Running a Car on Hydrogen Made from Water

[catxin]

I think it's sad that the only one to provide a hypothesis to solving this mystery, On PhysicsForums.com, Is A Sixteen-Year Old! I know most scientists are pessimists, many strongly locked into their proven beliefs, but haven't you ever heard the saying if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all? Anyways, now that you have all succeeded in driving racprops from this forum,who was just trying to brainstorm with fellow enthusiasts, I'll give my guess as to what is going on in this seemingly free energy source.

I have looked at a lot of the welding sites that talk about brown's gas, which is very similar to normal hydrogen and oxygen gas produced by electrolysis. All of them seem fascinated with the IMPLOSIVE properties of the gas. Brown's gas takes up about twice as much room as regular H2 O2, but both turn to water when lit. I understand that this reaction gives off energy, but it is also strongly implosive(yeah, waters denser, but these gasses take up 900X more volume). Is it possible that the implosive property, and not the release of energy, is what would drive the engine, by creating a vacuum which would allow normal air pressure to push the cylinders? Also, when the gasses are created from water, wouldn't they absorb a lot of energy from the air(which comes from the sun), which would allow them to expand and become the same temperature as the air around them? Could this air energy help contribute to either the implosion or energy release that would drive the engine? Could the idea of using the force/temperature from the air somehow explain an overunity in the automobile? I don't mind factual critiscism.

 

[russ_watters]

I think it's sad that the only one to provide a hypothesis to solving this mystery, On PhysicsForums.com, Is A Sixteen-Year Old!

There is no mystery here.

I know most scientists are pessimists, many strongly locked into their proven beliefs, but haven't you ever heard the saying if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all?

The function of this site is to help people learn. Thus, if someone says something wrong, they need to be corrected. "Nice" does not enter that equation - and the tone of voice we've been using has been quite civil.

Anyways, now that you have all succeeded in driving racprops from this forum,who was just trying to brainstorm with fellow enthusiasts, I'll give my guess as to what is going on in this seemingly free energy source.

Raceprops was flat-out refusing to learn. There was clearly nothing we could do to change that.

I understand that this reaction gives off energy, but it is also strongly implosive(yeah, waters denser, but these gasses take up 900X more volume).

The reaction gives off water vapor, not water, which is 1/3 the volume of h2 and o2.

Is it possible that the implosive property, and not the release of energy, is what would drive the engine, by creating a vacuum which would allow normal air pressure to push the cylinders?

No. First, that would run the engine backwards and second, air pressure is several orders of magnitude lower than the pressure inside the cylinder. Even pulling a full vacuum inside the cylinder would only give you a tiny fraction of the power as burning fuel.

Also, when the gasses are created from water, wouldn't they absorb a lot of energy from the air(which comes from the sun), which would allow them to expand and become the same temperature as the air around them? Could this air energy help contribute to either the implosion or energy release that would drive the engine?

No, they start at room temperature and end at room temperature - the energy to separate the gases from water (which, again, is vastly more than what is involved in a small temperature change) comes entirely from the power source for the electrolysis.

Could the idea of using the force/temperature from the air somehow explain an overunity in the automobile? I don't mind factual critiscism.

No. Quite simply, the website racprops posted contains an elaborate hoax. The device being described would only run until it expended the energy in its batteries.

 

[Chronos]

You can do the math rather easy. It takes about 750 watts of battery power to produce the fuel energy equivalent of 79 watts in hydrogen gas. That is a horrid rate of return... unless you use solar power to produce it. The big draw of hydrogen energy is it is portable, that is to say power on demand.

 

[sheldon]

I did the same thing when I started into pf, I was excited about different ideas but realized that they just aren't right. I use to think it was like splitting the atom and getting all that hydrogen out would net more energy than the electrolosys process also.

 

[Chronos]

On the other hand, collecting 10% of free [solar] energy does not look all that bad. While direct solar power is not all that convenient [er, lights go out on cloudy days], fossilized solar energy [that was stored at shockingly low efficiency] appears to be very popular. A solar powered hydrogen economy does not appear to be all that far fetched under such circumstances.

 

[pack_rat2]

The post from russ_watters is a good one...but, there's one little error:
" The reaction gives off water vapor, not water, which is 1/3 the volume of h2 and o2."
2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O, so 3 moles of reactants produce 2 moles of product, for a 1/3 reduction in volume. Actually, some of the "pop" from exploding H2/O2 is due to implosion. The H2O vapor is initially at a high temp, and therefore, large volume, after which it rapidly cools, causing the atmosphere to "snap" back. There's a good explanation of this in "Mellor's Modern Inorganic Chemistry" (the 3rd Ed, I think).

 

[pack_rat2]

...It takes about 750 watts of battery power to produce the fuel energy equivalent of 79 watts in hydrogen gas...

