"Free Energy" scams discussed

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
A Critical Examination of the PDF "D9"

Titled "A Practical Guide to 'Free Energy' Devices"
last update 7/8/08, by Patrick J. Kelly

This so-called "practical guide" was first created on 12 June, 2005. It contains at least seven distinct levels of wrong, misleading, or false infornation. Some may be due to poor proofreading, but the overall misinformation seems more deliberate than coming from simple enthusiasm overriding fact checking.

The PDF proper runs to 47 pages, so the examination will proceed in segments, covering the following areas:

1. Information about hydrogen
2. Information about electrolysis cells
3. Information about materials
4. Misinformation about the circuit
5. Failure conditions
6. Contradictions from other "researchers"

In the process of looking for information, it became obvious just how hard it is to get to some of it. Many sites with academic or professional papers are subscription only and quite expensive. Many more sites mention the particular thing of interest, but only tangentally. Definitive figures are difficult to come by, or require a greater familiarity with the subject to fully appreciate.

In several cases, I simply gave up on the effort and tried to come up with a reasonable figure indirectly. It's 55 miles to a reasonably large university library, so I did my searching on the internet. This is likely to be the source of information for the majority of us. I became increasingly aware of just how hard it is to be certain that any subject is accurately represented on the internet.

It is easy to imagine how misinformation and outright scams can be perpetrated thanks to the ubiquity of the internet. Opinion is set out as fact in many cases. Finding a reliable source of information on a level the individual is comfortable with can be a challenge. "Reliable source of information" should be understood as a disinterested source, meaning that the information does not have a monetary potential or be emotionally significant to the originator.

Some of the sites that are associated with hydrogen power and other alternative energy sources, seem to maintain that there is a world-wide cabal of big oil company interests that actively suppress anything that might tend to break their monopoly on power. That's hard to swallow, as any alternative energy source, especially those that are more efficient or less polluting, would be immediately popular and profitable. The more believable scenario is that "big oil" would license the technology and further increase profits.

The purpose of these articles is to point out where the information presented in the D9 paper is inaccurate or misleading. The title could as well be "Avoid Being Ripped Off"
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
A Critical Examination of the PDF "D9"

Titled "A Practical Guide to 'Free Energy' Devices"
last update 7/8/08, by Patrick J. Kelly

1. Information about Hydrogen

Pages 1, 2 , 9 and 40 of the PDF all contain statements regarding the combustion of hydrogen gas. These statements are the third sentence in the first paragraph following the "What is an Electrolyser" topic, The second to last sentence in point 6 on page 2, the second paragraph on page 9 following the "High-Voltage Series Cells" topic, and the second paragraph on page 40

None of these statements is correct. For instance, if hydrogen burns at a rate 1000 faster than gasoline, then gasoline burns at only 975 cm/second. A flame may only propagate at the rate equal to the speed of sound in the mixture of gasses present - that figure is 975 m/second for hydrogen in air. Gasoline vapor in air will have a lower speed of sound, but hardly 1000 time slower.

If you insist that the hydrogen actually detonates, then the statement is still silly. Detonation velocity for hydrogen in air is on the order of 2000 m/second, so now gasoline combusts at 2 m/second. That does not sound at all likely, either.

A bit of searching on the net will bring up material on detonation of fuel in engine cylinders. It is destructive. Fuel has to burn in order not to destroy the engine. So the figure on page 2 citing the burn rate as "a thousand meters pre second" is reasonably close to the correct 975 m/s.

That still leaves us with the incredible "1000 times faster" than gasoline burn rate of hydrogen. This is the weakest part of my research, as no web search has turned up anything like a definitive burn rate to gasoline.

All is not lost, though. Some years ago, the Japanese made a 16 cylinder engine for racing. The engine had a red line at 16,000 RPM. That is 266.67 revolutions per second. Each revolution, then had a duration of .00375 seconds.

