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 its way through the lines, you can see it pushing up through the
bubbler. 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 the 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 turn back into water vapor.
There's something elementally exciting about using fire to make water, and I've just done
it again with cups 4 and cup 5. Funny enough, did you also know 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 is
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 gonna 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.