The article discusses a simple method through which large amounts of oxygen and hydrogen could be generated at home using an ordinary electrical setup, and very cheaply.
Importance of Oxygen and Hydrogen
We all know the potentials of these two gases and how important they are on this planet.
Oxygen is the life sustaining gas without which no living creature on this planet can live.
Hydrogen on other hand has its own merits and can be considered as the future fuel which would ultimately power our vehicles and cook our foods once all the naturally available fossil resources goes out of stock and gets depleted.
What is Electrolysis of Water
In school days we all have learned and witnessed the process called the electrolysis of water, where water which is made up of two main constituents H2O (two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen) is broken down forcibly with the help of electric current.
However in this process, normally a pinch of salt is added or sometime a drop of sulfuric acid is added for enhancing the electrolysis process.
This results in speedy electrolysis process, and we are able to see large and thick amounts of gas bubbles come out across the two electrodes which are connected to a potential difference source or simply to a battery.
However there's an misconception that the above process generates oxygen and hydrogen with ease, in fact that may not be the case and if we carefully assess the process you will find it's not the water but the added chemical which is getting broken in the influence of the electric current.
That means if we add salt to water, the electrolysis process will generate the gas chlorine and sodium deposits over the two electrodes and not oxygen or hydrogen.....you can expect the generation of H and O, but in very negligible volumes.
For generating pure oxygen and hydrogen through the process of breaking down water components we need to implement the process of electrolysis without the addition of any foreign chemical into water. However, adding a very small quantity of H2SO4 or sulphuric acid could be added to enhance the process to a great extent. Make sure the quantity is correctly calculated, else it may lead to massive bubbling or even explosions in the water.
Simply put, the procedure must be carried out breaking H2O directly without the help of any catalyst medium.
However if you try to do this, you will find the process to be very lethargic and absolutely impossible, because the bond between the H2O components are so great, it might become impossible to disintegrate them into parts.
But it can be done through brute force, meaning instead of using low power DC, if we use mains AC, and introduce it into a container filled with water, we might just be able to force the liquid to separate into its pure forms.
THIS METHOD OF ELECTROLYSIS OF PURE WATER USING PULSED 220 V WITHOUT ANY CATALYST HAS BEEN DISCOVERED BY ME, I ASSUME SO, BECAUSE IT'S NOT BEEN DISCUSSED ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE NET SO FAR.
Why Use a High Voltage AC instead of Low Voltage DC
Technically, a 1.4 V DC is the ideal power for breaking water molecules into HHO. Anything above this is considered a waste of energy.
However, using 1.4 V would demand a heck lot of current and the electrodes will need to be placed very close to each to other, making the set up extremely infeasible at home for any lay person.
Using 220 V DC may look highly inefficient in electrical terms, but if you test it practically it turns out to be quite efficient due to the following reasons:
- 220 V or 120 V is easily accessible in our homes. Making a bridge rectifier is also very easy.
- Bridge rectifier converts AC into 100 Hz or 120 Hz pulses which enhances the electrolysis process significantly, compared to the specified 1. 4 V DC.
- The heat dissipation can be easily optimized by decreasing the electrode cross-sectional area, and distance between the electrodes.
- Using tap water means high water resistance, which in turn allows less current to be used.
- This also means less HHO production but practical results show that the process produces a continuous bubbling across the electrodes, yet the water staying at normal temperatures.
The above factors ensure that a 220 V approach is much efficient in many other ways compared to using a 1. 5 V DC.
Easy set up for Generating Oxygen and hydrogen at Home in Large Quantities
OK, the method is as simple as it can be, while experimenting I found that by converting mains AC to DC, the process aggravates more rapidly and thick fogs of gases can be seen across the respective electrodes.
And it is definitely important to use DC. otherwise the gases will alternately produced over the two electrodes haphazardly completely ruining the results.
So....it's all about making a bridge rectifier circuit using four diodes, 1n4007 will do. take four of them and construct the bridge rectifier module and next wire up the system as per the shown diagram.
