regarding "hydroxy" gas as a lifting agent

Hello, fellow blimp enthusiasts:
I assume most of you live in the USA, where bottled He is a feasible option for use as a lifting agent. But where I live (South America), self-generated H2 is the only practical alternative at my disposal. Now, there are many methods of generating H2... electrolysis, chemical reactions (acid plus metal) etc. I would like to draw your attention to a device featured on youtube (key words: hydrogen generator) that breaks down distilled water (with a bit of KOH as an electrolyte), thus forming a mixture of gaseous hydrogen and oxygen. Unlike traditional set-ups, where the oxygen forms at one electrode and hydrogen at the other, this gizmo simply releases the two gases combined. Of course, the oxygen content of this gaseous mixture does reduce its buoyancy when compared to pure H2, but the upside is the simplicity and low cost of the device, together with its impressive rate of gas production (something like 30 liters per minute). So.... could this so-called "hydroxy" gas be a cheap and easy-to-produce alternative to pure H2?  

GREETINGS NO. You want PURE hydrogen gas for a lift gas. ZERO AIR OR OXYGEN !!! HYDROX GAS goes BOOM just thinking the word spark ! The Hydrox out put seems good because of both gases being liberated at the same time, but it is a highly explosive mixture. Dont use it.

If you can keep them from recombining and split the gases someone, probably with something that will absorb the oxygen... calmly.  You would not want to pipe this directly into your craft.

Hello and welcome to the board/group/project!  Where in SA are you?

If you can't buy H2. I think electrolysis would be the best option. Welcome to the forum!

Go to you tube and search huge hydrogen explosion. look for the big pillow looking balloon. It's filled with Hydrox.

Let's take 1 mole of water and electrolize it.

H2O --> H2 + 1/2 O2

So we get one mole of Hydrogen and 1/2 mole of Oxygen ( Remember MASS is conserved not moles! )

Each mole is 22.4 liters of gas at STP. So we have 33.6 total liters. This is 2/3 H2 and 1/3 O2. Now the Molecular weights of H2 is 2 and O2 is 15.999. So the effective molecular weight of the mix is 21.666 so this is worse than H2, He, NH3, CH4 as lifting gases go. So just stay with pure H2. Low cost, you can make it and it is the best lift performer since no structural engineer has made a vacuum tank light enough to float without it collapsing.

H2 can be made separately via electrolysis, all you must do is separate the electrodes. I have done so with this device   and I'm planning on building an even safer, higher volume device.

Hydrogen is explosive when mixed with oxygen. Pure hydrogen has a lift of 11.19 N/cu-m diluted with oxygen you loose a third. Methane give you 5.39 N/cu-m but is just as combustable an Hydrogen, and can be made from decomposition. Another lift gas is ammonia which can be made from urea. Urea is the way the liver deals with ammonia production from the breakdown of proteins. Ammonia itself is very toxic and in the form of urea it can safely be eliminated from the body: 2NH3 + CO2 <-> (NH2)2CO + H2O This is a reversable reaction and the urea can be fermented by microbes back to ammonia. Ammonia provides 4.97 N/cu-m but is toxic however in an open space a leak will rise away from the basket.