That's optimistic! Typical conversion effiiciency for electrolyzing H2O is about 0.3. Typical Otto Cycle efficiency for an IC engine is 0.2-0.3. So that 750 watts would yield ~45-67 W mechanical energy output.

 

[Zezba]

Personally I like "racprops" push for the idea of a water powered car. Cuz if there ever was a way to put together such a machine it would probly be a person like "racprops" to do it. I meen a person that would accully try something even if it didnt appear that it would work, then this person would accully learn if his caculations of how it didnt seem to work were correct or not.

 

[Chronos]

That's optimistic! Typical conversion effiiciency for electrolyzing H2O is about 0.3. Typical Otto Cycle efficiency for an IC engine is 0.2-0.3. So that 750 watts would yield ~45-67 W mechanical energy output.

Actually, I think that is a realistic number. I used the battery efficiency formula for the input power. The output formula is pretty much fixed after that.

 

[Chronos]

I did the same thing when I started into pf, I was excited about different ideas but realized that they just aren't right. I use to think it was like splitting the atom and getting all that hydrogen out would net more energy than the electrolosys process also.

Nothing wrong with that. The discouraging part is the laws of nature conspire against your best ideas. No reason to give up. The point is to take advantage of them to conspire with you. That is why we have engineers. You would be surprised at the number of engineers who know a great deal about very little and make a living exploiting that knowledge.

 

[Chronos]

So the plasma is self-sustaining? With all that light and heat coming out? You put no energy in? No electricity? I work with plasma arcs all the time. Requires a lot of electricity. The only self-sustaining plasma I know of is the sun. Millions of $ have been poured into fusion research trying to achieve what the sun does. No, tell these guys: http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/ITER3.html

Spoken like a true high energy physicist. I considered making a similar argument using the example of plasma arc welding. Fortunately you already pointed out the fact that if the power supply fails, so does the arc. Also, and fortunate, is if the universe did not work that way, we would not be here to observe it. Without causality, which forbids random creation or destruction of energy, the universe would be very much different [and more hostile to life] than the one we observe. It kinda stumps me why that is not so obvious, even without the math.

 

[sheldon]

I am not ever going to give up, I have just learned from this forum some of my flaws in thought. That is a good thing cause now I am on a more solid path to reaching concrete goals.

Nothing wrong with that. The discouraging part is the laws of nature conspire against your best ideas. No reason to give up. The point is to take advantage of them to conspire with you. That is why we have engineers. You would be surprised at the number of engineers who know a great deal about very little and make a living exploiting that knowledge.

 

[kuba]

About this whole mess

The only useful point of http://www.truth777.netfirms.com/Conspiracy/carwater.htm was that if you run your ordinary gasoline engine, there's quite some unburnt fuel that's being passed through the engine just to keep the valves from melting down. If you add more air than necessary for your fuel to burn (so called lean mixture), almost all of it will be subjected to combustion, but it burns so hot that the valves start glowing and eventually they melt, and since they are so hot they induce predetonation and your engine is ruined.

By inducing some water into the intake, one can run very lean combustion cycles, i.e. where practically all fuel is being combusted, while keeping the temperature low enough not to ruin the engine.

And if you wonder if/how fuel is added just to enrich the mixture to keep preignition and valve meltdown from happening, ask anyone who has ever developed fuel ECU software. Essentially, in your run of the mill car, when you floor the accelerator the throttle is fully open and the mixture will be made way richer than needed (it's single to tens of percent, depending on compression and temperature of your engine). Rich means that there's more fuel than necessary oxygen in the mixture. So by definition not all of your fuel will burn, some of it will just go to the exhaust for no good reason.

Everything else on that page is pure bull you know what. If you think it's not, it means you don't understand high school physics/chemistry. That's all there's to it. If you really do believe there's something there, try to understand it -- and try long enough that you'll eventually comprehend it's bull. I.e. as long as you think as it's not bull, you don't know what you're talking about.

This whole thread has been plagued by things that are order of magnitude off. A typical car alternator produces 100A continuous output at about 11V. That's 1.1kW, or 1.5HP, and that only assuming that the alternator is 100% efficient. They typically are nowhere near so efficient (ever wondered why a loaded alternator is so damn HOT?). If you do actually get 1.1kW of electic energy out of your alternator, you're more likely putting about 1.2kW (1.6HP) of mechanical energy into it. So if your alternator is fully loaded, it's robbing your engine of 1.6HP mechanical output. On an average car in average conditions, you're constantly putting about 0.8HP into your alternator whenever your engine is running.

1.1kW from the alternator translates into about 3kW of heat energy from burning gasoline. Now get to back home and try running a 3kW kerosene heater in your bedroom. You'll be roasted in no time. And that much energy is only necessary for running electric loads in your car!

