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None of this power generating system is new technology.

The manner in which it is put together,


however, is a new use of these old tricks. Electrolysis of water has been around for a lot of years. It
has had a bad name because a lot of get rich quick types came up with the notion of running a car on
water, and ballyhooed that through the course of two depressions and a world war. Electrolysis of
water by itself will not get us enough fuel, but it can be used to clean up other fuels so as to give us a
clean burn that does not gunk up the burners. The wood gas generator is old technology, going back to
the 1930s, and the little flash boiler that is the heart of the business and the liquid piston generator that
makes the electricity are both products of the 1960s.

Shigeta's snail-shell electrolysis plates are a very good way to use a round container efficiently. The
snail-shell electrolysis plates will have to be separated in some fashion, and optimum spacing will be
1mm to 1.5mm, so an edge spacer of plastic would serve to keep these apart and correctly spaced, and
could be a simple slip-on device so long as pressure from the electrolyte is not enough to dislodge it. A
notched rod, located in a hole on the plate and pinned might serve better. A simple pump working
from the bottom and pumping electrolyte through the plates should handle the bubble problems. The
magnets might be best employed from insulating plates between the pump and the magnets. Again, I
am looking at a 55 gallon plastic food drum to hold the electrolysis unit, and the plate area is going to
pull considerable amperage which, even at two volts, will run up to a considerable wattage.

In comparison to most of the processes that are available, the electrolysis of water is a low-pressure,
low-temperature operation that will not need to handle extremes of those variables. It would be useful
to pull off the hydrogen and oxygen as separate gasses, though that would not be needed for fuel
purposes. Immediate use as a fuel extender uses the mixed gasses, and avoids most of the issues, like
storage, that would cause heartaches by using hydrogen as a stored fuel.

It would be nice to be able to balance the gas generation with demand from the boiler so as not to have
to store the combined gasses. Their explosive nature makes such storage hazardous, and might well
provoke the neighbors to express disapproval if storage of mixed gasses is undertaken. A bubbler or
other flame brake in the line will be needed to keep any backfire from coming back from the boiler and
getting into the electrolysis chambers. The hydrogen and oxygen are, however, an enrichment to the
gas from the wood gas generator that is a further part of the system. Wood gas generators are
notorious for giving a dirty gas that smuts up the systems that use it, usually due to too much carbon in
the fuel system, and the oxygen and hydrogen are an additive to enrich the burning and avoid the
heavy tar deposits that are usual when straight wood gas is used. “If it's so dirty, why not just use more
electrolysis?” Valid question. We can't run the thing on straight hydrogen unless we input power to the
system from outside. It takes more energy to break down the water than we can get back out of it by
burning it. The wood gas gives us a fuel base, the hydrogen enriches it so it burns clean, and we are,
essentially, using wood to make electricity, and using the hydrogen from the electrolysis to get a clean
burn.
(From Electrolysis Math, the fuel extender project.)

4x6 plate = 24 square inches, a 12 amp plate


3x5 plate = 15 square inches, a 7.5 amp plate
The Shigeta plates, at 18x96, will give 1728 square inches, a 864 amp plate. A bank of six of these
assemblies will draw 5, 184 amps at 2.2 volts, and should produce enough mixed fuel gas for any
reasonable demand.
Simple additive series of 12 amps, 6 times is 72 amps draw. At 2.2 volts, 12 amps, you should
get a liter of gas per set of plates every x minutes, so the six sets of plates will give you 6 liters of gas
in the same period. Note that this is mixed gas (H2 and 2 O2) and, thus, explosive if a spark gets to it.
You will most emphatically want to cut the power to the electrolysis cell when you cut the power to the
engine. These gasses are explosive, and prone to leak and you do not want to continue generating them
when you shut down your vehicle.

In accordance with Faraday’s law, energy consumption for production of one cubic meter of hydrogen
is nearly 4 kWh with this type of electrolysis. (4 thousand watts for a cubic meter translates to 1000
liters, or a bit over 9 cubic feet (a cubic yard), and another half a cubic yard of oxygen. Now that is an
hour's production. Increasing the wattage increases the production. Total volume of water broken
down to achieve that cubic meter of the two gasses will equal one liter.

