Proceeding of ISBN 978-602-17952-1-7 2 nd International Conference on Sustainable Energy Engineering and Application Grand Hotel Preanger, Bandung, Indonesia 14 – 15 October 2014 © 2014 Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Research Centre for Electrical Power and Mechatronics Available online at http://www.icseea.org Experimental investigation of HHO gas generation from water as renewable energy source for educational purpose Asaad Zuhair Abdulameer a , Yanuar Z. Arief a, *, Zuraimy Adzis a , M. Abu Bakar Sidik a,b , Nor Asiah Muhamad a a Institute of High Voltage & High Current (IVAT), Faculty of Electrical Egineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 81310 Johor Bahru, Malaysia b Department of Electrical Engineering, Fakulty of Engineering, University of Sriwijaya, Palembang, Indonesia Abstract Energy demand in the world continues to increase as increasing in development and population growth. The need for a cleaner, cheaper and friendlier energy source is on the rise. However, the fossil fuel price is also on the rising trend. The attempt to find alternative renewable energy sources is become urgent need. HHO gas generation from water is one alternative for a renewable energy source. This gas has been used in a lot of different uses, from lighting to industry. It can also be used as a fuel source. Recently, with increasing fossil fuel prices, there has been a lot of interest in using HHO gas in cars as supplement to gas to reduce fuel prices. The aim of this project is to construct a simple prototype of HHO gas generator from water for educational purpose. The effect of the type of water source and auxiliary materials, namely soda (NaHCO3) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) on energy output, current, voltage and efficiency of the system have been selected as main focus on this work. The results demonstrate that the maximum energy output of HHO gas generated when using sodium hydroxide as auxiliary material with concentration of 5 gram in distilled water. Moreover, by using the sodium hydroxide could reduce generation time of HHO gas significantly. It is also found that maximum efficiency is 44% at auxiliary material type of sodium hydroxide with concentration of 5 gram in distilled water. It is recommended to use sodium hydroxide as auxiliary material with low concentration to generate HHO gas. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Research Centre for Electrical Power and Mechatronics, Indonesian Institute of Sciences Keywords: HHO gas; renewable energy source; tap water; distilled water; soda; sodium hydroxide; voltage; current; production time; efficiency. 1. Introduction Hydrocarbon fuels provide the primary source of energy used in the world. These fuels are used for applications such as electrical power generation, heating and transportation. Although hydrocarbon fuels provide energy for our world, they have several very serious side effects. These negative side effects include harmful polluting emissions, increased levels of greenhouse gas and catastrophic disasters such as large scale oil spills. High costs and political instability, due to foreign sources, also are negative side effects. Due to the widespread dependence on hydrocarbon fuels and the difficulty of their replacement, it is not economically feasible to completely eliminate their in the near future. New techniques are needed to significantly reduce the harmful emissions and consumption of hydrocarbon fuels. One possible way to reduce consumption and emissions of hydrocarbon fuels is using hydrogen as a fuel supplement. Many studies have shown that adding a small amount of hydrogen gas to the air intake of a combustion process can reduce the emissions and fuel consumption. These studies have shown that hydrogen is able to improve the flame speed, lean burn ability, and flame quenching distance of hydrocarbon combustion in the cylinder leading to reduced fuel consumption and emissions [1-3]. Production of hydrogen rich gas from the electrolysis of water, at the point of use, could solve many of the potential difficulties of using hydrogen as fuel supplement to improve hydrocarbon combustion. This gas, also referred to as Brown’s gas or HHO (also known as oxyhydrogen), has been shown to exhibit properties that make it a much more reactive gas than * Corresponding author. Tel.: +607-5535342; fax: +607-5578150. E-mail address: yanuar@utm.my.