Hydrogen Powered Model A

james.heider

james.heider

Senior Member
I was visiting the Tampa Bay Auto Museum yesterday and in the collection of cars was this Model A that can run on Hydrogen. It burns hard wood chips in the black burner at the rear of the car on the driver side and then process the smoke etc. to make hydrogen in the green tank on the right side of the car. Very unique.
 

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Hope some of our Aussie and NZ friends will chime in here. That process was used there, and other countries, during WII when no gasoline was available for cars. I believe part of the fuel mixture was carbon monoxide. Dangerous but quite flammable.
 
I just found this article about the car you pictured James! I'll have to go to that museum sometime when I'm home.

The older car is no less ingenious. The 1929 Ford Model A Tudor was originally sold in Spain after being produced at the Barcelona assembly plant. At some point, most likely in the 1930s, the owner added a gasification system, which essentially produces the car’s own synthetic natural gas as a fuel by means of a wood gas generator. The process uses high temperature to turn a wood-based fuel, usually charcoal, into a burnable gas consisting of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane. The synthetic gas can then achieve combustion in the vehicle’s engine. Around this time, Spain was embroiled in a brutal civil war and civilian fuel supplies were severely limited. Fuel rationing during World War II resulted in wood-gas systems finding significant use in Europe, Britain and even the United States. They’re still widely used in parts of China.
The Tampa Bay Auto Museum is located in Pinellas Park, Florida. For more information, visit TBAuto.org.
 
As an aside to gassification as a source of fuel, the San Diego Automotive Museum has a Model T that a fuels engineer designed and built to actually run on hydrogen. It is basically a "T" engine converted as a tubercharged multifuel engine. It was done back in the eighties and we have had it for a number of years. We haven't tried to start it on hydrogen but have had it running on regular gas. Under the hood it almost looks like a modern car .
 
Tom Wesenberg said:
I wonder if these wood burners produced tar or any special deposits that would shorten the engine life?
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That may be the case. I remember reading at the Gen-gas site about an Australian experimenter who attempted to use a generator gas vehicle in day to day use, including a commute of about 60 miles each way (Australia is a LARGE continent!)

He reported about 5000 miles per large scale clean out and refurbish, to include new rings and valves. This with a 1950s era pickup.

It's been a while since I've explored the site but much can be seen on this subject generally at http://www.gengas.se/welcome_to_www_gengas_se.htm

The old Mother Earth News also had a lot to say on this subject - ALWAYS in the most glowing terms (as befits their enthusiasm and marketing.) They were always prone to overspeak in their agenda which included at least two generator gas vehicles (One a Ford F150 pickup IIRC.) I see they're still beating this drum http://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/wood-gas-zm0z12amzroc.aspx#axzz2T5aOmY6R

Perhaps a lot of the issues have been overcome? One hopes.

Joe K
 
Tom Wesenberg said:
I wonder if these wood burners produced tar or any special deposits that would shorten the engine life?
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Yes, any unburnt hydrocarbons (smoke) derived from wood when condensed to its' dewpoint forms creosote. Creosote when warm is gummy like tar, when cold is becomes a very hard and abrasive form of carbon. I would imagine that any of it left in a cylinder to cool down would eventually start to cut away the metal in the cylinders.
 
They used them overe here too after WW2.

No cars left, but they ran on "Holzvergaser" :D

Ja - Tom - All of those Holzvergaser`s shortened the life of the woods :D:D
 
Are you sure that the wood gas is Hydrogen? I thought it was methane. However, There was a "Dual Fuel" Hydrogen/gasoline powered model A at Renningers two weeks ago. It could be switched to run on gas or hydrogen. It was both primitive and sophisticated at the same time. It used Four glass mayonaise jars that bubbled the hydrogen out of just plain water with a metal catalyst.
Terry
 
A man in England created Methane gas from HOG manure & some sort of acid, pressurised it, and ran his Hillman car on it. I wonder if it "pinged" or "GRUNTED"?? Bill W.
 