This means that it is possible to produce 111.11 / 0.09 = 1234.44 litres of hydrogen and 888.89 / 1.47 =
604.69 litres of oxygen from one litre of water. It appears from this, that one gram of water contains
1.23 litres of hydrogen. Energy consumption for the production of 1000 litres of hydrogen is 4 kWh
and for one litre 4 Wh. As it is possible to produce 1.234 litres of hydrogen from one gram of water,
then, 1.234 x 4 = 4.94 Wh is spent in producing hydrogen from one gram of water using current
methods of electrolysis.

(If nothing else, the use of electrolysis will cut the volume of fuel to be carried by considerable
amounts, because the amount of water needed to break into fuel gas is a liter per 1839 liters of pre-
mixed oxygen/hydrogen fuel gas. That breaks back to almost two liters of mixed fuel gas per gram of
water. For use of surplus generating capacity from the alternator, and otherwise fallow capacity of the
battery, this is a pretty good payback, and some of the folks out there are doubling their mileage, which
is another way of saying that they are going twice as far on the same amount of fossil fuel, and, more
to the point, cutting the carbon footprint of their travels in half.

The picture below shows the 1980s FEMA wood gas generator. It is a typical 'quick and dirty' design
from that period, and is about what the backwoods shop would have generated in those times. It
works, though at a cost of considerable fussing, and it is designed to be mounted on a mobile platform
where the vibration will act to assist feeding of the fuel, and shaking down the ashes. As a batch
generator of wood gas to allow us to power up a battery bank, it will do. Again, there are tweaks and
modifications that will give considerable improvement in efficiency, but for proof of concept, a simple
downdraft gas generator like this one will do what is required.
We can run the system on nothing but hydrogen if we have extra energy to put into the system. By
using wind generators or photovoltaic cells we can generate enough electricity to break down the extra
water that would be needed to generate power, but we can use that energy with less losses if we charge
our batteries directly with it and eliminate the losses involved with first breaking it out and then
burning it.
The flash steam boiler as used with Barrett's Volkswagen steam conversion back in the 1960s /70s, is
an elegant iteration of the subject, and was designed to use a limited amount of fuel via a burner cup
arrangement. There's no reason that this cannot be housed in a 55 gallon steel drum for stationary use,
and since the boiler itself is going to be pancake rings of stainless steel tubing, the jacket will not have
to hold any appreciable amount of pressure.
“Here is a brief description of the steam generator. Air is delivered from a blower through an air
jacket to the top of the combustion chamber. The air jacket provides cooling for the inner skin of
the combustion chamber and preheats the air as it flows to the combustion chamber. The fuel is
dribbled onto a spinning cup which vaporizes the fuel into a very fine spray. Only 12 watts of
electric power is required to vaporize the fuel with the spinning cup. This is far less than would
be required to vaporize the fuel with a pressure pump or compressed air. “ Barrett.

(The heat flow in this engine is backwards. Having the combustion chamber below the steam
coil makes a lot more sense in terms of the way hot air rises. The spinner cup was built that
way for a reason, and the air flow from the blower forces the flame down, but there is good
reason to look at doing it in line with the physics, rather than the way Barrett did it. For use
with gas fuels, the combustion chamber at the bottom makes more sense, and the blower can
work up as well as down if it is needful to shift to liquid fuels.
“The coil stack in the Barrett steam car uses finned tubing. The finned tubing has 8 to 10
times the heat transfer surface of bare tubing. The coil stack with finned tubing is
considerably smaller than a bare tube coil stack. The coil stack contains stainless tubing in
which all joints are welded. As such the coil stack can withstand a considerable amount of
abuse without damage. If the burner is turned on with a dry boiler, the over heat control will
turn off the burner and no damage will occur to the coil stack.” Barrett.
(Source for finned tubing? That stuff could be handy. The drawing shows eight layers of coils,
with five coils per layer. No clue how the layers are joined, but winding as a spiral would be
the way to the longest runs without a joint, and the joints are going to be the headache point.
Winding the first layer from outside to inside, then inside to outside, O, I, O, I, O, I, O, I, O, I
it would make more sense to go nine layers and exit at the same place on the perimeter where
you entered.
I'd like to know how big the original steam generator containment was. Also the dimensions
of the tubing used for the coils. The use of stainless steel would have considerable advantage
for this kind of application, though it does not transfer heat as well as conventional steels.)
“The steam generator in the Barrett steam car is now functioning with excellent temperature
control, so I have no reservations in recommending its duplication. Although for a long time
the temperature control was unsatisfactory due to the location of the normalizer injection
point, this problem has since been solved, and this article will explain what principles were
used to solve it.
Perhaps the surest way to build a successful steam generator would be to build an exact
duplicate of the one I have in my car. However, I realize many might like to design their own
hardware, so I will try to describe general design principles in order that builders can make
modifications to the design and still have a good operating unit, The assembly drawing shows
the general arrangement of the steam generator.
The generator described in this article is based on the Doble configuration and has these
features:
1. Counterflow of flue gas and water.
2. Combustion chamber above the coil stack.
3. Coil stack made from tubing wound into pancake coils.
4. Blower used to feed air to the combustion chamber. “ Barrett.

