Week Five

The engine has arrived and we have set upon the daunting task of assembling it correctly. The group has determined that measuring the temperature of the exhaust would be the most efficient method of measuring efficiency. After assembly is completed, we will get cylinders of ethanol and hydrogen and find a safe place to conduct the experiment. The initial trial will run the engine on pure ethanol to measure its efficiency alone. Once this is complete, it will be compared to an ethanol/hydrogen fuel. The efficiency of the fuels will be considered in terms of cost per kilo-BTU. If these ratios are proven to be near or exceeding those of common gasoline, an argument for the cleaner fuel source could be made.

Week Four

Examination of Drexel's calorimeter proved it to be inoperable without extensive repair, and some extra parts. Learning about the way it functions was educational in itself, however, and gave us a much better understanding of how we should hope to get test data from our experiment. Our next step will be to order a 50cc motorcycle engine, and modify it to conduct testing with ethanol mixtures. The testing method for this would be to either make efficiency calculations off of the piston movement, or by measuring exhaust temperatures.

The hydrogen generator was proven to work as expected, instead of forming any unexpected gasses. This was confirmed by using an ignition test; by holding a small open flame up to the newly formed gasses, a flare-up was detected, thereby proving that we were successfully separating hydrogen and oxygen cleanly.