OK... Lets Burn Some Water

[Vickers]

I############################

[Cloxxki]

Sounds better for the millions that so far held off from building anything to do with HHO, or anything at all, like me :-)

Do you think the HHO or like gas was due to the airtight lock actually pressure-neutrally dissolved in the water-electrolyte?

How much of it burns and how much is the aluminum ball reduced in weight?

[Farrah Day]

Interesting.

Hydrogen is the gas produced as the outer layer of the aluminium ball reacts with the Sodium Hydroxide to form a thick..ish layer of aluminium oxide.

Once the coating is thick enough, the reaction would slow greatly until eventually ceasing altogether. The interesting part is why the H2 is not sitting on top of the liquid under pressure of the sealed container? And, if the liquid actually burns afterwards, why has the hydrogen dissolved into the fluid?

Credit due, you have to be relatively brave to even consider this experiment in the first place - images of glass splinters flying at great speed and/or caustic liquid errupting in your face is not at all pleasant.

Does the liquid eventually stop burning as all the dissolved hydrogen eventually rises to the surface, or is it suspended in the liquid indefinitely somehow?

Farrah

[Michael John Nunnerley]

Dangerous

very dangerous, if you do not know what you are doing.YouTube - Reaction of NaOH and Al + H2O, or how to make hydrogen gas

Mike

[jeanna]

hmm
Hi vickers,

Let me see if I am following your meaning.
Are you using this modified water as a liquid fuel?
Like, for instance, do you pour it into an alcohol stove and light it with a match?
Will it burn out?

If not, will it burn out if you add a wick of some kind?

Thanks,

jeanna

edit
And... first boil the water to remove the extra O2 or some process like that?

[jeanna]

Hi Jeanna. I'm using water to store Hydrogen gas. Like a hydride. ...
In fact heating the water/hydride will release all the stored gasses. The same way you mentioned about removing the O2.

Sorry vickers, once again?
releases all the gases means to me that the liquid is burning out and will not be there any more because all the gases are the H and the O .
But there is some Alum left on the bottom, or something like that?

This works with a HHO cell as well. Although it is more effective if the O2 is separated via a porous membrane.

I understand the brilliance of HHO is that when it is not separated there is less danger and it takes care of the proportions itself so less fiddling is needed??

Basically it is possible to run a solar/wind powered cell all day and contain the resulting gas in the water it initially came from.

um
What is running?
the solar powered cell is running from the sun.
So what is running on this heated gas?

I suppose I could try this.
I have a big wad of aluminum foil that smells like chocolate... which I can add to the jar of sodium hydroxide water
A wick? does it work best with a wick in an alcohol stove?

thanks ,

jeanna

[Farrah Day]

Does the liquid eventually stop burning as all the dissolved hydrogen eventually rises to the surface, or is it suspended in the liquid indefinitely somehow?

Farrah

So the answer to this is that the water is simply a storage unit, and as such will remain when all the dissolved hydrogen has risen out of the liquid and burned off.

Interesting nevertheless, as I would have expected at least some H2 to accumulate above the water and so create a noticeable release of pressure when the lid is popped.

Certainly worth further investigation, as it may be that the H2 rich water can be injected directly into a combustion chamber... certainly opens up a few more possibilities!

Farrah

[Matthew Jones]

Same thing happens during anodizing of aluminum. The hydrogen can be burnt off on a regular interval. IT a pure hydrogen burn though, it doesn't get much hotter than 100 deg. Real orange transparent flame.
I guess the oxygen is evacuate or is held bonded in the liquid. Maybe to the aluminum?? I am not sure.

Matt

[Farrah Day]

It's only hydrogen gas that evolves from the reaction - no oxygen.

Aluminium is very reactive and in fact produces hydrogen and aluminium oxide in water. But of course once the oxide layer has formed, as it does very quickly even in air, this provides a protective coating against further reaction/corrosion.