The glass apparatus will need to be carefully set. As can be see in the figure, the two glass tubes are inverted inside a container filled with water.
The two tubes should be filled with the water such that both the tubes share the container water among themselves.
A couple of GRAPHITE electrodes are fitted in such a way that they get inside the tubes water content just as shown in the figure.
The electrodes are terminated out through respective wires connections which are further connected to the bridge rectifiers positive and negative outputs.
The bridge rectifier inputs are in turn connected to mains AC.
The moment power is switched ON, thick surfs of bubbles can be seen coming out from the electrodes and exploding into the respective gas forms into the vacant area of the tubes.
No External Catalyst used
Since there's no external chemical involved here, we can be sure that the gas formed and collected inside the tubes to be pure oxygen and hydrogen.
As the process is allowed to continue, you will find the water level gradually coming down and getting transformed into oxygen and hydrogen within the two tubes.
The tubes should have a valve type arrangement at their top termination, so that the accumulated gas can be either transferred to a larger container or directly accessed from the nozzles by releasing the taps or the valve mechanism.
Video Clip show the minimum set up required for the electrolysis process:
How to construct the bridge rectifier and wire it for the above apparatus:
Increasing Oxygen Production through Series Connections
Since technically, only 1.4 V is required for an efficient implementation of electrolysis, implies that the 220 V could be divided into a number of series arrangements for multiplying the production rate of oxygen to many folds, as shown in the following example set up.
Here, we find that each glass/electrode set up is able to produce its own share of oxygen and hydrogen, thus making the total production 7 times higher. Actually, with a 310 v supply (after 220 V rectification), the above setup can be increased to 310 / 1.4 = 221 apparatus's, generating 221 times more oxygen than a single apparatus which was shown in our first example. That looks awesome, isn't it.
Remember the electrodes are graphite electrodes to avoid corrosion and oxidation. And, the water is pure tap water, no catalyst in the form of salt, acid, or baking soda must be used, which may otherwise cause false and dangerous outcomes.
Note: The concept has not been tested practically, so make sure to test it on a small scale first, to confirm its efficacy.
Increasing the Efficiency Rate by using nano pulse.
The results are not yet confirmed by me, but research has shown that decreasing the pulse width can further increase the efficiency of the electrolysis. It is called nano pulse electrolysis.
Perhaps the easiest way of implementing a nano pulse could be to put a capacitor in series with the AC input, as shown in the following figure:
What the capacitor does is it allows only a short, narrow, peak pulse to appear across the electrodes, causing the oxygen, hydrogen production to increase to much higher levels compared to any other conventional set up.
Warning
THE WHOLE SYSTEM INVOLVES HIGH AC AND DC POTENTIALS, DEATH CAN COME WITHIN MINUTES IF ANY OF THE PART OF THE SYSTEM IS TOUCHED, EVEN THE WATER IS HIGHLY DANGEROUS TO TOUCH IN SWITCHED ON POSITION. DO NOT SHORT CIRCUIT THE ELECTRODES, WHICH MAY RESULT IN FIRE AND HUGE EXPLOSIONS. GREAT CAUTION MUST EXERCISED WHILE HANDLING THIS SET UP.
USE OF A 200 WATT SERIES BULB IS RECOMMENDED TO AVOID A POSSIBLE SHORT CIRCUIT, AND FIRE HAZARD SITUATION.
DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Search Related Posts for Commenting
Hi if I use a car battery and jumper cables with large wire mesh will this work to complete electrolysis I want to have 20% dissolved O2 in my water. If I were to use this in a 35gallon trash can would that create to much hydrogen for safety?
Hi, I am not sure about it, it may be quite difficult to guess the results of the experiment in terms of hydrogen production, but the electrolysis process will happen for sure, provided the mesh electrodes are within an inch distance
So I need two wire mesh grates 1inch apart not connected and way except for the water. Otherwise one grate positive one grate negative? But because I’m using a car battery I can have a larger metal grate.
Yes that’s right, no matter how the mesh is arranged, the +/- terminals need to be 1 inch apart or even lower.
Cool appreciate the reply.