In order to produce maximum power at 16,000 RPM, the engine had a spark advance of 40 degrees. That implies that after those 40 degrees of rotation, the ignited mixture was capable of producing a useful thrust on the piston crown. The amount of time involved with 40 degrees of rotation is .0004167 seconds. If the gasoline only burns at 975 cm/sec, then the mixture has only had time to burn .4 cm from the spark plug by TDC. That simply cannot be. The "1000 times faster" assertion cannot be accurate.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
A Critical Examination of the PDF "D9"

Titled "A Practical Guide to 'Free Energy' Devices"
last update 7/8/08, by Patrick J. Kelly

2. Information about electrolysis cells.

There are more than a couple of pages to go over, so I will simply address them in sequence and point out the disputed statements as they occur.

On page 3, there is a statement that"Potassium Hydroxide acts as a catalyst" at the end of factor 1. This is not true. It is one of dozens of possible electrolytes that can be used in hydrolysis cells. An electrolyte promotes current flow in water, nothing more. A catalyst acts to speed a chemical reaction. In an elcrolysis cell, the reaction is dependant solely on the amount of current.

It is just possible that the statement in section 2, "the closer together the plates are placed, the greater the rate of gas production" is true. That depends on the total resistance in the cell dropping as a result of the closer spacing, so the total current goes up. The same is true of the statement in section 3 about plate area.

The final statement on page 3 about the electrolyte forming a coating on the plates that "helps enhance the electrolysis" is not true. Once again, the current is the control of the rate of electrolysis. This fact is acknowledged on page 4 in the second sentence of factor 4.

However, the last of that paragraph is not true. From www.newmars.com, we find that electrolysis does require a minimum of 1.23 volts, but only for platinum electrodes. This is a minimal energy for separation of the water molequle, and an additional .47 volt is required to prevent recombination back into water. So 1.70 volts is the absolute minimum voltage across a cell for the electrolysis of water. In fact, for stainless steel electrodes, we may infer that a slightly higher voltage wil be needed. The reference also mentions that a higher voltage is usually used to overcome cell resistance, but will have no effect on the rate of electrolysis unless the current increases. Not the plate material, area, or type of electrolyte.

It is interesting to note that sodium sulphate (Na2SO4) and potassium sulfate (K2SO4) are mentioned as the electrolytes used by NASA. This further casts doubt on any special qualities of potassium hydroxide.

Page 8's first sentence repeats the incorrect information about the minimum cell voltage.

The fourth paragraph on page 46 makes the most fanciful claim that Bob Boyce's pulsed electrolysis system "relies mainly on a chemical reaction that takes place between the electrolyte used and the metal plates". Since the SS316 plates are "protected" by a coating of electrolyte and the potassium hydroxide is not changed or consumed - see page 3, "Potassium Hydroxide acts as a catalyst in the process of electrolysis in that it promotes the gas production but does not get used up in the process" - this is not the case. A catalyst has some quality that speeds the chemical reaction. Using any other electrolyte and the same current in the cell will result in the same volume of gas produced in the same amount of time. KOH does not have any special property when used as an electrolyte.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
A Critical Examination of the PDF "D9"

Titled "A Practical Guide to 'Free Energy' Devices"
last update 7/8/08, by Patrick J. Kelly

3. Information about materials.

On page 4, the paragraph following the illustrations states "The best electrode material for the plates is 316L-grade stainless steel." This might be valid if the electrolyte used was salt, or another compound that released chloride ions while in water. SS 316 is mostly valued for its resistance to chloride-caused corrosion. Bob boyce would have had SS316 available, as he worked with boats, where chloride ions are unaviodable in the water. His use of SS316 was due to it's being readily available as a stock item. With an alkaline electrolyte like potassium hydroxide, any stainless steel grade should be adequate.

On page 16, under "Getting and Preparing the Plates", we read that you should use 16 ga SS316 as two of the alloying ingredients "make it a very good catalyst for the pulsing technique." This is clearly impossible. Electrolysis requires a current and a voltage in order to separate the hydrogen and oxygen. If the SS316 acted as a catalyst under one set of conditions, then it should exhibit the same quality under all conditions. Any definition of a catalyst points this out.

