Chemical Reduction Hydrogen Production

[resident_genius]

fully constructed. reccommended for ages 18 and up. batteries and battery acid not included.

driver. .78 is minimum voltage. 1.0 and 2.0 DCV are marked off. 25 amp maximum load.

arrangement of anode and cathode. now just picture this bucket about 3/4 full of galvanized and only a thin sheet of plexiglass in between? now THATS some serious H2 production.....





sorry the pictures were so gosh darned big.

[resident_genius]

fully constructed. reccommended for ages 18 and up. batteries and battery acid not included.

driver. .78 is minimum voltage. 1.0 and 2.0 DCV are marked off. 25 amp maximum load.

arrangement of anode and cathode. now just picture this bucket about 3/4 full of galvanized and only a thin sheet of plexiglass in between? now THATS some serious H2 production.....





sorry the pictures were so gosh darned big.

[resident_genius]

i think its time for a FAQ on this system.


Q: What is the amount of Iron sulphate or zinc sulphate And the amount of hydrochloric acid that should be combined.

A: the combination is ordinary galvanized steel, (Zn coated Fe) in a bath of Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4). hydrocloric acid is not used. when the reaction is finished, there will be an excess of hydrogen released (H2), and the byproducts are zinc sulfate(ZnSO4), iron sulfate (FeSO4), and iron (fe)

H2SO4 + Zn coated Fe = H2 + ZnSO4 + Fe SO4 + Fe
or
sulfuric acid combined with galvanized steel turns into hydrogen, zinc sulfate, iron sulfate, and iron.

also- ordinary battery acid is usually at a concentration of around 35%, or 35% acid and 55% water.

Q: What about the ammonia and the sulphates, How about keeping iron plates at cathode and zinc plates at the anode.

A: Some folks are playing with this very idea....once the reaction has slowed, consider applying a low voltage @ high amperage to quickly replate the metals, and start the reaction all over again.


Q: Also can I use urea instead of ammonia.

A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea says that urea is (NH2)2CO...now while it has ammonia in it, its also inherently different because its also bonded to the carbon and oxygen in the molecule. that changes everything in a chemical reaction. NH3 or ammonia, is a gas, typically suspended(immersed/dissolved) in water. 35% is the highest concentration you can purchase and you need a special license here in the 'States. most industrial applications of NH3 carry a 20% solution. that will be just fine.


Q: You have also mentioned about the usage of glass lined fire extinguisers filled with Fe,Zn, and H2SO4.

A: the point of the fire extinguishers is the fact that they are ultra strong and cheap. glass lining them stops the acid from destroying the vessel, since they are made of iron. if one could find SS fire extinguishers, BINGO!


thats all i've got for now. should hopefully quell some emails folks have been getting. answering them on here will further educate everyone reading this.

[resident_genius]

More FAQ's....


Q: Since it is a reaction between acid and metal, will it be advantageous to make the metal into thin large surfaced sheets or plates, so that more surface area is available.

A: yes! surface area is key. thats why hardware cloth (galvanized screen with 1/8" or 1/4" holes) is perfect, because finding long strips of thin galvanized isnt easy nor particularly inexpensive.

Q: After the reaction is complete, alaska star has recomended charging 1 volt and plenty of amps. What the maximum amperage can be for 1 foot by 1 foot plate. I`m thinking to charge something about 100 amps.

A: 1 volt at 100 amps is very hard to accomplish. find me a battery or power supple stable at that kind of voltage and amperage..... it is almost a dead short. please look into ohms law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm's_law ) and the R= E/I math.

i have found a 25 amp stable power supply but these are rare and hard to find and even harder to purchase, i had to talk to the president of a company to have five sent out for testing purposes. 25 amps is HUGE for one volt, and probably not possible. ( R= E/I or resistance of circuit = volts divided by amps or R =1 /25 is equal to 0.04 ohms....thats almost like sticking a wrench between two battery terminals.... its unhealthy for a circuit to do that.

Q: Is it posible to have the positive and negative plates alternatively staked together seperated by plastic or nylon vasers, something around 10 pairs of plates. Just thinking.!!!!!!

A: absolutely.

Q: In our place (India in this instance) anhydrous ammonia is given as a gas in a cylinder.If I open the tank I lose all the gas. Should I go through the process of mixing the gas with water. Do you have any handy tutorial.? There is another form available as ammonium hydroxide as liquid. Can we use ammonium hydroxide liquid or crystals dissolved in water.

A: ammonium hydroxide is simply ammonia gas dissolved in water. this is exactly what alaskastar was talking about. only use the aqueous solution, dont use any crystals....

