Apparatus for generating water electrolytic gas

The present application claims priority of Japanese Patent Application 2007-336676, filed Dec. 27, 2007.

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an apparatus that generates a water electrolytic gas, i.e., an apparatus that produces a large quantity of a water electrolytic gas in a potassium hydroxide electrolyte, and that separates and extracts from the electrolyte a water electrolytic gas.

2. Related Arts

It is well known that water (H₂O) is ionized in a basic potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution, and that hydroxide ions OH⁻ and hydrogen ions H⁺ are thus generated. The hydroxide ions OH⁻ are also called anions, which are ions that move from a cathode (a negative electrode) to an anode (a positive electrode), while the hydrogen ions H⁺ are also called cations, which are ions that move from the anode (the positive electrode) to the cathode (the negative electrode). The hydrogen ions H⁺ are covalently bound with the water molecules H₂O that are present in the solution, and generate “oxonium ions (H₃O⁺)”. This indicates that in an environment wherein water and hydrogen ions coexist, i.e., in an electrolytic cell, most of the ions, due to covalent binding, are present as “oxonium ions H₃O⁺”.

The hydroxide ions OH⁻, which are anions, and the oxonium ions H₃O⁺, can be obtained by the electric decomposition of water using a basic electrolyte, i.e., through the electrolysis of water.

On the other hand, conventionally, many and varied types of water electrolytic gas generation apparatuses have been produced that generate a water electrolytic gas (hydrogen-oxygen gas) through water electrolysis, and employ this gas as a fuel. Since the first water electrolytic gas generation apparatus was developed by Austrian Yull Brown, this water electrolytic gas is also called Brown\'s gas. This water electrolytic gas is normally in the state of mist.

The present invention relates to an apparatus that efficiently generates a large amount of a water electrolytic gas.

A variety of arrangements for performing the electrolysis of water have been disclosed. An electrolyzed water generation apparatus disclosed in patent document 1 is designed so that an anode 13a is arranged in an anode chamber 13 of an electrolytic cell 11 and a cathode 14a is arranged in a cathode chamber 14 thereof, and a permeable membrane (an ion exchange membrane) 12, which serves as a partition, is interposed between the two electrode chambers. With this apparatus, the anode chamber 13 is employed as a chamber through which water flows, while the cathode chamber 14 is a retention chamber within which a sodium chloride solution or a hydrochloride solution is retained. With this arrangement, ions of the effective components contained in the solution that remains in the cathode chamber 14 pass through the permeable membrane 12 and react with the hydrogen ions of the water that flows into the anode chamber 13, and as a result, acidic electrolyzed water, used, for example, as sterilized water, is generated. Therefore, the purpose and arrangement of this patent document differ from those of the present invention.

A water electrolysis gas generation apparatus disclosed in patent document 2 is so designed that an ion exchange membrane 3 and a close contact material 4 are superimposed and mounted between two electrodes 2, i.e., an anode and a cathode, to perform electrolysis for a solution in an electrolytic cell. As a result of this electrolysis process, oxygen and hydrogen are respectively extracted, as gases, from an anode-side outlet 9a and a cathode-side outlet 9b. According to this arrangement, the material 4, which closely contacts the cathode side of the ion exchange membrane 3, is provided by applying gold, using sputtering, to the surface of a woven fabric or a mat, such as one composed of a carbon fiber or of nickel wool, and serves as an electrical conductor, and as a result, source gas can be efficiently generated. In this case, since the hydrogen and the oxygen gases are extracted completely separately, the purpose and arrangement of this patent document 2, as well as that of patent document 1, differ from the present invention.

Further, an apparatus that generates a hydrogen-oxygen gas mixture (Brown\'s gas) by performing water electrolysis is disclosed in patent documents 3 and 4. Since a high heat and strong combustion can be obtained by appropriately employing with a fuel a hydrogen-oxygen gas mixture generated by this apparatus, various arrangements are disclosed. However, the purpose and the arrangement employed for this patent document, as well as for the above described patent documents, differ from those of the present invention.

[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. 2001-321770

[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. 11-209887

[Patent Document 3] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. 2002-155387

[Patent Document 4] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Application No. 2004-204347

The purpose of the present invention is the provision of an apparatus that, to efficiently generate a large quantity of a water electrolytic gas, employs a water electrolysis technique for which a potassium hydroxide electrolyte is used, and that, to separate and extract a water electrolytic gas, performs gas-liquid separation relative to the electrolyte.

The object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus that efficiently and continuously generates a large amount of water electrolytic gas generated using the electrolysis of water as a combustion improver for considerably improving the combustion efficiency of a hydrocarbon fuel.

The present inventors devoted themselves to a study of an apparatus that can efficiently and continuously generate a large amount of water electrolytic gas, and completed the present invention.