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gareth01422
03-04-2009, 01:57 PM
Hi guys

Thanks for all the help with my ideas and comments on my CAD drawings.

Update:

Today I went for a job interview to a research and development site in the UK. The position is for a design engineer with Solidworks skills, Sheet metal background and high volume manufacturing experience. Also having a basic knowledge of hydrogen and how it is made.

Well I thought I had hit the jackpot when i was told they wanted me in for an interview.

Anyway off I went this morning suited and booted with portfolio in hand.

In the first part of the interview we talked about the role and I could see the director wasn’t that interested in anything i had to say really. I showed them a few parts of my portfolio which didn’t impress them at all until I flicked to the pictures of my cell drawings (links below). They started more or less interrogating me what they were and how they worked. I wasn’t holding anything back and answered there questions directly. At this point the director said h we should look at what they have built so far. Off we went through the main office with about 5 workers at max, into the lab which was about the same size of the office with only 2 workers. We walked the back of the lab where he showed me there designs. There were 2 HHO cell setups in front of me. 1 was a small setup with not many components and the other one was rather scaled up, although the cell size was same as the other. He explained that they had the bigger setup commissioned by an outside source.
The cell it-self was only about 3" square and the 2 outside plates were stainless steel about 20mm thick. All 1/4" stainless steel piped with st/st elbows and taps all in a nice Perspex case.

The bubbler they were using was a big unit with some really crappy looking solution in the bottom. The dimensions of this bubbler were about 10" diameter with a smaller cylinder on top of about 5" diameter and 5" in length. Also this was made out of 1" high impact clear plastic (well so it looked like).

NOW FOR THE JUICY BIT.

At this point I thought it was about time I asked some questions of my own.

My first question was " What material are you using in your cell? 316L? "

Answer, " NO, NO, there is some really exotic materials in there "

My second question was "Why have you got 2 tubes coming out of the top of the cell? "

Answer, "one is for oxygen coming out and the other is for hydrogen as at one side of the cell the gas is all oxygen and the other was htdrogen"

Conclusion: As for the first question i thought that maybe they have really taken the chemistry set to far because they only had 1+ and 1- plate which are the 2 outside end plates. And had no neutral plate’s in-between only a ceramic block about 1 1/4" deep (from endplate to endplate). And also been only 3" square cell I thought they wouldn’t get much gas out it anyway.

But as for the second question I think there could be some truth to this but they had the pipes next to each other and not one above the other because of the weight difference I though the hydrogen tube would be at the top and oxygen at the bottom.

Anyway after leaving the lab the three of us went back into the interview room. He explained to me that they had a 3 year time scale to get this product to market which I thought was all a bit adventurous for a company of this size. So we talked more and at the end I realized that I don’t think they would be there in 3 years and I don’t think I would have fit into the team that well. So I didn’t get job but I just wanted to share what is happening out there.

Any thoughts on my experience would be great. This could turn into another interesting topic.

Links to the drawings i showed:-
http://www.box.net/shared/tcacsdnqdn
http://www.box.net/shared/ji5okxjexr

Gareth

Boltazar
03-04-2009, 11:20 PM
Over all, pretty cool situation. Your eyes must have lit up when you saw that cell. I'd like to learn more about the center ceramic plate and how their getting H and O at separate sides. Voltage their running at, amps? I'm very familiar with Solid Works, great parametric solid modeling program, not cheep either.

gareth01422
03-05-2009, 05:46 AM
Over all, pretty cool situation. Your eyes must have lit up when you saw that cell. I'd like to learn more about the center ceramic plate and how their getting H and O at separate sides. Voltage their running at, amps? I'm very familiar with Solid Works, great parametric solid modeling program, not cheep either.

Yes Solidworks is a really powerfull tool to have. and the addons are good too.

From the way they were talking at the interview, they are running very low preasure " 1/2 bar " so not a lot. The ceramic plates wasnt plates as such it looked like a square section, What looked funny to me was the really crappy looking liquid they were using in the bubbler!!!!!

Gary Diamond
03-06-2009, 01:34 AM
Yes Solidworks is a really powerfull tool to have. and the addons are good too.

From the way they were talking at the interview, they are running very low preasure " 1/2 bar " so not a lot. The ceramic plates wasnt plates as such it looked like a square section, What looked funny to me was the really crappy looking liquid they were using in the bubbler!!!!!

Well Gareth, at least it got you past the front door. What's the price of gas on your side of the pond?

gareth01422
03-06-2009, 07:16 AM
Well Gareth, at least it got you past the front door. What's the price of gas on your side of the pond?

The price at the moment for petrol is 89.9p/litre and deisel is £1.05p/litre. I was watching a youtube video from last year and the guy was saying they are going to bring the price of a barrol of oil down to £50. this is a good thing in a way but also a bad thing for OUR currancy.

gareth01422
03-06-2009, 07:22 AM
Just a quick update:

Ive worked out what they were doing with there cell at the interview. Ive attached a image that ive found on google. I dont really understand the process they are using but i cant imagine them generating much hydrogen.