Another bit of misinformation about SS316 appears on page 17, in the paragraph above the illustration. It asserts that "electrolysis is not just an electrical process, but it is also a magnetic process." Not only is this absolute nonsense, but the instructions that provide a magnetic orientation to the stainless plates is too. It is simply not possible to magnetize that grade (indeed, most grades) of stainless steel.

On page 17, We see the instructions to maintain the magnetic orientation of the plates when loading them in the plate holder. As we have seen above, this is silly as the plates cannot be magnetized.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
A Critical Examination of the PDF "D9"

Titled "A Practical Guide to 'Free Energy' Devices"
last update 7/8/08, by Patrick J. Kelly

4. Misinformation about the circuit

It is frankly hard to find a place to start with this topic. So much of the information presented is not possible or incorrect that it casts doubt on all of it. This certainly makes it easy to dismiss the device as a fraud.

One of the more over-the-top claims is for the sheer quantity of power need to run the "high-efficiency" (Bob Boyce design) device. We see that an inverter is needed to raise the voltage up to a level where each electrolysis cell will have about 1.5 volts across it (too low for electrolysis, but we've already discussed that). Or about 150 volts. The recommended current is between 9 and 18 amps.

Further, we see that the control board that generates the three frequencies that make the over-unity rate of electrolysis possible is fused at 60 amps. We have a power crisis right away.

The inverter has to use a bit more power to produce the higher voltage than it can deliver (at that high voltage) to the load. For 120 volts (the AC voltage before the bridge rectifier) and 9 amps of current means that the 12 volts supplying the inverter has to run at a 90 amp level (120 X 9 = 1080 watts, 12 volts and 90 amps = 1080 watts).

That is a bit awkward, as car alternators don't deliver that kind of output and have anything left over for charging the battery and running loads like lights, wipers, radios, etc. Using this site - http://www.autohausaz.com/html/auto_electrical_systems.html - as the citing authority, we see that no car can supply current for the inverter, much less for the extra load of the frequency drive board added to that. Nowhere does the D9 document suggest that this current load diminishes with operation at highest efficiency.

There is some confusion as to the circuit that makes the pulses, too. I was able to run down a readable schematic for the revision F level board. It's a bit silly, as the optocouplers that drive the FET's (Q1 - 3) are incorrectly drawn and labelled (not to mention unnecessary and overelaborate). The fun is in examining the illustrations of the drive board on page 21. The board in the metal case is a revision F board, but what is the one above it? On page 24 we learn that the board pictured (revision F) has been superseded.

I would kind of hate to buy a pig in a poke, but that is what is going on here. The explanation of what the circuit does is based on the revision F board. Assuming that the board now available is revision G, how and why is it different? I might want to know this, although the explaination is not believable for the device in the first place.

Then we get to how the high efficiency electrolyzer "works". Central to the working is a hand would toroid something-or-other. It is described as "an inductor, a transformer, and a source of energy-form conversion, all rolled into one". Inductors and transformers are reasonable devices. What, then is a "source of energy-form conversion"?

Well, to be brief, that little goodie about "energy-form conversion" is never explained. It must be magic, as nothing else could really explain it. We will revisit this later in the next section.

The caution on page 12 in the paragraph above the heading "patenting" is just amazing. We see that the toroid "transformer" (my quotes) "draws additional energy from the environment." (D9 article quote). Then we are warned that this can cause surges of up to "10,000 amps of current". This is kind of interesting, as the instructions on page 33 direct the builder to place the finished "transformer" in a Faraday cage to isolate it from the outside environment. How does it extract this energy from the envoronment while in isolation? Must be magic.

The complete circuit in block diagram form appears on page 32 of the D9 document. We see the significant connections -all except the bridge rectifier terminals. One normally notes the positive terminal, but more about this later.

What is interesting is the connections to the "transformer". One lead from eac of the secondary windings goes to the battery positive source, and the others go to the FET drivers on the three frequency board (revision F). And we see one lead from the primary winding go to the electrolyzer box, and the other to (gasp) the negative terminal of the bridge rectifier.