Thank you a lot for these DIY instructions. It is truly amazing no one else posted such an easy to understand setup for water electrolysis.
It is important that the water be pure, without any contaminants, which could interfere with H and O to form unwanted compounds. The easiest way to pure the water is by distillation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water
Btw, I think you can actually produce water out of HHO from electrolysis process very easily. Just join the outputs of your gas tubes into a common container and you should see water forming there as a result. Which is kinda expected as you also noted the reason why the AC won’t work and DC is required.
Thank you again for these GREAT instructions! Really appreciated.
Thank you for liking the post, appreciate it very much.
Distilled water is actually not required, tap water is just enough, the slight impurity it has might not create any serious problems with the HHO gas production. However, it would be interesting to see how distilled water would react to the 310 V DC input.
Hello Swagatam
This is Dr Harshit from Mumbai.
I need your help urgently to help corona patients who require oxygen
Thank you so much.
Hello Doctor Harshit, The project will require significant amount funding, if you have the necessary arrangement then hopefully we can proceed. I will email you for the required details.
Thank you for sharing this useful information. I am working on producing huge amount of oxygen for commercial purposes, from my previous readings I have found out that production of oxygen in large scale for commercial purpose is unprofitable because of the very high electrical energy required.
What’s your view about that?
I appreciate your feedback, in that case you can probably try using a solar panel or windmill for getting cheap electricity.
Thank you I may consider that..
Thank you for this. I have been considering making one though I still need to do some research. I am a former submariner, and this is how we made oxygen while underway. I suffer from asthma occasionally and on days like this week and a half, breathing is at a premium. I know on the boat we had to worry about o2% levels too high we could explode, too low, we stopped breathing, basically falling asleep and never waking up. I like waking up and not exploding.
Sounds interesting, you can probably regulate or control the oxygen production rate by selecting the electrode size appropriately, since its surface area determines the rate of production….other factors like voltage, distance between the electrodes etc also affect the rate of oxygen production
we did it in the Chemistry lab at uni.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water they mention using a small gap to keep the current/voltage requirements low
it’s a standard scientific method to electrolyse pure water
btw unless you use fully de-ionised or reverse=osmosis water you will get toxic gases comign off with the H and O so be very careful what you do.
in addition you have 220v with a higly explosive mix of hydrogen and oxygen – this is why it’s not openly discussed by amateurs online, do it enough and you will make a tiny mistake and blow up your house. (we use fume/extractpr hoods to capture any gasses we didn’t collect in the tubes – I’ve forgotten the formulas now but you can simply work out exactly how much gas for the number of Amps used)
Can water be electrified in a vacuum using high voltage jump spark so that electrodes won’t be touching water
Hello sir,
With this method, how many hours or days will it takes to convert a gallon of water to HHO, it doesn’t have you be accurate sir.
I will be very happy
Hello Lawal, it will depend on the surface area of the electrodes, so try to make the surface area of the electrodes as large as possible, and speed up the process to the maximum possible levels…
OLA SWAGATAM SOU DO BRASIL, ME INTERESSEI MUITO POR ESTE CIRCUITO DE DIODOS PARA USAR EM CELULA DE HHO, EU OBTIVE UMA TENSÃO DE 108 VOLTS DC,EU TE PERGUNTO SE EXISTE PWM QUE POSSA CONTROLAR ESTA ESTA VOLTAGEM, E SEU PODERIA USAR ESTE SISTEMA EM CELULA DE HHO DE PLACAS DE AÇO INOX DE 1 MM DE ESPESSURA….? OBRIGADO PELA SUA ATENÇÃO E PARABENS PELO SEUS PROJETOS E INVENTOS É DE GRANDE IMPORTANCIA PARA TODA A HUMANIDADE OBRIGADO NOVAMENTE.
Graças Wallace, você pode tentar um dimmer de luz ou qualquer dimmer de ventilador de teto ordinário e usá-lo para controlar o nÃvel HHO ….
Super like
Really thanks for sharing this idea…
Is there anyway we can monitor the volume of gases evolved? This is important in order to use this fuel cell in practical applications.
