The key word here is "recombinant". The oxygen that was originally
bound to the hydrogen does not just cease to exist. The caps just
recombine what was in the battery to begin with. The catylist just
incourages them to join together. The process is slow and continuous so
there is no actual fire but it does produce heat. That is why you have
to remove the caps when equalizing. The gas is produced at a much
higher rate when equalizing so the reaction is faster and enough heat is
generated to melt the caps and the case around the fill holes.

The whole purpose of high performance charging systems with 3 stage
regulators is to get the maximum charge into the bank in the least
amount of time. Therefore it has to charge the bank at a rate very
close to the gassing point.

While antimony not used in Gel and AGM batteries it is still used in wet
cell batteries.

"No maintenance" batteries, more properly called Valve Regulated Lead
Acid are maintained under from 1 to 4 PSI The pressure encourages
recombination of most of the gasses but once the level drops to low they
are trash. They are OK for starting batteries that never get bulk
charged but suffer a quick and painfull death as deep cycles.

No question that AGMs are the future of lead acid batteries but right
now when it comes to total amps per dollar good old wet cell L16s and
golf cart batteries have them beat hands down.

BTW, you should read the links you posted. Everything I have said is
verified in them. :-)

Larry W4CSC wrote:
Does anyone know how this miracle works? How does hydrogen passing
platinum produce water at room temperature? Where does the oxygen
come from? Air vents out of the cell as soon as hydrogen displaces
it, leaving pure hydrogen.

Now let's look at batteries.......

Run down your deep cycle battery to 11 volts. Put the charger on at
10 or 20 A and wait 20 minutes for it to charge a while. Open up the
cells and look inside. Notice it's not "perking" away? Why?

A long time ago, lead plates in lead-acid batteries was supported by a
grid of antimony built into the plates. Lead is too soft to hold
itself up in thin sheets. During charging, the antimony reacted with
the water, splitting up the hydrogen and oxygen and causing the
hydrogen to vent out of the batteries in LARGE amounts, causing an
awful explosion hazard as it had to be vented out of the batteries.
WW2 subs had bad hydrogen problems in their battery compartments and
many died from the explosions.

Modern batteries no long use antimony to support the lead dioxide
plates. The alloys used now react much less and produce almost no
gas. (Notice the maintenance-free battery in your car? Why doesn't
it gas like hell and use lots of water?)

Great information is available on:
http://www.vonwentzel.net/Battery/00.Glossary/
http://www.flex.com/~kalepa/technotes.htm
http://www.4unique.com/battery/battery_tutorial.htm
http://www.ctts.nrel.gov/BTM/pdfs/evs_17paper.pdf

Most of the outgassing is caused by CHARGING TOO FAST...charging it
faster than it can chemically react. Charge them as slow as you
can.....with the latest pulse technology is nice, too!

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 1 Oct 2003 08:23:48 +0200, "Meindert Sprang"
wrote:


Just basic chemistry. Use the right catalyst and you get a controlled
reaction instead of an explosion.

Meindert


I'll play along for a while. What catalyst will combine hydrogen and
oxygen without an explosion?

The one that is used in fuel cells, for instance.

Meindert

On Wed, 1 Oct 2003 09:57:33 -0400, "Jeff Morris"
jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote:

Google "hydrogen catalyst" and you'll find links like:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/view.html?get=8740

This article is about turning hydrocarbons, rich in hydrogen into
hydrogen, which is logical. But, this miracle-in-the-cap turns
hydrogen, which contains no oxygen, into water! I'm still baffled how
it turns hydrogen into water when there is no oxygen to do it! It's
amazing!

The word "Ancient Alchemist" comes to mind.....(c;



Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 1 Oct 2003 09:57:33 -0400, "Jeff Morris"
jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote:

Google "hydrogen catalyst" and you'll find links like:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/view.html?get=8740

This article is about turning hydrocarbons, rich in hydrogen into
hydrogen, which is logical. But, this miracle-in-the-cap turns
hydrogen, which contains no oxygen, into water! I'm still baffled how
it turns hydrogen into water when there is no oxygen to do it! It's
amazing!

The word "Ancient Alchemist" comes to mind.....(c;

Look at http://www.fuelcells.org/whatis.htm
There you see it explained. And for the battery caps: hydrogen comes from
the inside and oxygen is present on both the inside as the outside of the
battery.