With a clean burning fuel, the steam generation should be enough to power a generating system for
battery charging, and let the power system be simply maintained with an insignificant toxin signature,
and a very low carbon footprint. For use with hydrogen and wood gas fuel, this system can be inverted
to allow the burn to come from underneath the coils, since the spinner cup will not be needed for a
gaseous fuel of that nature. The blower inlet will be used low, as the wood gas will require additional
air for complete combustion. This system will handle the wood gas with fewer problems than an
internal combustion system would have.

The Roesel liquid piston generator that was used in noise-sensitive places during the Viet Nam business
is quiet (that was its salient point) and simple to operate. As to its valving back and forth through the
pelton wheel that drove the generator, it was a simple switching valve that let input be shunted from
one container of liquid to another one, and output be directed in the same fashion. So, basically the
input uses a two-position valve, and the output uses another, with switching done so as to swap inlet
and output at the same time. A solenoid switch to a valve is going to be needed for this system to
work. If these are available as 12 volt components, it would make construction a lot simpler. (Let's
see now. One for steam input, one for steam exhaust. One for piston liquid to the motor, one for
liquid piston from the motor. Four valves. Magnet sensor for fluid level on each liquid piston tank,
with a logic reader so that the burner system shuts down if both sensors read empty at the same time....
Pump manifold to allow oil flow across the hydraulic motor in one direction oriented correctly to the
vanes (high pass), and then across in the other direction, still in accordance with the vanes (low pass)
so that the motor generates power with each stroke of the liquid piston. This constant torque system
gives much better power use than does an internal combustion engine, which only 'keeps the pressure
on” for one stroke of the piston in four. The liquid piston is driving at all positions in its cycle, and
keeping the hydraulic motor spinning. It's one of the decision points for using the Roesel system rather
than one of the reciprocating mechanical-piston motors.)

The Roesel generator used a burner at each end, switching the flame to the full end as the liquid piston
hit bottom and using a coolant ring to cool down the empty end. For my purposes, I would like to use
steam, because a small steam boiler has the capability to handle input to the liquid piston containers
faster than the flame expansion method would, and can handle switching of the steam in exact opposite
fashion to the switching of the liquid piston. A steam boiler has other valuable uses for a tinkerer in
addition to generating power, and it is simple to switch the pressures, as noted earlier. Using steam and
venting it to a radiator for re-use of the distilled water also avoids the one bugaboo of the old Roesel
generators. They tended to lose pressure after a period of field use, and then they had to be pumped
back to specification, which could be a bit of a problem when you are on a hilltop someplace where
you should not be, and silence is a basic element of survival.

(Now I need to begin scrounging pressure vessels for the liquid piston/steam interfaces. Old oil patch
stuff, or pumping vessels for the pipelines would serve admirably, but old propane tanks will probably
be less expensive. I'd like about a hundred gallons' capacity, each side, and 10 or 15 atmospheres safe
pressure for driving the piston(s). It's funny, a liquid piston is an odd kind of a concept, but it makes a
lot of sense when you look at fabrication. A standard hydraulic motor would work pretty well for
driving the generator, though these are not high-rpm devices. The generator on hand is a 540 RPM
artifact, though, so it would work well with a hydraulic motor.
Now let's bust the power generation business into bite-sized pieces.

