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Personal hydrogen accumulator (concept)
2015-11-25 16:52 | | comments - 0technologies
Many of us (especially who living in private homes) would like to have your own, personal power generator and be independent from the existing municipal structures. And actual technology can provide a decent devices of electric generation (modern solar panels already have an acceptable efficiency and lifetime, wind generators also haven't significant problems), but the system of accumulation and storage of electricity (most often represented by batteries) have a lot of disadvantages (high cost, low capacity, short lifetime, poor performance at low temperatures, and so on.). And these shortcomings make the whole conception of the personal, renewable sources of electricity is unattractive, for ordinary citizens. In this article, I offer acquaint with the conception of individual hydrogen storage of electricity, which, in a certain perspective, can replace the classic accumulator batteries.

Remarks
  1. All presented schemas and images have a conceptual character. In the design of the engineering model, would necessarily have to review all of the sizes and features of the device components;
  2. I assume, that somewhere described analog of presented device, even, perhaps, there are commercial samples, but I didn't find anything similar.

The general concept (principle of work)
An electricity, comes from renewable sources (solar cell, wind turbine, and so on.) , is supplied to the two electrolysis chambers (A), where in a process of electrolysis begins to accumulate oxygen/hydrogen. Gotten oxygen/hydrogen, by dint of a compressor (B) is pumped into the gas-storage chamber (C). From the gas-storage chamber (C), oxygen/hydrogen is supplied to the electric cell (E), then, did not take part of the reaction oxygen/hydrogen, and the water gotten from reaction, flows back into the gas-storage camera. Electricity, gotten from chemical compound of oxygen and hydrogen, flows into the transformator, then to the invertor and to the control unit of turbine/drainage valve (H). From the invertor, the electric current supplied to the consumer. Water, accumulated in the gas-storage chamber, through the drainage mechanism (F), enters to the water-storage tank (G) and going back to the electrolysis chambers.
Next, I suggest a closer look at the mechanics of the work of system components.

Camera of electrolysis
Primary purpose - generation and primary accumulation of oxygen/hydrogen, and its transmission to the compressor.
Electricity , comes on the contact (A),enters to electrode (C), which begun the process of electrolysis of water in the chamber. The gas gradually accumulates in the upper part of the chamber and falling directly to the compressor through an opening (E). Also gas pushing water back to the tank, through the hole (B). Thus going on primary accumulation of the gas, before injection into the gas-storage chamber by the compressor. The whole process of primary accumulation of gas is controlled by optical sensor (D), whose readings are transmitted to the control unit.

Compressor
Primary purpose - pumping gas from the electrolysis chamber to the gas-storage chamber.
The gas (oxygen/hydrogen) from the electrolysis chamber, comes to the chamber of the compressor via a valve (A). When the gas in the chamber of the compressor is accumulated in a sufficient amount, the motor is activated (F) and by means of the piston (C), the accumulated gas is pumped into the gas-storage chamber through valve (B).
Availability of compressor allow to create certain pressure in the gas-storage chamber, which improves the efficiency of the electric cells.
It is important to calculate the parameters of the compressor (motor power, gear ratio, the volume of the chamber of the compressor, and so on) so that the compressor could able to work (for create the necessary pressure) from a renewable energy source.

The control system of electric supply
Primary purpose - control of generating and accumulation of gas (oxygen/hydrogen), which is obtained by electrolysis.
In the initial state, the device supplying voltage (D) on the electrodes of the electrolysis chambers (B). As a result, gas in the electrolysis chambers begins form and accumulate, and the water level gradually decreases. Once one of the optical sensors of water level (C) shows that lower limit is reached (ie the gas in the electrolysis chamber has accumulated enough), the device must turn off the power supply to the electrolysis chamber (B) and use electric motor of one of the compressor (A) by doing one complete cycle of the piston. If low water level reached at the same time in both electrolysis chambers, the device should provide consistent work of compressors (otherwise, the source voltage may not be enough to fulfill the cycle of the compressor). After completion cycle of the compressor, the device should be return to the original state, and apply voltage to the electrodes of the electrolysis chambers.

Gas-storage chamber
Primary purpose - accumulation, storage and supply of gas (oxygen/hydrogen) to the electric cells.
Gas-storage chamber - a balloon with a set of holes through which gas enters the chamber (C), is fed to the electric cells (A) and returns from them (B), and provides output water from the system (D). The volume of gas-storage camera is directly proportional to affect the system's ability to store energy, and is limited only by the physical size of the chamber.

Turbine
Primary purpose - provide circulation of the gas (oxygen/hydrogen) in the electric cells.
The gas, from the gas-storage chamber, enters to the chamber of device from hole (B). Next, by dint of turbine blades (C) and the centrifugal force, the gas is pumped into the output hole (A). Operability of the turbine blades (C) is provided by an electric motor (D), which is powered by a connector (E).
The turbine is perhaps the most controversial of all modules in the concept. On the one hand, my scant knowledge of chemistry say, circulating reactants react better in chemical reactions. On the other hand, I did not find any confirmation or refutation, when that active circulation of the gas increase efficiency of electric cells. As a result, I decide keep this device in design, but its impact on the efficiency of the system should be checked.