Meindert

Sorry, I grabbed the wrong link. You might try this one:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/RE/hydrogen_fuel_cells.html

Here's Steve Dashew's review:
http://www.setsail.com/c_central/techtalk/hydrocap.html

Why do you say there's no Oxygen? Where does the Hydrogen come from? As far as I know,
my simple Trojan golf cart batteries have no vent other than the filler cap, so the oxygen
and hydrogen must escape out the same hole.

One thing I don't know is what percentage of the water loss is evaporation and how much is
from hydrogen/oxygen venting. The Hydrocaps can help for both causes, though they
shouldn't be used while equalizing.


"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 1 Oct 2003 09:57:33 -0400, "Jeff Morris"
jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote:

Google "hydrogen catalyst" and you'll find links like:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/view.html?get=8740

This article is about turning hydrocarbons, rich in hydrogen into
hydrogen, which is logical. But, this miracle-in-the-cap turns
hydrogen, which contains no oxygen, into water! I'm still baffled how
it turns hydrogen into water when there is no oxygen to do it! It's
amazing!

The word "Ancient Alchemist" comes to mind.....(c;



Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

Larry W4CSC wrote:

This article is about turning hydrocarbons, rich in hydrogen into
hydrogen, which is logical. But, this miracle-in-the-cap turns
hydrogen, which contains no oxygen, into water! I'm still baffled how
it turns hydrogen into water when there is no oxygen to do it! It's
amazing!

The word "Ancient Alchemist" comes to mind.....(c;

Are you are saying that the oxygen that was originally tied to the
hydrogen that is now free just vanished into nothingness? Not THAT's
Alchemy! (or maybe "Modern Physyics".) :-)

Does it not seem logical that an oxygen molecule that has happily
cohabitated with a couple of hydrogen molecules and suddenly has them
stripped away is not going to sit quietly by and let the hydrogen slip
out of the battery alone? Both of them need to share electrons with
somebody and all the platinum does is incourage them to reconcile.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

I'm referring to folks that have them and use them.

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 23:12:54 -0400, "Doug Dotson"
wrote:

Dunno, but they do get good reviews.

Boat reviews are mostly just sales brochures designed to move
inventory. There aren't many places, like David Pascoe's, that will
just say something really sucks when it really sucks.

I've even seen excellent reviews on Bayliner's crap with the riveted
hatches put on crooked......



Larry W4CSC

3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?

I was referring to cruisers that have talked to
that have them. Sorry, I didn't make that clear.

Doug

"Vito" wrote in message
...
Doug Dotson wrote:

Dunno, but they do get good reviews.

A company selling devices guaranteed to increase your motorcycle's HP
and mileage set up a demo booth at a major rally and one of the foremost
cruising bike rags paid them several $100 to install a set in a bike
they were testing. Sure enough, they got more apparent power and
measured a 10% increase in mileage and gave the device a stunning
review. Naturally, the company hyped that report to sell 1000s of their
devices.

Meanwhile, performance oriented rags said "BS!", if they worked why
didn't mfgr.s like Honda use them to whup their rivals on the track? One
rag did a before-after dyno test that proved the things actually cut
power and mileage. Miffed, the first rag decided to dupe that test.
Since the devices were already in their bike they did runs with them
first. Then they tried to remove them and guess what - to their
everlasting chagrin the crooks selling them had never installed them and
they were left to explain why an *unchanged* bike had made more power
and used less gas!! At least they were honest enough to admit they'd
been duped - which is more than most will do. I've been leery of reviews
ever since ....

BOEING377 wrote:
Do those so called catalytic battery caps actually work? The are supposed to
use a catalyst recombine outgassing molecules back into H2O which drips back
into the battery cell. I am sceptical.


They work very well. We used them on batteries installed in manned
submersibles where function and reliability was, as you may imagine,
critical.

Rick

Larry W4CSC wrote:


I 'spoze the caps might catch evaporating water....but regular caps do
that....


Thanks for the chuckle.

This coming from a guy with a signature like that below?

You really do need another layer of foil in that helmet, Larry.


3600 planes with transponders are burning 8-10 million
gallons of kerosene per hour over the USA. R-12 car air
conditioners are responsible for the ozone hole, right?



Now THAT rates a chuckle.

Rick