HYDRO FUEL

From http://www.hydrofuelsolutions.com

"The technology of using hydrogen as a combustion enhancement in internal combustion engines has been researched and proven for many years. The benefits are factual and well documented. Our own utilization of this technology. i.e. the hydrogen injection system, has also been tested and proven both by institutions and in hundreds of practical applications in road vehicles.

Here is a synopsis of a sampling of the research that has been done:

* In 1974 John Houseman and D.J/Cerini of the Jet Propulsion Lab, California Institute of Technology produced a report for the Society of Automotive Engineers entitled "On-Board Hydrogen Generator for a Partial Hydrogen Injection Internal Combustion Engine".
* In 1974 F.W. Hoehn and M.W. Dowy of the Jet Propulsion Lab, prepared a report for the 9th Inter society Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, entitled "Feasibility Demonstration of a Road Vehicle Fueled with Hydrogen Enriched Gasoline."

In the early eighties George Vosper P. Eng., ex-professor of Dynamics and Canadian inventor, designed and patented a device to transform internal combustion engines to run on hydrogen. He later affirms: "A small amount of hydrogen added to the air intake of a gasoline engine would enhance the flame velocity and thus permit the engine to operate with leaner air to gasoline mixture than otherwise possible. The result, far less pollution with more power and better mileage." In 1995, Wagner, Jamal and Wyszynski, at the Birmingham, of University Engineering, Mechanical and Manufacturing>, demonstrated the advantages of "Fractional addition of hydrogen to internal combustion engines by exhaust gas fuel reforming." The process yielded benefits in improved combustion stability and reduced nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbon emissions

BUT THEN...
From http://paultan.org

"Using hydrogen as a supplemental “fuel” in a regular petrol combustion engine has even been the subject of an SAE paper (#2002-01-2196 Performance and Fuel Consumption Estimation of a Hydrogen Enriched Gasoline Engine at Part-Load Operation - I bought it for USD14.00). The paper discusses the idea of hydrogen being introduced into the combustion process to enable leaning out the air-fuel mixture - more air and less fuel required. The end result MAY be similiar to the fuel savings achieved by lean burn operation in a direct injection engine. I was shocked to read that the SAE paper found petrol consumption was reduced by up to 56% depending on conditions!

The other issue that may or may not be of concern is hydrogen embrittlement, where metals especially high-strengh steel can become brittle and crack when exposed to hydrogen. Exposing your combustion chamber to hydrogen may cause your cylinder to crack! Check out the wikipedia page I linked for more info about this. This is quite an issue in the hydrogen economy and engines that burn hydrogen (instead of using hydrogen in a fuel cell) such as the motor in BMW’s Hydrogen 7 and Mazda’s hydrogen-powered RENESIS have been specially designed to withstand this."