Electric cell
Primary purpose - generation of electric current from a chemical union of oxygen and hydrogen.
Oxygen and hydrogen entering in chamber through the corresponding hole (A) and (B) comes into latent chemical reaction, where on the electrode (E) formed electric current that is passed to the consumer through contacts (F) and (G). As a result of the chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen in an oxygen chamber will produce a large amount of water.
In preparation of construction of this unit I was using public information provided on the Honda website.
The main problem is that the Honda suggests to use a platinum [Pt] electrodes (E). What makes the entire structure prohibitively expensive. But I am sure that is quite possible to find a much cheaper chemical composition for electrode in electric cell. In the extreme case it is always possible to burn hydrogen in the combustion engine, but the efficiency of the device drops considerably, and cost increase.

Drainage system
Primary purpose - ensure the withdrawal of water from the gas-storage chamber.
Water enters through the hole (A) into the chamber of the drainage system, it gradually accumulated, which fixed an optical sensor (B). As the water filling the chamber, the control system (D) opens the valve (C) and water comes out through the hole(E).
It is important to provide that, in the absence of electricity, the valve must be closed (for example, in emergency situations). Otherwise, possible a situation, where a large amount of hydrogen and oxygen fall into the settler, what can lead to detonation.

Water tank
Primary purpose - accumulation, storage and degassing of water.
The water from the drainage system through the hole (B) enters to the chamber, where occur degassing. The released oxygen and hydrogen exits through a vent (A). Ready for electrolysis water is fed to the electrolysis chamber via a hole (C).

Management of electric generation (stabilizer, invertor)
Primary purpose - preparation of generated electricity for supply to consumer, power delivery and management of drainage systems and turbines.
The incoming voltage from the electric cells (A), is fed to the transformer/stabiliser where it is leveled up to 12 volts. Stabilized voltage is fed to the invertor and to the control system of internal devices. DC 12 volts from invertor is converted to AC 220 volts (50 Hz) and then supplied to the consumer (D).
The control unit provides power to the drainage system (B) and turbines (C). Moreover, the device monitors the operation of the turbine and if load of the consumer increasing then increases turbine turnovers, thus stimulating the intensity of power generation of electric cells.

Features of operation
  1. Device must always located in perpendicular position with respect to gravity. So how the mechanics of the system is widely using the gravitation (primary accumulation of gas, drainage system and so on.). Depending on the level of deviation from this condition, the device or reduce efficiency, or even become inoperable;
  2. Looking to the previous paragraph (for the same reasons) we can conclude that for the normal operation of the device, it must be at rest (i. e. must be permanently installed);
  3. The device should work exclusively in open space (outside the room, on the street). So how device permanently allocates free oxygen and hydrogen, within a closed space, it will lead to the retention and subsequent detonation of these gases. Accordingly, within a closed space, work of the device is unsafe.

Disadvantages of presented conception
Presented in this article design is the 1st version of my idea. Accordingly, in the process of implementing the concept, I saw some flaws/bugs, but did not alter the scheme (so It would lead to endless, iterative process of improvements/enhancements, and this article never was would published). And I decide, briefly describe those defects which necessarily needs to be corrected.
  1. Since diffusion processes has not been canceled, in an oxygen gas-storage chamber will also accumulate hydrogen and accordingly, in the hydrogen chamber are similar processes. As a result, this will lead to detonation of the gas in the corresponding gas-storage chamber. This situation must be provided and in the construction of gas-storage chamber need to add partitions to quench the blast wave. Also, the gas-storage chamber must be equipped with valve for discharging gas at the critical pressure;In the presented design, there is no indication of the accumulated energy . Accordingly, a pressure sensor in the gas-storage chamber will allow to realize display level of stored energy (actually the gas, but since we obtain the energy in output, we indirectly indicate the volume of energy). Also, when the maximum pressure is reached in both chambers, the process of gassing can be stopped (that the device didn't work for nothing);
  2. The current design of water settling chamber is not effective enough. Quite a lot of gassed water will fall directly into the electrolysis chamber, which has a negative impact on the work efficiency of the device. In an ideal situation, the need to alter the structure so that the hydrogen and oxygen do not cross (i. e. make two independent circuits). In a simple embodiment, the construction of water settling should be bilocular(perhaps even trilocular);
  3. If the device and the location of the compressor remain unchanged, with time, in the chamber of the compressor and tubes around the valve, will accumulate condensat, which reduces the work efficiency of the compressor (or even make it unusable). Therefore, as a minimum, the compressor should be turned upside down. Ideally, necessary replace the mechanical compressor on piezoelectric.

Сonclusion
In the end, if I don't made a fundamental error, we will get power storage device, characterized by simplicity of design (and therefore reliability) with a relatively compact sizes, devoid of any serious operational constraints (for example, work efficiency at low temperature of environment). Moreover, the restrictions described in the "Features of operation", theoretically, can be eliminated.
Unfortunately, due to various circumstances, I probably will not be able to assemble and test the described device. But I hope that somebody, someday, will begin to make and sell something like that, and I can buy it.
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