It could be probably done using the following explained gas sensor module and by configuring its output with a digital voltmeter
https://homemade-circuits.com/2015/04/gas-leakage-alarm-circuit.html
electrolysis at reduced voltage will be highly inefficient and ineffective, unless an external agent is added which would result in generating some other gas instead of HHO
by the 220V is not dangerous until it's handled with negligence and ignorance.
thanks, but please do not misinterpret something wrongly, here's what's written in the above article:
THIS METHOD HAS BEEN DISCOVERED BY ME, I ASSUME SO, BECAUSE IT'S NOT BEEN DISCUSSED ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE NET SO FAR.
here the "method" refers to the using of 220V DC for the electrolysis and absolutely without any external chemical such as salt of soda.
show me one link on internet which has explained this process.
Hydrogen released in this process is twice the amount of oxygen. so the flask containing negative electrode will have more amount of hydrogen and more pressure. This pressure will push down the water in the inverted falsk.
So the whole system has to be contained effectively using valves and pressure guages.
thank you for the info…!
hi swagatam i tried this method but i dont know whether it is releasing oxygen nd hydrogen am using graphite rods which are taken from batteries and are placed in 20ml syringes and gas is coollected by connecting the syringe to a pipe… but am not observing any reduction in water in positive electrode after some time the water becomes yellowish colour pls help me its urgent i shud cmplete my project
Hi power star,
since water is made up of H2O, then obviously the process is going to generate HHO in the relevant chambers, but do not use any form of catalyst like baking soda or salt…because simply it's not required.
the yellowish color could be due to impurities in water.
single graphite rods will not yield anything significant and could take days and months for the water to get reduced and converted to HHO…..you will need arrays of such electrodes or square graphite plates arranged in stacks in 2mm gap in order to get maximum response in minimum amount of time.
Oo thanku.. instead of plates any other??
try to use electrodes with maximum surface area in the water
Thanks for providing this information!!
using this system what is the amps, also what is the volume of gases generated.
I did not measure these parameters.
Wow I want someone to teach and mentor me about chemistry and physics
As a matter of interest regarding my question about pressure/H2O etc – a wikipedia page that speaks about 'Nernst equation' & 'cold fusion' says
"… calculated that a palladium cathode immersed in a heavy water electrolysis cell could achieve up to 10 to the 27 atmospheres of pressure on the surface of the cathode, enough pressure to cause spontaneous nuclear fusion. In reality, only 10,000-20,000 atmospheres were achieved."
Although not an answer to my simple question, I am reminded that 'If you sup with the Devil. Use a long spoon.' 🙂
Thanks for the info Steve, and make sure the spoon is long enough 😀
ok – thanks Swagatam. As you suggest others my be able to comment.
Helo again Swagatam,
Thank you for your kind reply. You have set me thinking about the following:
If two carbon rods where set into the walls of a very high pressure (non conductive) container that was completley filled with clean water then hydrolysis started. Would you care to speculate on what order of pressuere would eventualy build up in the tank as the H2O was split?
Hello Steve, that sounds very interesting, however being exclusively from the electronics domain, I have very little idea regarding how chemical reactions work, so I may not be the right person to speculate this, may be some other knowledgeable gentleman would want to comment on this.
That's an INCORRECT information.
HHO from electrolysis process can never form Dihydrogen monoxide or water.
By the way Dihydrogen monoxide is just an alternate scientific name for water.
Please do not encourage Hoax, and stay away from deceptive and malicious information
Hi Swagatam.
You leave a comment for me that says:
Please do not encourage Hoax, and stay away from deceptive and malicious information
I'm sorry you think any of the information I gave was a Hoax, deceptive or malicious information.
As I said "I am only a Layman, but I do believe"(Please note is said 'believe'), and I did not say that (I know!), and I still do 'believe' it to be the truth that:
1)If you mix Pure Oxygen and Pure Hydrogen you may get water / 'Dihydrogen Monoxide'.