I've just looked into the reaction of aluminium and alkalines and it seems that in water this happens:

Adding an alkaline such as sodium hydroxide will react with this protective layer of aluminium oxide, effectively removing it, so the water can then react with the aluminium to once again form aluminium oxide and hydrogen. This reaction repeats itself until all the aluminium has being reacted.

The oxygen is trapped in the chemical reaction as part of the resulting sodium aluminate, so the end products are hydrogen and the sodium aluminate and any surplus water.

... at least that's how I understand it to happen.

Farrah

[Jetijs]

Ok, I tried this, but I tried this using plastic cola bottles, the problem is that if the NaOH concentration is too high and the aluminum surface area is also great, lots of heat is produced from the reaction, the water basically starts to boil and this makes the plastic softer till it breaks with a small pop because of the pressure. So if plastic bottles are used, you need longer times with smaller surface area of aluminum or smaller NaOH concentration so that the reaction is slower and does not produce lots of heat. The last attempt did swell the bottle up greatly, but it hasn't broke yet, I will have a look at the bottle tomorrow and see if the bottle is still intact, if it is, I will try to burn the water.
Thanks,
Jetijs

[noises]

It burns.Just like gasoline.

First, thanks for the very simple instructions, but just to be clear, when you say airtight jars, what kind of jars did you use exactly? Jam (sorry, jelly, ) jars? Like, glass with a tin lid? Screw down resealable jars with a silicon inset in the cap? Plastic? Pyrite? Glass?

TBH I'm interested in the "burns just like gasoline" part of the deal. Have you tried running a small combustion motor on it that normally burns gas, like a small generator for instance? Used an atomiser to see how well the liquid burns in a fuel/air mix? I'm keen to try it out, but I'm a do it once and do it right kind of guy, so if you could replicate it yourself again first, but weigh and measure everything, write down what materials you use, even down to brand names of foil if it will help, so myself and others can replicate your work accurately, I'd really appreciate it.

Actually I was up at some hot springs a couple of hours from here and found what I recognised to be bauxite, aluminum oxide, like little red marbles. I think I'll have to get a sample and crush some up, try some whole ones, see if it'll work with the aluminium raw out of the mother's womb, as it were. First though, I'd just like to replicate what you've done, but trying it with raw bauxite might be fun and more efficient too, if we don't need to process it into sheets first and can use the raw mineral, that would be awesome.

[sprocket]

Very interesting! This reminded me of how John Bedini said in one of the EFTV videos how in the 60-80's they were planning to bring out a car that ran on V-shaped blocks of aluminium - slot one in, drive 300 miles to the next gas station and buy another 'cos the old one would have been consumed. Of course Big Oil wasn't going to let that happen...

Would it be possible to recycle the 'waste products' so the sodium hydroxide could be reused? It was also mentioned that the liquid left over burns like gasoline - is this true? (the question seems to have been stepped around...)

PS - There's a cool piece of music accompanying the video that was posted showing the reaction - YouTube - Reaction of NaOH and Al + H2O, or how to make hydrogen gas - anyone know who it's by?

[jeanna]

alum

I am not a chemist, but from a history of dyeing, I remember that the byproduct of NAOH and metallic AL is alum.
I don't know where the sulphate is coming from, but alum is also called:
Sodium aluminium sulphate, which is a flocculant and used in cleaning sewage water.

I am not sure I would drink it, but it is not supposed to hurt anything. ( )

just 2 more cents.

jeanna

[sigzidfit]

Interesting thread.

Maybe a machine that you could feed soft drink cans that would shred them and spit out an aluminum slurry that you can put in the water for the reaction?

"A slurry is, in general, a thick suspension of solids in a liquid."
Slurry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PJ

[sprocket]

No. Water is not turned to gasoline. It burns like hydrogen. Similar to gasoline but minus the carbon.
I edited the second post avoid future confusion.

The fact that it burns at all intrigues me! Would it be as combustible as gasoline and could it be used as a fuel, in addition to the hydrogen released? This would seem a far 'greener' fuel than the oil-based ones - everything seems consumable with no nasty by-products. And judging by the video, there seems quite a lot of this 'residue' left over after the reaction.