Transformer 101 tells us that transformers are AC devices. You put AC on the primary and get AC from the secondary(ies). It is a misnomer to speak of driving the primary with the secondaries, too, but that is a quibble.

In operation, we must imagine the "transformer" primary has about 9 amps of DC current passing through it. So we have to imagine that the pulsed waveforms on the three secondaries are supposed to have some control of the current in the primary. That makes it a sort of magnetic amplifier, or even saturable reactor.

(I vote for the mag amp, as a saturable reactor uses a DC current to control the AC output. I am open to further intepretation.)

To try to clarify this, a transformer would have an output that was strongly related to the input. The ratio of turns would let you calculate the difference in voltages primary to secondary. That would also let you calculate the current, as it varies directly with the voltage ratios.

The device shown already has a current in the primary. Driving waveforms (actually pulses) in the secondaries will have an effect on the output current in the primary, but not as expected with a true transformer. The primary and secondary coils are wound in the same direction, so current in the secondary will try to help current in the primary. The output should show brief current glitches of some small magnitude.

Small magnitude? Yes. the turns ratio is about 4 to 1 in favor of the primary. That means that the voltage spikes on the secondaries will be reduced by a factor of 4 in the primary. The resulting three volt spikes will briefly increase current by some tiny amount. Recall that current depends on the voltage across the load. Since the voltage is already 150, going up to 153 briefly will hardly be observable.

Action would be much better if a bias circuit were operating that placed the control current at a critical point. Then, the control board might have some considerable effect on the current passing through the primary. With no bias, there will be only a tiny effect.

By the way, the instruction to use solid wire to wind the "transformer" because of a weird sort of skin effect in stranded wire (mentioned on page 26) is just plain horse pucky. The "phase-differential induced eddy currents" warned about are creatures of the imagination as far as solid versus stranded wire is concerned. Vending machines use magnets and induced eddy currents to sort coins from slugs. There is a magnetic field in the toroid, but it stays there.

The bit of humor in this is on page 28, where you are abjured from using fiberglass tape to insulate the coil windings. The warning about polarity
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
A Critical Examination of the PDF "D9"

Titled "A Practical Guide to 'Free Energy' Devices"
last update 7/8/08, by Patrick J. Kelly

5. Failure conditions

The slickest part of the D9 document are all the gotchas that invalidate you efforts and expenditures. Right at the beginning, it is made clear that the author "is not recommending that you build any of these devices, and he disclaims any responsibility whatsoever should you decide to do so against his advice". The man has just told you not to do it, and then goes on to explain how to do it. Seems to be a little conflict there.

If you breezed past the advice not to do it, then a close read of the first paragraph on page 11 following the "Bob Boyce's Pulsed Electrolyser System" header should slow you down. We see that "in order to get Bob's performance of 600% to 1,000% of the Faraday (supposed) maximum gas output, each step needs to be carried out carefully exactly as described". Ther are lots of steps, and anything less than perfect duplication means you wasted you time.

(Funny, the efficiency figure becomes 1,200% later on in the document)

The paragraph following the above with the header "Your Responsibility" is there to tell you that no matter what, if the electrolyzer doesn't work, it is your problem. You were told no to make one, after all.

If this isn't enough, there is a further disclaimer on page 20., the third paragraph. It tells you that no matter how careful you are in the construction, all such devices are somehow different. It is left to you to discover just why it doesn't work.

Page 30 is mostly a set of conditions leading to disaster. The whole purpose is to put the miserable failure of this device on your shoulders. If you proceed, then the paragraph following "Positioning the Electronics" sets up yet another level of failure. Note the lack of labelling at the termials on the bridge rectifier. Hook it up backwards (easy to do) and all your work is for naught. I don't trust the filter capacitor polarities as a definitive guide to go by. I see this vagueness as a way to set the builder up for a ruinous mistake (we told you not to build it!).