2)Graphite rods which are taken from batteries may contain noxious chemicals and dangerous metals, you would probably be better off with the graphite Rods that you buy four pencils.
3)Note: "pencil leads" do not have lead in them, they are made from graphite and clay.
4)Even though the size of "pencil leads" is small, a few fix together will give you a greater surface area then one large rod.
5)The "Facts About Dihydrogen Monoxide" Was just a bit of fun information and Light reading for your followers.
I did notice that one of your readers was thinking about making oxygen to breathe so I do think that point two three and four are very valid points in this case.
I have looked at many of your circuits, and I have seen how hard you have worked to help people, in my mind you are a great person, and you seem to have a great knowledge electronics.
I would just like to say thank you for your articles, and thank you for making the world a better place.
I do not know which post or where in my posts there was deceptive or malicious information, so I'm going to delete all my comments, feel free to repost any of my points that you may think applicable accurate or necessary.
So sorry for bad post, wish you all the best for you and your site.
Regards, Lee
Thank you Lee for clarifying your point of view, I did not mean to hurt you, I was just worried about the fact that readers might get a wrong impression about the above circuit, and get confused whether to use it or not.
I strongly believe that HH and O in the atmosphere can never combine until these are forcibly fitted through some specialized equipment.
Anyway, I appreciate your concern and sensibility…please keep reading my articles and feel free to express your thoughts through your valuable comments.
And I am very glad you liked my articles, it's a great pleasure to have readers like you in my website
Hello Swagatam Your process is similar to stanley myer electrolysis by using high voltage and high frequency power source and best to be resonant frequency of water moleculer that cause breaking hydorgen bonds ..but the above method it think it is generating HO gas and not pure Oxygen .. So can you confirm if it is generating pure Oxygen
Best regards
Hello Ossama, since water is composed of hydrogen also we cannot stop its generation. Moreover in electrolysis hydrogen will be generated along with oxygen. However here, since the two electrodes are separated by a good distance and Hydrogen being much lighter will quickly escape through the home ventilation, leaving behind pure oxygen. To make it even more safer, we can terminate the hydrogen gas through a pipe system outside the premise.
Hello Swagatam,
I have to realy admire your patience in dealing with most of the comments addressed to you about making gasses this way. I I have been working in electronics & electrics for over 60 years. I would NEVER have the courage to present such a high(ish) voltage method to 'lay' people. Please discourage your readers from using 'table salt' + low voltage as this will make chlorine also. If they try 'salt' with your circuit (nothing wrong with it as you have well advised) then they will be in for very bad news. Also stress the use of carbon electrodes (unless you have some platinum about!) & insulate any copper used to connect to them that is under water or they will be introduced to eletroplating (Areldite epoxy glue is good.) Keep up the good work & thanks.
Steve Bloggs
Thanks so much Steve,
I am aware of the dangers associated with the above design and that's why I have put the warning message at the bottom of the article. I have also suggested the elimination of any kind of external chemical agent in the procedure which would actually spoil the purpose of the proposed experiment.
In one of the comments I have also recommended the use of graphite rods instead of metal…
Anyway, I appreciate your valuable concern and hope that the viewers read and understand the precautions emphasized by you.
Many thanks.
hi swagatam,
you said via AC you will get force so that gases will get separate but y again you are converting AC to DC via rectifier,then it is as usual rite i.e, it will get power from DC only rite
Hi power star,
it's the voltage level that's important, and AC will never work actually.
therefore the AC is rectified to DC at around 300V, which makes it possible to force the electrolysis significantly even without an external catalyst agent.
hi,
I have been suffering with heart problem, it cause low oxygen levels in my body, could you please tell me can I use this experiment for making oxygen for increase body oxygen. kindly give me the details. I am poor I cannot purchase oxygen concentrate machine. please contact me at rcheburthy@gmail.com. thank you.
The above set up will generate oxygen and hydrogen for sure, hydrogen will go up in the air since it's lighter than air, oxygen will stay in the premise, however I am not sure whether it will hep your cause or not, you better consult a physician about it.
Use graphite material for the electrodes.