[Corvettaholic]

Here's some interesting stuff I ran into:

http://www.blazelabs.com/n-aquagen.asp
http://jlnlabs.online.fr/bingofuel/html/bfr10.htm

For those who don't feel like looking at the link, the basic gist of it is have 2 carbon rods, pass low voltage high amperage current between the electrodes to create a plasma. This whole contraption is immersed in water. What is supposed to happen is the heat/whatever of the plasma breaks apart the water. I guess parts of the anode flake off too. Something like H₂O + C₂ --> CO + CO₂ + H₂. I know I didn't balance it. But somehow you end up with COH₂, and apparently you can burn that in an engine. Possible or a bunch of hooha?

[miaskows]

It seems as posssible thing. What they actually do is producing of good old "Synthesis gas" - mixture of CO and H2.
Same mix could be produced by exposing of strongly heated carbon to water vapour as follows:
C + H2O= CO + H2
It is ok up to this point.
The only question i was not able to find answer for was the quality of the carbon rods and, consequently, their cost.
Say, you want to produce such quantity of CO/H2 mix that would be equivalent by it's energy to 1 liter of gasoline.
You would need to burn relatively big amount of grafite in  this plasma generator. Crude , cheap carbon (coal or grafite) is contents a lot of impurities. Besides you must keep some distanse between electrodes to get  the whole invention properly  operated. Consequently  it have  to be pure carbon RODS and not ,say lumps of cheap freshly mined coal.
They have presented nice tables showed that no corrosive gases (like NO, NO2,SO2) could be formed during operation of the device, but still all their data is based on using of pure carbon.

[Corvettaholic]

You can pickup mostly pure carbon rods from a welding shop, and at low cost too. Figure you use a stepper motor to start the rods right next to each other to initiate the arc, and then slowly pull the rods apart to extend the arc. Maybe have more than 1 pair of rods in there for more production, or would that cause a short?

I'm guessing you could use this stuff in a standard gasoline engine, but you will need to reprogram the ECM. Instead of a 11:1 fuel/air ratio, it'll probably need to be something like 5:1. That, and you'll need beefier fuel injectors.

[miaskows]

The carbon rods you was talking about are purposed for welding. They do relatively cheap if somebody going to use them for arc welding and not to "burn" them as crude coal instead of gasoline.
The crude cotton is extremely cheap if you intend to make a fabric from it, but it is much more expensive if you want to burn it  in a power station instead of an oil.
There is somthing else about the invention:
the mix of CO and H2 is extremely poison (because of CO presents) I only hope noone here (moderator) would concern that topic as dangerous and would lock it forever.
It is also explosive (mostly because of H2) when mixed with air.
It must be transported  in heavy stainless cylinders under high pressure (the permission must be obtained from officials  to do that, besides no insurance company would want to deal with somebody that drive in a car adjusted with cylinders filled with highly poison and explosive gaseous mixture). It is no hope as well to carry the mix in the liquid state (as propan-butan fuel) due to very low boiling points of the both gases:
b.p. of H2 is -252 oC
b.p. of CO is -191 oC
I think that creators of the device just attempt to sell the patent for continue of development  in some huge outfit (like GM) and not to persuade bright individuals to try it in their houses.

[Corvettaholic]

Can you seperate the H2 and CO when calculating boiling point? Since they're both combined, wouldn't the boiling point be something funny or unexpected? Well if it is poisonous and explosive, thats really no different that gasoline. Gasoline is transported in liquid form, and it blows up quite easily and is also a bad idea to drink it. But transporting gasoline in gaseous form would be a terrible idea, I do understand that. So instead of looking at the boiling point of H2 and CO seperately, if we put them together (COH₂) then how do I figure out the boiling point then? According to the links, that is the compound formed, but its not too clear if its a liquid or a gas after its been collected...

[miaskows]

The poisoness of CO is much higher than every component of gasoline ( mixture of hydrocarbons CnH2n+2). Even tiny leakage of CO would cause serious poisoning. That compound  has good affinity for hemoglobin and can prevent from our blood to carry oxygen. It's poison by breathing ,not drinking. (by the way if somebody should attempt to drink liquid CO at -190 oC, he should die immediately not because of it poisoness but due to terrible cold wounds)

Liquid mixture of CO and H2 would behave pretty same to the liquid air (both are mixtures of two low boiling gases-it should begin to  boil around  -250oC when pure H2 vaporisated and should end up at
-190 oC with distillation of CO.)
There are a lot of methods for separation of H2 from CO:
For example :
CaC2 +3CO =CaCO3 +4C
Ca(OH)2+CO=CaCO3+H2
The mentioned above  methods used to remove CO from it's CO/H2 mix in industrial conditions.
 I think they have meant CO/H2 mix and not COH2 (formaldehyde H-C(O)H)

[Corvettaholic]

But I don't want to seperate the CO and H₂. But I see your point in it behaving like regular air, meaning it'll be freakishly hard to make it into a liquid. Wonder how much pressure it would take to force it to be a liquid? Probably more than I can make at home. I always remember reading stories about people who die from carbon monoxide poisoning. How much does it take to kill you anyway?

