its just that everyone assumes voltage will do this 'work', but no one has ever even attempted to explain how this can happen.

I've been at this quite a while and in all that time no one has ever actually explained how voltage alone can evolve the gases - how does pulling electrons off the water molecule (and I don't for a minute think that Meyer's interpretation of this is correct) possibly give you H2 and O2?
I've yet to see a single equation for this reaction. Indeed there are not even any theories I know of to explain the chemistry going on - as I said, lacking any satisfactory explanation for the reaction process, the actual electrochemistry part is always simply ignored.

It would be a mistake to think that Faraday's Laws apply only to standard electrolysis. Whatever the parameters, as long as ions are involved and charges are being exchanged, Faraday's Laws of electrolysis will always hold true as it simply accounts for every charge exchange - every electron - however the said charge exchange may be induced. 

The question you have to ask yourself is, 'Is current flow being induced into the WFC from somewhere other than the supply source?' Now there's a thought.

I daresay there will come a time - when you realise that the voltage itself is not pulling water apart - when you will find you have to start thinking outside of the box - outside of classical science for answers.

I reserve a healthy level of scepticism and can be terribly stubborn. It took me a long time to accept anything other than classical science and see the error of my ways. It's something that happens in it's own time, once you realise that things are not doing what you expect them to do or what classical science says they should be doing. That said, you can't simply ignore the laws of physics - there are always laws of physics that apply.

Will follow your progress with interest.

[supermuble]

Just wanted to chime in. Pretty simple how voltage does work. Capacitors are conductive plates between an insulating medium. The oxides on the metal actually form capacitors, thus water capacitors certainly do exist, and it is not an abberation, I've built a water capacitor that can charge to 160 volts using tiny amounts of power input.

The way you charge the water capacitor is not with current. You charge it will radiant (static electricity). Static electricity is devoid of current. You keep charging the water until the water breaks down from the voltage. The positive plate and the negative plate (being very very close together) exhibit a physical ripping force on the electron. The electrons are aiming one direction, and the rest of the atom is being pulled the other direction. Since no current is flowing, the potential keeps building, nothing moves (nothing happens at all) until very very VERY high voltage is reached. At some point the ripping voltage is too much for the covalent bond to handle.

When the voltage breakdown occurs, the covalent bonds give up an electron, which is the single electron that joins hydrogen to the oxygen atom. When you shut the pulse off the electrons flow back the hydrogen atoms, making them complete, then the hydrogen is stable and it floats to the surface, hence the requirement for a 50% duty cycle.

I experimented using 20,000 volts. I used a thin plastic sheet to separate two electrodes, with one electrode being a grounded plate. In no possible way, even with only .015" clearance, was I ever able to get more than a tiny bubble to result. I found no correlating between 15,000 volts and hydrogen production. If voltage was able to perform work, it didn't.

I've also built a water capacitor (yes a real capacitor) that I charged up to 160 volts. This didn't do anything as far as making more hydrogen. Trying to charge the water capacitor beyond this level doesn't seem likely to produce hydrogen.

Does anyone have any proof at all that it is even possible to get enough voltage to break down water? In my limited experiments, I've seen no evidence that 15,000 or 20,000 volts in short bursts is enough to do anything. Though, I have never had a real capacitor with this much voltage (I can't figure out how you could charge any capacitor this high because of all the losses).

After about 12 different experiments and 3 years of research, I have finally did the worst thing possible, and have become cynical.

I am certainly not trying to be negative, just telling you that I have given up and have no idea where else to go?

[peterpierre]

Hi supermuble,

Were you working with 15 - 20 kV AC or DC? and also did you try it with the bifilar inductors in order to soften the pulses ... also the separator thin plastic sheet never occurred to me as being useful in any way - there should be no separator at all and the electrode distance seems to be too close at .015 distance ... work it actually does, however one must look at it in a slightly different fashion, just remember those laws of physics have not been jotted down yet and a proper explanation is still to be worded in humanly understandable words.