DIY hydrogen generation station website?

[Andy Chee]

Does anyone have a link to a decent site that has plans for a homemade hydrogen generating station?

All I seem to get on Google are those kooky sites that have hydrogen generators running off a cars alternator and "boosting fuel octane" and "increasing fuel efficiency", etc. While their generators might also work standalone, their credibility to me is pretty low.

[trash]

Just add water !

I assume you want to make hydrogen from water rather than a chemical reaction like Hydrochloric Acid and Zinc.

Ideally you want platinum electrodes and an insulated sealed container.
In the real world you probably want have access to much.

Start with a glass of water, two paper clips and a battery. A 12V car battery or a gel cell or some other low voltage power source. Even a couple of D cells will work for a quick demonstration.

Place a paper clip on each side of a glass, add some water so the paper clips are partially submerged and connect up the battery. You should get bubbles appearing from both paper clips, but twice as much hydrogen on one electrode as oxygen on the other.

To speed up the reaction the water needs to be made a little more conductive. This can be done with a number of electrolytes, dilute sulphuric acid is one of the best, but a pinch of sodium bicarbonate, a drop of lemon juice, vinegar, or even a pinch salt will help speed things up.

Electrolysis is just a fuel cell running in reverse and fuel cells are just another type of battery. Power storage is all about current.
If you treat the cell as a fixed voltage device of lets say 3Volts, you want as much current to flow through the cell (@3V) in order to generate the most hydrogen.

[Godzilla]

Some information here with a few clips of it being produced via car battery power.

Use stainless steel for your plates, play with polarity and plate combinations.

Dont use salt as a electrolite...you will be producing chlorine gas, the same stuff Hitler used on the Jews.

Use draino, a little at a time, much safer.

The stuff on the web is a good general starter guide, you will need to start from that and take it from there, all you do is disregard the running it back to the car part.

As per my videos, plenty of hydrogen production.

Good luck with it.

Oh, one other thing, if your planning to burn it, its very explosive, use a bubbler to seperate the flame from the source.
Plans for this are all over the web, if your unsure post here and ill draw a quick drawing, very important that you stop any flame back of you will lose you hearing (at least).

[trash]

Dont use salt as a electrolite...you will be producing chlorine gas, the same stuff Hitler used on the Jews.

Not that I've been experimenting on jews myself. You're a little mistaken.

Chlorine was and is used as a chemical weapon. It's a nasty toxic gas but generally I haven't seen many people produce it accidently in dangerous amounts.

The nazis for the record tried using Carbon Monoxide but decided it was a little too slow. Hydrogen Cyanide was the gas that did the majority of their dirty work.

It's simple enough not to use salt.