About COH₂... are there different ways to arrange the atoms so it acts like something else? So formaldehyde, is that HCOH, or COH₂? Formaldehyde is a liquid, right? If it is possible to rearrange the atoms, how does the name change and its behavior?

[miaskows]

You have to pressure the mix up to 200 -300 atm. to insert it into relatively small cylinder.
From calculations depended on Ideal Gases Low follows, that if you going to carry ,say, 30 kg. of the CO/H2 mixture in your car
(28 kg of CO and 2kg of H2-molar rate has been kept 1/1), under atm pressure you will need huge cylinder with volume of 44800 Lit. (!)
Compressed gases would be inserted into smaller cylinders, for example:
10 atm pressure        4480 Lit
100 atm                    448 Lit
300 atm                    147 Lit
(such iron ,high pressure cylinder, with capacity of 150 Lit would weigh at least 100 kg)

By the way for obtaining of 28 kg of CO you have to converse in that electrical arc apparatus somthing like 12.1 kg of carbon rods.

[xiankai]

to put it basically CO is a carcinogenic and can cause cancer even in very low concentrations(~1%) with prolonged exposure. and that is when the CO is quite far from you (consider in the past when ppl had to walk alongside with car exhausts with CO)

isnt it rather than they die from cold, instead their heart activities freezes? i was wondering about cryopreservation, and wondering if the person really dies outright from the cold.

formaldehyde is an organic compound, and has a VERY different bonding from COH2. it is a gas btw, although its boiling point is quite low, being -21 degrees celsius.

[miaskows]

They have mentioned in the description of the invention that COH2 is CO/H2 gaseous mixture  and not somthing else.
CO is not carcinogen , it's poison due to high ability for  blockage of hemoglobine  (that responsible for transportation of O2 to our cells)
Following concentration of CO in the air are  dangerous (versa residense time)
If you are exposed to 0.2 gr.  of CO per 1 m^3 of air you are permitted to inhale it  no more then 15 min.
Or 0.05 gr. only  of CO per one hour of inhalation.
Higher concentration of CO (or more prolongated exposing to it) would cause serious damage for your health (nervous's system etc.)

You has asked about maximal possible number of carbon rods that could be used in home condition for producing of the gaseous mixture. It is depended on a maximal possible curient of electricity avialable in your home. Say, if you can get as much as 60 Amper (with 110 V ) , then it would powered by ~6000W ( with all other electr. users shutted down). Say ,it would be corresponds to 4 rods (and no more) .
I would not advice you to try the invention in your home-too dangerous and almost useless task.

[Grumples]

Incidentally, how is this reaction any different from the *electrolysis* of water? When you put two carbon rods into a cup of water and run a current through them, you get the same reaction you gave earlier (C + H2O --> CO + H2).  It seems to me that the only thing you're changing is the quantity of electricity running through the system.  To avoid the afore-mentioned danger concerning the carbon monoxide, just switch the graphite electrodes to something else.

And on another note, you can get four free carbon rods of decent purity from the typical lantern battery.  Inside the plastic case are four metal cylinders, each with a graphite rod sticking out.  Cut out the plastic around the graphite (it's a little time consuming, but you have to do it), then pull it out of the MnO2 (I think that's what it is) with a pair of plyers. You even get a nice lead wire already attached to it!

[miaskows]

You are right. By electrolisis of pure water the same products would be obtained (with, probably some extra amount of O2), but whole mechanism of the process is different. The electrical arc  produced plasma and actually carbon electrodes are oxidized by it. Even previously heated air and inert gases (isolators at room temperatures) can give plasma of very hight conductivity.
The beauty of the invention is that it makes it possible to produce huge amounts of CO/H2 , using pure water of relatively low conductivity (no need in addition of OH- or SO42- etc)

[Corvettaholic]

Well why bother with the CO at all? I mean, if you used a different metal for the rod, you might not have to worry about stripping off pieces of the electrode and forming unwanted compounds. This wouldn't be a bad way to generate hydrogen quickly! I understood pyrolysis versus electrolysis as using heat to break apart stuff instead of electricity. In this case they're very related, but would this be considered pyrolysis or just fancy electrolysis? What about using platinum rods? Maybe get hydrogen and platinum oxide?

[constant thinker]

That sounds like a cool reaction. The dangers seam to great. Also what was stated was that it has to be under high pressure. Don't the lighter hydrocarbons have a tendency to vaporize? I believe so. That is cool though.


Note: What happened to your atomic battery Corvettaholic.

[miaskows]

By design the invention they have succeded in obtaining of  reducers as only product of the process.
What i mean is that both CO and H2 are reducers and could be subjected to burning in O2. In most of electrolysis's both oxidizers and reducers are obtained. The simplest case is electrolyses of H2O with using of inert electrodes where O2 and H2 are the products. If you want to get rid of O2 instead of collecting of it ,you have to add somthing to your electrolite that would be easily oxidized by O2 , for example -sodium sulfit (in such case you must use a membrane between two electrolitic cells), or to burn your electrodes (it must be cheap! -carbon or crude iron ) as it is in the invention. By my opinion ,using of extra reducing reagent would make H2 too expensive .
They do add reducers in to electrolitic sell if the product of the oxidation is usefull for something.