Plasma reformation allows us to create hydrogen from any source, whether it be a hydrocarbon, or water. It uses very tiny particles of water or fuels, and since these particles are so small, the electric field can easily break them apart. Unlike a submerged cell where we have liquid in mass quantity it takes large amounts of energy to break them up compared to a plasma converting a very light particle. You see the larger the field surrounding a particle (energy density per molecule) the easier it is to break the particle up. We don't have this luxury in a submerged cell because we have a highly loaded power supply which is trying to break up a high density liquid.
I suppose a good analogy is a rock crusher. The more rocks you throw in at once, the more the engine has to work on order to break those rocks up into smaller ones. The less rocks you throw into the jaws, the less work has to be performed at one time. Plasma physics is a complex science and the equations I cannot comprehend (I am not schooled in physics nor complex mathematics) but it is easy enough to adjust the field to be strong enough to make hydrogen on demand from vapor.
This is what Stan was doing with the water injector, it took a very small amount of water and placed it into an intense, but low power field. It would create enough energy just from one droplet to force a piston in an ICE at least once, which is all we need. The lighter the particle (I.E. the better atomized) the easier it is to break it into it's constituent components (atoms) which some then recombine into the molecules they are attracted to combine with. This means we can use a fraction of the power it would normally require in a submerged electrolysis cell and create far more hydrogen on demand as it enters the intake of the engine, regardless of whether it is a turbine combustor or piston, etc.
We can easily create a fine vapor or atomized stream by ultrasonics, or heat to create steam (as Meyer did). And we can also control the flow of vapor and the voltage level and current of the field breaking the vapor. So now we have ideal conditions that are extremely simple to build versus the electronics required for a submerged cell. We can vary the vapor volume by a simple butterfly valve or needle valve so we have full control of throttle using only one simple, reliable component. It also means we have no large tank but only a small (i.e. 1/2" diameter) nozzle which the vapor flows through. If we need more volume of hydrogen we simply add more nozzles and apply the same power supply input to them and thereby multiply our fuel input on demand. The government labs are working on this at a feverish pace. LANL and others are wanting to use these techniques on fuels because they can increase mileage by 50 percent or more and reduce emissions by 90 percent. When using a water vapor along with this setup then we can improve those stats even further. On diesels we use a pump to force the vapor into the intake under pressure thereby dealing with the vacuum issues with those engines. You can also pull the vapor/hydrogen stream into the engine via the compressor on a turbo and eliminate the need for any other type of pump.
My investor is of course wanting the "holy grail" of fuels which is of course running straight distilled water into the plasma stream to drive an engine. We require TDC or later timing in piston engines because hydrogen has such a rapid flame rate it will try and force the piston down before it reaches top dead center which causes the engine to run poorly and sometimes not at all. Plasma ignition is obtained by a simple capacitive discharge ignition running in the 700 to 1000 volts DC. When the arc from the stock ignition is created the capacitor discharges it's current across the established gap and we have a large plasma ball created inside the combustion chamber, which further breaks any molecules down into hydrogen rich streams and then immediately fires the mixture. So we have a slightly higher load on the alternator, but it plays us back in power and the ability to run (mostly) water and only a tiny amount of gasoline is needed. Soon there will not be any need for fuels to get the engine running and we can pre-charge the intake with hydrogen rich gas to start and run. We are not there yet but we have only been working on this scheme for about three months and it already shows good promise.
Hope that helps,
Tad