In the wiki link I posted it said

  1. The dehydration or drying process occurs at around 100°C. Typically the resulting steam is mixed into the gas flow and may be involved with subsequent chemical reactions, notably the water-gas reaction if the temperature is sufficiently high enough (see step #5).
  2. The pyrolysis (or devolatilization) process occurs at around 200-300°C. Volatiles are released and char is produced, resulting in up to 70% weight loss for coal. The process is dependent on the properties of the carbonaceous material and determines the structure and composition of the char, which will then undergo gasification reactions.
  3. The combustion process occurs as the volatile products and some of the char reacts with oxygen to primarily form carbon dioxide and small amounts of carbon monoxide, which provides heat for the subsequent gasification reactions. Letting C represent a carbon-containing organic compound, the basic reaction here is
    bd831bf9e277c3a479cb53d5ca349075.png
  4. The gasification process occurs as the char reacts with carbon and steam to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen, via the reaction
    948b09ea2d011506a4bbcb9932b2dded.png
  5. In addition, the reversible gas phase water gas shift reaction reaches equilibrium very fast at the temperatures in a gasifier. This balances the concentrations of carbon monoxide, steam, carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
    07f2e21e12c0929264f7c990ee734f98.png
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springerpete said:
Hope some of our Aussie and NZ friends will chime in here.
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Yes, I confirm it was used in New Zealand in WW2, due to wartime fuel shortages. I don't understand the process but the firebox had to be cleaned out regularly and a feature of NZ travel at the time was little heaps of charcoal left on the side of the road (I remember hearing my Dad talking about it). And a friend has a Model A which used to be set up for a gasification plant and until recently it still had some of the plumbing installed. Somewhere I have seen a photo of a Model A sedan crossing a South Island bridge with a wood-burner set up on the back - wish I could find it.
 
Ted Duke said:
I raise cattle. Does anyone know how to build one of these? Free fuel. Just kidding!
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T.D, we burned them "Cow'sford" giant briquetes in our iron heater in West Texas to keep our "patootie" from freezin' OFF!:eek: They ain't NO trees out there, just FLAT to the horizon & the only known hill is ANT HILLS!!! Bill W.
 

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If you read about the gasification systems being built today, most use quite an extensive filter to clean the gas up before it is burned in the engine.
 
Every Model A ever made was/is hydrogen powered! Gasoline is a hydrocarbon fuel (which is mostly hydrogen and carbon).
 
Joe K said:
That may be the case. I remember reading at the Gen-gas site about an Australian experimenter who attempted to use a generator gas vehicle in day to day use, including a commute of about 60 miles each way (Australia is a LARGE continent!)

He reported about 5000 miles per large scale clean out and refurbish, to include new rings and valves. This with a 1950s era pickup.

It's been a while since I've explored the site but much can be seen on this subject generally at http://www.gengas.se/welcome_to_www_gengas_se.htm

The old Mother Earth News also had a lot to say on this subject - ALWAYS in the most glowing terms (as befits their enthusiasm and marketing.) They were always prone to overspeak in their agenda which included at least two generator gas vehicles (One a Ford F150 pickup IIRC.) I see they're still beating this drum http://www.motherearthnews.com/green-transportation/wood-gas-zm0z12amzroc.aspx#axzz2T5aOmY6R

Perhaps a lot of the issues have been overcome? One hopes.

Joe K
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Nope. Wood gas is tough as hell on engines. Having a big cooler and filter to deliver the wood gas (mostly carbon monoxide) as pure as possible was the major design task for the Germans and the Brazillians and it still crummed up the engines. Mother Earth News puts out a lot of dangerous bafflegab but not as bad as in the seventies because they don't want to get sued.

The Brazillian gasogenios on buses had huge cooler filter assemblies all over them. Homebrew efforts usually sorely fail in this department. I think the Germans ran charcoal as much as possible in theirs and stioll there were problems but it beat walking.

Aside from all that if wood gas ever became popular we would have no more forests.
 
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