It should be clear by now that this is a scam. No matter what you do, the device will not work. It violates the laws of nature. The reason why it is so finicky to put together and so minutely detailled is that it is designed to leave you blaming yourself for the failure. You have absolutely no chance to make one of these things work. The D9 document tells you so.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
A Critical Examination of the PDF "D9"

Titled "A Practical Guide to 'Free Energy' Devices"
last update 7/8/08, by Patrick J. Kelly

6. Contradiction from other "researchers"

This section will not touch on the various way other devices have been constructed to conduct water electrolysis at rates beyond the known limits of the physical world. The intent is to make evident that the basic process is a scam, and that the various scammers are not getting their acts (or data) together.

The Bob Boyce electrolyzer presented in the D9 document uses a combination of three frequencies to somehow produce the rather magical enhancement effect. From page 19, we see that they are 42,800 Hz, 21,400 Hz, and 10,700 Hz. The next page does some flim-flam, explaining that the freqencies are not excat, and that much tuning has to be done to find the exact spot (if it exists) where any such system will start to operate more efficiently.

Another scam artist, Stanley Meyer, discovered that his effect took place at something more like 6 KHz (from www.aquapulser.com). The material is complete gibberish, and asserts in one place that their method (The Xogen Method) uses "10 Hz to 250hz". They also speak of producing hydrogen at a rate of "1 p.s.i. per minute", which is a meaningless measure. Note the very different frequency, though.

On the rxresearch site, another set of articles is available. One on Stanley Meyer describes another device that takes advantage of a "parallel resonant circuit" to electrolyze water. No frequency is given, but the process sounds very different from the one invented by Bob Boyce. There is an interesting comment in the article - "The practical demonstration of the Meyer cell appears substantially more convincing then the para-scientific jargon which has been used to explain it."

The next article by Dan Danforth, speaks of producing over unity amounts of hydrogen. The apparatus and method is exceptionally vague, but he presents a table of frequencies. One, 14,372 Hz, is "about 50% more efficient" than the other, 43,430. The tables are of the first through the fourth sub-harmonics of these man frequencies. Enhanced electrolysis is also supposed to take place at reduced rates at the sub-harmonics.

He goes on to state that "just about any frequency between 9 KHz and 143,762 KHz works quite well. This is because "the nature of the wave form (a spike) is rich in harmonics and one of them is bound to be close to one of the two primary frequencies." It also seems that 410 grade stainless steel (not 403) is "the only metal that could be used".

By the way, the process source is forever lost in mystery - the last line is: Source publication: Unknown... Scanned from very bad photocopy." There is also a note that "1500 VOLTS IS THE MINIMUM REQUIRED FOR MOLECULAR RINGING TO BEGIN".

There is lots of conflicting information here. Voltages from 1.5 to 1500. Frequencies from 9 KHz to 143,430. Exact frequencies exquisitly tuned to the cell, or any old pulse will do. This electrolyte or that. This electrode material or that. This cell construction or that.

The most common thing about these "researchers" is their use of "para-scientific jargon". Or simply saying lots of something that has no meaning. If these are not scams, then they have worked very hard to disguise their work as such.
 

thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
316L and other grades of Stainless steel are resistant to oxidizing aqueous solutions, but not to reducing aqueous solutions. Sulphuric acid, for example, would be a very poor choice of electrolyte for use with stainless steel electrodes. Interested persons may peruse more in chapter 13 of Dr. John Verhoeven's basic metallurgy text: http://www.feine-klingen.de/PDFs/verhoeven.pdf

Whether a steel is magnetic or not depends on the crystal structure. Low alloy steel at room temperature, for example, has body-centered-cubic structure. The same low-alloy steel at 950C (1740F) will have a face-centered cubic structure, also called "austenite" after the metallurgist Sir W.C.Roberts-Austen. Austenite is non-magnetic, regardless of composition. All 200 and 300 series stainless steels, including 316L, are austenitic at room temperature. More reading is here: http://www.mceproducts.com/knowledge-base/article/article-dtl.asp?id=18

It really floors me that a man who made his living with stainless steel didn't know this stuff. Incompetence or charlatanry are the only explanations I can offer for the discrepancy.
 

thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
Danforth, like the boat-maker, is either undereducated or dishonest where steel is concered.