[Jehu]

Nice vids and setup mate. And also +rep for the F.A.Q.


I still gotta get back into this but I've been fiddling around with HCl for a while since it's easier to get hold of. Though I have found a method of getting H2SO4 from other salts fairly cheaply. I really should get to making some more.

Anyway, I've been Leaching our old wood ashes from last winter to get the lye out of it. Figured that I can get some KOH out of it for stuff and it comes out surprisingly clear when you just put some in a coffee filter and pour water through it. It's a nice bright yellow colour like that of your pee just after you've had some vitamin B suppliments. It also smells like soap and has a very slippery feel to it that leaves your skin rather soft.

I also have been wanting to make some fine Al powder so I thought I might try via chemical reduction. So into a small bucket goes some Al scrap with some HCl. The idea was to drop the Al out of the AlCl solution with the KOH/KCOH from the ashes. I think I probably should have run the lye through some electrolysis first to get rid of the carbon as as soon as I added the two together, a yellow spongy mass and lots of gas formed but no Al powder. Might need more and in stronger solutions. Well, at least I know I can make a ton of gas on demand with scrap I got kicking around.

Now to make my own HCl!

[resident_genius]

Jehu

good on you for tinkering with a similar process, a lot of folks just try to recreate things cookie-cutter style- and zero innovation will ever become of that.

anywho, go to your local auto parts supply houses.... should be able to get as much H2SO4 as you can handle.

[Jehu]

I'm in Australia mate. You can only get H2SO4 when you buy a battery, not seperatly anymore. Too many meth labs. I get my current supply from dead car batteries.

Yeah, no one is really trying anything different. We need more activity on this forum. Also I don't really care about a controlled release. I'd release it as needed. That's kinda why I've left electrolysis alone for the time being. You can get it faster via a chemical reaction and the products can be made into other things as well. Try to keep everything going in a circle.

[resident_genius]

sigh. methanphetamines....

i knew you were in AUS, i just figured u'd be able to get ahold of it.

really though, i thought meth was synthesized when the crushed pills were boiled in that lighter-fluid style stuff, then filtered out and left to dry and baked into a hard "cookie" on stovetop? blah. who really cares, right?

anywho, maybe you could make friends with a guy at a local auto repair center and he can get you some?

if folks wanna smoke meth, i say let em. that way, since natural selection is all but gone, it'll weed those losers out in short order instead of putting them in jails and then the honest folks pay for their cable tv and brand new working equiptment

[Jehu]

[resident_genius]

[resident_genius]

i replicated the first and recharging parts of Alaskastar's Chemical Reduction Hydrogen Generation... even hitting the cell with 1.0-2.0 DCV @ 20-25 amps wasnt causing anything but an electrolysis style method of generating gas. when the power was switched off, no more hydrogen was produced. frustrating. i even charged it for over an hour @ 20+ amps. nothing.

i made a video of it, its quite long...about 12 minutes.

i beleive the galvanized steel electrodes were making good enough contact to conduct electricity to replate.... but the water isnt clear at the moment from the reaction. and if i let it sit too long, it will completely dissolve. :-\

wondering what i did wrong.

[resident_genius]

im about to locate some NH3 in aquaeous solution to add to this to show a completed reaction.

anyone know where to find a strong ammonia solution in water? (in the US)

[AlaskaStar]

The reaction is a typical 'bell curve' in which at the height of the bell curve is where before it starts to break over, the electroplating is to occur. Then the power removed and the reaction starts. It's the only way to maintain the 'sweet spot' by plating/ de-plating cycles. Locating this spot is a near impossible task and while it can and has been done, I unfortunately do not have any of the data from the tests or the voltages, cyclic freqs and duty cycle time windows. All that information was destroyed on the same day the VP of the company went crazy (cheese slid off the cracker!) and I got to dodge a few bullets, and even stare down the barrel of his gun. I cannot be of much assistance in this arena, other than I theorized it, and the hired technicians were set to the task of finding that spot, and setting up the automatic sequencers to control the current input and cycle times according the the electronic S.G. Meter data output.

All I can tell you about the sweet spot is that it can be done, it has been done and will produce hydrogen like a never ending fountain. Yes there is electric input for this to occur, but you need to refer back to the Electrochemical tables of the grams per ampere and ampere per gram charts for the electroplating and dissociation rates.

Sorry.

AlaskaStar

[resident_genius]

so for the average person, building this in their garage or etc- its best to complete the reaction using NH3

[Jehu]

Humm, just a thought but what happens if you electrolyse the leftover ammonium sulfate using an inert electrode? Ammonia gas production and sulfuric acid?