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What do you get when you combine water with a
homemade electrolyzer and power from a car battery?
In a previous project, I built a generator that uses
electricity to convert water into a very powerful
fuel. The amount of electricity available
determines how much gas can be produced. And using
a couple of car batteries, I've been able to produce
over 5 liters a minute. I've even tried powering
it with a makeshift hand-crank generator like
this one, but obviously the gas production is
slower. So just how powerful is the gas? To find
out, I've rounded up some plastic cups, some liquid
dish soap, and water because we're going to make
some bubbles. I'm pouring just a little bit of
water into this cup, followed by a quick shot of
soap .. and even that's probably more than I need.
Agitating the cup like this will mix the two together,
and while I'm here I may as well fill up the rest of
these cups as well. Now it's time to put in some
ear plugs and safety glasses because this next part
could be dangerous. Using jumper cables, I've
connected to my car battery to get the system warmed
up. When the gas makes it way through the lines, you
can see it pushing up through the bubbler. And now I can
take the end of the tubing, and place it inside of the
soap solution to start collecting some gas. The gas
is just a mixture of H2O molecules broken down
into their gaseous elements of two parts Hydrogen
and one part Oxygen. This is sometimes called HHO,
or Hydroxy gas. Alright, the bubbles have reached
the top of the cup, so I'll gently remove the tubing
trying not to disturb the bubbles too much, then use a
bbq ignitor to see if the bubbles will pop. That's
crazy. Even without a lid, the cup is completely
torn to shreds. Well, that's why I've got more cups, so I
can do it again. This one looks ready, so let's add
some fire. When the bubbles explode, the gas burns
clean, and turns back into water vapor. There's
something elementally exciting about using fire to make
water, and I've just done it again with cup 4 and
cup 5. Funny enough, did you also know that you can use
water to make a fire? Look for that in a different
project. Ok these cups are completely destroyed, so
I'm trying something a little different with this
last one. I've filled it all the way to the top and
stirred in a little more soap. And this time when the
bubbles are pouring over the top, they light off
with just as much power, but the cup stays intact.
This allows me to use the same cup again and again.
Some people might ask what the purpose of the
bubbler is. Well, it helps clean the gas, but more
importantly, it acts as a flame arrestor in the
event of a flashback like this. If that flame were
to get back inside your generator it would probably
do some damage. The bubbler cap is just pressed on,
so if there's a tiny flashback explosion, the worst
thing that happens is the cap pops off. If the
bubbler's a little low on fluid then be careful,
because now the gas has a place to build up, and if
you were to get a flashback in this situation, it
could be a little more dramatic. It's helpful to
keep the bubbler full, so I made it detachable for
ease of use. Ok, my next test is to fill a plastic
soda bottle, and I'll show you how to do that in a
minute. With the cap off the gas is slowly leaking
out, and when touched to a flame it takes off with
quite a bit of energy. Small bottles are fairly
safe to play with, but anything bigger than this
needs to be lit from a distance. I just made this
remote detonator pad to I can ignite larger bottles
from over 20 feet away. I have these bottles filled
with water, and to charge them with gas I hold them
upside down in a bucket of water. The lid gets
removed below the water line so I can insert the
tube up inside the bottle. And when the electrical
connection is made, the gas bubbles up inside,
forcing the water down and out. After all the water
has been pushed out, the tube gets removed and the
cap screwed back on, and now this bottle is full of
hydroxy gas, ready for ignition. Igniting it this
way is pretty risky, but I felt like I had to try it.
This here is the safer way. The bottle is placed
carefully on the detonator pad, and then from a
distance I can fire it off at will. Soda bottles have
pressure rated plastic that can withstand the
explosive power, turning these into makeshift rockets.
And rather than exploding, they can be re-used over
again. In contrast, the plastic on a water bottle is
weak, and doesn't survive the blast. I'm filling up a
milk jug using the same technique as the bottles, and
now we've got 1 gallon of gas ready to go. Man, that
is powerful. I'm probably going to have to do that again.
Wooo, nice! Nothing but shrapnel. And that's really
cool. This juice jug has thicker plastic, and
explodes with incredible force. When I set this jug
off, my neighbor told me he felt the floor in his house
shake. Well, the generator's getting hot, so it's
time to shut it down and put everything away for the
day. That's it for this project. If you enjoy these
videos, please comment and share with your friends.
I appreciate your support. Thanks for watching.