First, this link from the Montreal Gazette:
Can this man save the world?
Everyone wants to cut car emissions. Sooner or later, someone will find a way to do it. Joe Williams hopes it's him.
Joe Williams Sr. believes he has the machine that will help save the world. It will make the sky blue, allow everyone to breathe easier, and, in a time of skyrocketing fuel prices, save us all money.
Yes, it's hard to believe. Williams is a Winnipeg boy who cut his business teeth managing McDonald's and Burger King franchises. Even now, he employs only 15 people in his Toronto and Manitoba offices. He entered this save-the-world field only 11 years ago and has invested just $7.5 million in his product.
But before you sniff skeptically and skip to the next story, read on.
Because if Joe Williams turns out to be right, "I think Bill Gates and our group will be shaking hands," he says. "It's that big."
"It" is his Hydrogen Generating Module, or H2N-Gen for short.
Smaller than a DVD player - small enough to sit comfortably under the hood of any truck or car - it could be big enough to solve the world's greenhouse gas emission problems, at least for the near future. In fact, it could make the Kyoto protocol obsolete. Basically, the H2N-Gen contains a small reservoir of distilled water and other chemicals such as potassium hydroxide. A current is run from the car battery through the liquid. This process of electrolysis creates hydrogen and oxygen gases which are then fed into the engine's intake manifold where they mix with the gasoline vapours.
It's a scientific fact that adding hydrogen to a combustion chamber will cause a cleaner burn. The challenge has always been to find a way to get the hydrogen gas into the combustion chamber in a safe, reliable and cost-effective way.
Williams claims he has achieved this with his H2N-Gen. His product, he said, produces a more complete burn, greatly increasing efficiency and reducing fuel consumption by 10 to 40 per cent - and pollutants by up to 100 per cent.
Most internal combustion engines operate at about 35 per cent efficiency. This means that only 35 per cent of the fuel is fully burned. The rest either turns to carbon corroding the engine or goes out the exhaust pipe as greenhouse gases.
The H2N-Gen increases burn efficiency to at least 97 per cent, Williams said. This saves fuel and greatly reduces emissions.
It also means less engine maintenance and oil changes. The only thing the vehicle owner has to do is refill the unit with distilled water once every 80 hours of engine use.
Tests show the unit itself should lasts for at least 10 years, Williams said.
Here is Mr. Romaniuk with one of his devices:
Looks like a nice enough person -- someone who had an idea and is trying to get it promoted. Now go and read here -- Don doesn't have "links" so you will need to scroll down to the entry for "September 17, 2005" and read this:
September 17, 2005
Yet another alternator driven hydrogen injector has recently entered the scene and is currently under lively Slashdot scrutiny.
Let's repeat some key points...
~ There is credible mainstream research evidence that shows that modest 5% hydrogen injection into an ICE can in fact offer performance and pollution benefits.
~ It has yet to be shown whether the costs and losses of onboard hydrogen generation can be done for less than these benefits. Especially if it has to be integrated into other ongoing ICE improvements. Naturally, there is no gain if the generation costs merely equal its benefits.
~ The cost of such a system has to be amortized over its benefits. If 48 cents per mile is taken as a vehicle operating cost (the new tax guideline), then a two percent improvement cannot cost more than a penny per mile. At 15,000 miles per year and three year payback at ten percent interest, the fully installed system cost and its maintainence cannot exceed a tiny fraction of $387.52 total. Otherwise, there are no positive benefits.
~ On any "more miles per gallon" device, there are very serious issues over double blind testing and the placebo effect that can utterly overwhelm any actual performance benefits. Further, it would seem to be quite difficult to isolate hydrogen injection from plain old water injection, which has its own costs and benefits.
~ The inefficiency of a car alternator alone is probably enough to cause a lack of a breakeven. If the electrolysizer so much as used stainless steel instead of platinized platinum electrodes, this would guarantee a bad enough efficiency to prevent breakeven.
~ Needless to say, as the load on an alternator increases, your gas mileage will go down. Their ain't no free lunch.
~ By a fundamental thermodynamic concept called exergy, electrolysis is fundamentally and profoundly a destroyer of value. Any onboard injection system absolutely and positively must avoid electrolysis if it is to succeed.
~ Possibly exhaust gas driven reformation has a chance at succeeding. This has yet to be shown. But alternator driven electrolysis flat out ain't gonna happen.
Spend some time poking around Don's website -- he has definite chops and bona-fides. As for the first link, I will just let the sound of Oink-Flap, Oink-Flap, Oink-Flap, Oink-Flap pass overhead and off into the sunset of failed scams. Mr. Romaniuk is so wrong, he is not even _ right _ (to quote a wonderful personality in Quantum Mechanics)