Stainless 410 is a martensitic stainless, and is one of the least corrosion resistant of the stainless steels. For best corrosion resistance, it should be hardened, tempered, and polished. It is typically used in environments which are, at most, only mildly corrosive.

403 is almost identical to 410. 403 is simply made to tighter standards.
 

S_lannan

Joined Jun 20, 2007
246
these free energy scams really annoy me.

Thanks to them i have to get into regular discussion about perpetual motion and how making hydrogen actually consumes energy.

My friend still thinks he can hook up an electric motor to his battery on his car and make it run the car forever....
 

scubasteve_911

Joined Dec 27, 2007
1,203
Lannan,

I have the same problems! People really don't want to accept the law of conservation of energy and the fact that nobody has ever done an experiment that breaks it.

There are so many fun and exciting things that we haven't done with our current technology set, people should be working on these things, not chasing a wild goose :(

Steve
 

Deng

Joined Nov 12, 2008
1
I have heard (read) many people propound on the ridiculous supposition that adding HHO to the combustion process of a gasoline engine is getting something for nothing. This of course is violating the second law of thermodynamics (if I remember it correctly) by getting more energy out of a system (through combustion) than you put into it (through water electrolysis).

TRUE: You cannot put electrical energy into breaking down water, and then get even an equal, let alone greater amount of energy out of it by burning it.

HOWEVER! If, as empirical evidence has conclusively proven, greater efficiencies (ie. improved gas mileage) are being shown by this method, maybe the correct question is not being asked. A catalytic process, defined as Catalysis, in which "helper" components speed up chemical reactions without themselves being consumed can in fact increase efficiencies in many processes. Platinum catalytic converters in most cars burn roughly 20% of the unburned gas directly from the cylinders. Of course, you get no power from that process, it just makes our exhaust cleaner.

Now technically, since the hydrogen and oxygen are being consumed, you cannot call this a strict catalytic process, but the idea is about the same. If the much faster burning hydrogen-oxygen combination can help to heat up the fuel droplets inside the cylinder during combustion, thus making them burn more completely, that is one plausible explanation for the observed increase in efficiencies.

Like many before me though, I must agree: you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put into it. Increasing fuel burning efficiency, however you do it, will lead to an increase in gas mileage.


The systems work, bottom line. Which is most efficient, etc., has yet to be shown conclusively, that I have seen.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
If you feel the possible efficiency increase of an explosive mixture of gasses added to the engine is worthwhile, go for it.

I am put off by the necessary reservoir of explosive gas and the problem of damage to the engine from the increased explosion in the combustion chamber. 5% boost to mileage may be coupled to 25% loss of engine longevity.

Hydrogen is better as a fuel in a continuous process - making steam or driving a gas turbine.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
Must be those thousands of people in Australia.

I suspect that the scam artists selling hydrolyzing equipment in Australia refer to the thousands of happy users in the States.
 

aussepom

Joined May 7, 2009
1
Hi I was sent this notice about this forum about the D9
I have been saying this all along
thank you very much for the article,

there was a reference to about not getting more energy out than you put in, be careful how you use this term, the abomb, nuclear reactors, and soon a new one
if the tests go according to plan, you will have to wait and see for that one.
aussepom
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Nuclear is a common theme among free energy types. The fact that N. Korea and Iran are both spending millions of dollars to make extremely slow progress towards that goal should be a clue. That and the fact even when N. Korea has a device it doesn't work as planned.

There is free energy, and it is nuclear. Think solar.
 

Nanophotonics

Joined Apr 2, 2009
383
Nothing is free as such. Everything has got a price. The key factor is the associated trade-off. Based on what one needs, find the optimum point off that "trade-off graph". :cool:

Thanks.
 
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thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
If we define A-bombs and nuclear reactors as "free energy," then we must also define petroleum as "free energy." Extraction of energy from millennia old storage does not invalidate the second Law of thermodynamics.
 
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