Protection from FREEZING !!!!

[Bob]

Winter is soon upon us guys and from the looks of things KOH and Lemonaid will freeze solid !
and we have to come up with an Antifreeze for the Hydroxy cells or risk splitting both the bubbler and the cell itself to pieces !
 Randy has tried Denatured Alcohol, and I have put KOH and water in the freezer to see if it freezes...
it does... at Randys request I also put Muratic Acid in the freezer...it does not freeze even after a week ( I forgot it in there!) but I don't think it can be used in the Hydroxy cell even if we want to
not totally sure what they use it for in swimming pools but i think its an Acid Killer or Clorine killer
to bring the clorine down after shock treetment !
...if thats the case it will neturilise the KOH... and thats lible to kill conductivity !
...
I dunno... but we need a good anti-freeze !
anyone got any bright ideas
Bob
 

[randy]

Hey I forgot to let anyone know, the denatured alcohol works, but you've got to start over with the electrolyte mixture, seems the 20% denatured alcohol and distilled has some conductivity, thought it messed up my cell so I drained it and opened it up, everything looked great so I sealed er back up and reinstalled, I mixed the alcohol and water then added the koolaid until the amps were up to snuff, hasn't had a problem since.

[LarryW]

I thought I heard something about running windshield washer fluid.  I do now it will run off of it, but.. not sure if it hurts anything???

[geezer]

I must be missing something .But how do you expect to keep the alcohol from evaporating. I have seen too many fruit jars filled not to know that when you warm up the mash the alcohol is the first to leave.

[geezer]

  P.S.forgot but on one of the other fourms there was a guy said he was using the yellow antifreeze dex with no problems next time i go to town will try to remember to pick up some.

[hydrotinkerer]

I'll look tomarrow when I get to work, I believe w/washer antifreeze is alcohol based. I believe any alcohol added to your gens would have to be added frequently due to evaporation. Better than the alternative(frozen, broken, bent generators). I don't know anything about it but would RV water tank antifreeze work? Is it the same as regular coolant?

[randy]

when I need to add fluid I've been adding 50/50 distilled & alcohol.

[Bob]

Kool !
well that helps SOME !
...I have a storm comeing in wensday or thursday and the temps are fairly low so I may get snow... man I sure hope not ! I got too much junk to move still !
HAHAHAHHA
Bob.......

[murf26]

I'm using 2oz. of isopropyl alcohol in my Mason jar.  Works like a charm and seems to enhance starting my car in the morning(we've had freezing temps here in western NC).

[hydrotinkerer]

I was fooling around with litmus paper today. I was looking to see what different PH levels some stuff I had around the shop. The scale for my paper is 1-14. 1 being acid and 14 a base.
Koh was 14
Naoh was 14
Isopropyl alcohol was 7
methyl alcohol was 7
w/washer fluid was 7(contains methanol)
green antifreeze was 11(contains electrolysis inhibitors)
muriatic acid was 1

My thinking was whatever your using for catalyst you don't want to use something the opposite PH to keep your gens from freezing. I didn't have any koolaid to test.

[Bob]

Hummm...
OK, good point...
so how does this PH thing work... is there a acid scale and then a anti-acid scale or what?
is there more than one PH type ? or is acid of any kind, still an acid ?
...
something I've played very little with is Chemistry,

Please elaberate , have no fear you'll teach me something because I know noting on the subject !
HAHAHAHHA
Bob........

[hydrotinkerer]

Bob
Everything has a PH level even the human body. The scale from 1-14. 1 (muriatic acid)is the most acidic and 14 (Koh)the most caustic. All the other stuff falls in between.

A good example would be your gen using koolaid for electrolite. I will give it a (4 on the scale)if you mix green coolant with it (11 on the scale) by mixing the two together they would negate each other out. They would in turn be neutral and not produce any gas in your gen.

One more example would be koolaid for catalyst(4 rating) and you add Isopropyl alcohol(7 rating)for cold weather resistance. The alcohol would just dilute the koolaid lowering production and not stopping it.

Hope that helps with how PH levels work.

[randy]

it went the other way for me, my cell was very stable, just added water through the summer months, then it started getting cold this fall, the cell "actually 6 washer cells" used about 2 cups of water every 100 miles so I figured I'd just start adding denatured alcohol when I needed fluid, with each application the amps climbed about 2 amps, by the time I had 5 cups in there it started dead cold pulling 32 amps where before the alcohol it started cold at 20 amps.

[hydrotinkerer]

From a PH level the production would be lower. I wonder if the alcohol affects the water tension affecting your production? Does the alcohol evaporate at a fast rate? I wonder if electrolites that are neutral or lean to the acidic side produce better? You still would not want acidic gas passed to the engine so I wouldn't want to try that. So many questions and in my case so little time.

To bad you don't have any litmus paper to test the gas coming out of your gen. I would be curious to see if the reading would be acidic. I'll test mine but they all have Naoh in them so their going to be caustic(base).

[Bob]

Bob
Everything has a PH level even the human body. The scale from 1-14. 1 (muriatic acid)is the most acidic and 14 (Koh)the most caustic. All the other stuff falls in between.

A good example would be your gen using koolaid for electrolite. I will give it a (4 on the scale)if you mix green coolant with it (11 on the scale) by mixing the two together they would negate each other out. They would in turn be neutral and not produce any gas in your gen.

One more example would be koolaid for catalyst(4 rating) and you add Isopropyl alcohol(7 rating)for cold weather resistance. The alcohol would just dilute the koolaid lowering production and not stopping it.

Hope that helps with how PH levels work.

I hate Quotes but sense I was slow in answering this I think its nessarry...<GRIN>
Hydrotinkerier:
You said that Muratic acid (sp) is the most Acidic and KOH the most Caustic.... ummm ok whats the diference between acidic and caustic ? acid desolves stuff , that I know already,
and something that is caustic will Kill ya... ( i read lables too!)  but is Caustic a form of acidic action ? are they closely related or at oppisit ends of the scale ?
if we are trying to rip water apart, what is better to do that to water, Acid  or caustic stuff ?
Acid will break stuff down into its smaller parts, isn't that what we are after ?
..as far as I know the KOH does NOTHING to the water but increase its conductivity... does it do any thing else ?
...
I understand what you mean by adding the wrong 2 things togather you could get netural.... kind'a like 7up and Coke.... BLEAH!!!!!! they cancle each other out and your left with water of a diferent sort!
....
so I defiantly don't want to neutralize my cell by adding something that may keep it from freezing but un-does the conductivity at the same time !
... As per Randys Trial test there with the Denatured Alcohol its obvious that it didn't neutralize the cell , and its such a small amount that it shouldn't delute it too much...
... but the big question is how fast will it evaporate when in use....
I suppose if his water consumption goes up he will know that a portion of that additional loss is the alcohol being evaporated, and burned in the engine.