First is electrolysis. This will provide part of the fuel to run the boiler. If simple electrolysis is used,
the business will be a matter of plate size. So long as we do not strive to store the gasses, the problems
associated with hydrogen are manageable. Since we are using a battery bank as an end storage and
distribution method, seed energy to start the electrolysis to fire the boiler is available. Electrolysis can
be undertaken in 55 gallon plastic drums with a drop-in electrolysis plate element. Preferred ion
provider will be lye in low concentrations. Lye we can make from wood ash out of the wood gas
producer.
Components needed will be:

55 gallon drum. I like plastic for this one, because we are using electricity inside it, and the plastic
drum and lid are insulators. Granted, we are not using much electricity, but we won't be grounding our
power leads out on the drum itself if the plates shift.
Agitator fan to keep bubbles washed off the plates.
Electrolysis plates. These can be fashioned from stainless steel screen wire. A distance of 1.5mm
to 2mm between plates will have to be maintained, and there are some good ways to do this with
current plastics technology. Nested spiral plates can be used to electrolyze the water and efficiently use
the space inside the drum. So long as half the plates are negative and half are positive, the thing will
give off gas. There are some tweaks we can do to the power supply to improve the yield, but for right
now, this will do.
Leads to the electrolysis battery. I favor using a battery that is not part of the dedicated power bank
for this chore, since it is much easier to move one battery than unhitch it from nine others. Also, a
battery for electrolysis will work at lower voltage. Water breakdown occurs at 1.2 volts. Kicking the
pressure up to 12 volts does not improve the yield of gas. A single cell of a twelve volt battery
produces 2.2 volts, and there are six of these per twelve volt battery. (Duh. Tap each cell and feed the
plates 2.2 volts from that. Separate connections to the individual cells isn't that tough to do.)
Gas bubbler for the burner line. We do not want flashback from the burner getting into the
electrolysis unit while it is making gas.
Gas line to the burn chamber.

Second is the wood gas producer. This can be a fairly simple item, built from the standard 55 gallon
steel drum and components to allow the burn to proceed with production of gas. This technology
dates back to the 1930s, and can be tailored to produce burnable gas from a variety of fuel stocks. As
noted elsewhere, the gas it produces tends to run long on carbon, so a clean burn demands addition of
more hydrogen, which the electrolysis provides. The gasses are mixed in a simple box manifold at the
boiler, and the blower that feeds them to the burn chamber acts as the mixer.
Components needed will be:
Feed hopper
Fire tube
Collection chamber
Gas filter to remove particulates and tar.
Gas line to the burn chamber

Third is the boiler. This will make steam to run the generator. Steam will be taken off at a pressure of
no more than 250 pounds per square inch. Again, the 55 gallon steel drum is the form factor of the
boiler and burner assemblies. If we need more steam volume, we will add more boiler assemblies. We
will use distilled water in this part of the operation so as to avoid scaling and all the other ills a boiler
is heir to when one uses creek water. We can, of course, distill this ourselves at need.
Components needed will be:
Flash boiler coils. These will need to be stainless steel, and they will need to be welded at the joints.
Burn chamber with gas mixer and blower. A fire brick liner, or boiler cement will serve here.
Boiler jacket (our old friend, the 55 gallon steel drum).
Stack.
Fourth is the liquid piston motor. The steam will be used to press the liquid, probably used motor oil,
from one container to another, spinning a hydraulic motor as it goes. The hydraulic motor will be used
to drive a generator, and will probably be an off-the-shelf item. The generator will be an off-the-shelf
item designed to put out 10 KW. Part of this output will be used to power a battery charger to keep a
bank of ten truck batteries charged for use in lighting and computer power.
Components needed will be:
2 100gallon pressure vessels, good to 500 PSI.
110 gallons of used motor oil.
Hydraulic motor
Pumping manifold for the hydraulic motor to allow passage from one pressure vessel to the other
across the motor vanes (high pass) and back (low pass).
Solenoid valving to switch flow from one pressure vessel to the other, through the hydraulic motor
Solenoid switching to switch flow from one pressure vessel to the other for the steam feed
Solenoid switching to open pressure relief to the empty pressure vessel.
Generator
Battery charger is an off the shelf item, as are the batteries. A standard deep cycle truck battery will be
used. A bank of ten of these batteries will cost about $1350. Framing should be designed to handle the
weight. Lead acid batteries are heavy. You will not want to keep these indoors, but you will want to
protect them from the weather.
Components needed will be:

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