That's only to show that electric energy from the alternator is nowhere near free, and that "100W" people are talking about is probably not enough to keep your car running. On my '93 Volvo 940, keeping the engine running with headlights on (I always keep them on), radio on reasonable volume and blower at low, there's about 0.4kW being sucked from the alternator :)

Now, as far as "H2 from fossil fuels has no sense", it in fact does. Let me tell you why.

First of all, pollution control in a coal-fired plant is centralized and it can be way better than economically viable car can handle. The exhaust from a properly managed coal-firing-plant should be way cleaner than exhaust from your average US car. I.e. 1.1kW of electricity from coal is way cleaner than your 1.1kW that the alternator provides you. It's also lot cheaper in that coal is more readily accessible, and we have way more (10 times +) energy stored in known coal deposits than in known oil deposits.

Secondly, H2-powered car will be safer in an accident than a car with a tank full of gasoline, should a tank leak/fire occur. A gasoline tank rupture always puts all that gasoline under your car, so as to roast you in no time should a spark occur somewhere. An H2 leak will always end up getting that H2 as fast away from your car (i.e. UP) as possible. That's grade school physics/chemistry people, and you should REALLY know better in that respect.

Now, even if you just ran your car on electrolysis-produced H2, it burns really clean, so it doesn't pollute like gasoline does. And you forget about diesel, and especially off-road diesel (construction equipment etc) that really pollutes horribly. The pollution produced by coal-burning electricity generation needed to get you that H2 can be reduced, in a centralized and controlled fashion, way more than the pollution from your car's exhaust.

And then, there's more to H2 production than electrolysis only. Even if we forget all "soon-to-be" methods (bio-based), there are some good ways to utilize that heat from coal burning. As all of you should know, water will break down into H and O if you just heat it up
enough. Since heat is abundant in every power plant, nobody forces you to actually electrolize cold lake water. More likely the water will be superheated first, and only then electrolized. That way the energy expenditure needed to break it down is shifted from low-efficiency electricity to almost-100% efficiency heat. Basically, instead of putting 1kWh of electricity needed to break x amount of water into H2 and O2, you put say only 0.2kWh electricity at 40% efficiency and 0.8kWh of heat at almost 100% efficiency.

And so on :)

Cheers, Kuba

 

[skeptic]

I am fascinated by the history of pseudoscience; seeing just how far back crackpot ideas can be traced. The earliest example of the 'car run on water' scam that I can find dates from 1856. This must have been soon after the discovery of electrolysis, which just goes to show how quickly fraudsters extend their repetoire (viz. current fradulent spin-offs of quantum paradoxes, gravity-wave research etc.). By the way, 'party levitation' (where some 5 people lift a 6th by using just their fingers) can be found in a 12th century manuscript. The latter was itself a rip-off of earlier manuscripts, and I suspect that party levitation was known to the ancient Greeks: Aristotle certainly seemed to know of a phenomenon which is now known as the Hannay angle (after a still-living physicist!), was the first to describe the 'hot water freezes faster than cold' paradox, and was the first to describe the 'crossed-fingers' tactile illusion (still found in 'believe it or not' type columns. So, who knows what else was in the Greek books which did not survive.

 

[kaptainyui]

This guys inerviews clains to get 100 Miles per 4oz of water, but they also say its a CAn run on just water but right now is set up as a hybrid. They also don't say that those 100 Miles per 4 oz of water are ongoing or in intervals.


Here is the video so you can see it.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=782702149&n=2

Its pretty Amazing but many details left out.

i am not sure of the release date of this footag looks decently new, there is also another video I fond looks like its from the 80s. the guy claims he was going to make converters that consumers could buy for their cars for about 1500 dollars.

here is his link back in the 80's
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?p=stanley+meyers&sm=Yahoo%21+Search&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&b=0&oid=75db56c42ae5dcfa&rurl=www.freedomcrowsnest.org&vdone=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fvideo%3Fp%3Dstanley%2Bmeyers%26sm%3DYahoo%2521%2BSearch%26toggle%3D1%26ei%3DUTF-8&vback=Results

This is 15 years later.
http://video.search.yahoo.com/searc...fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&fr2=tab-web

This guy is now dead. He was murdered, And all his reasearch was lost. ? I wonder if Shell had anything to do with this, Maybe Bush?

 

[Hurkyl]

Its pretty Amazing but many details left out.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

OK, so I am aware of the problems with the cost-benefit analysis of this. However, aren't there methods that will make it cheaper and more feasible? If oil runs out, then we would just have to accept a net energy and money loss.

 

[rcgldr]

Although useless for continuous driving, there might be some gain during deceleration, where the load from an alternator would be used to assist braking as well as separate hydrogen and oxygen, but this would add a lot of weight to a car.

Hybrid type cars (electric + gasoline driven) would be more effiecient than one that tries to replace some of the electronic components with ones that generate hydrogen and oxygen, based on the low efficiency numbers for separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen.

Regarding hydrogen as a fuel, I'd be concerned about an accident that would rupture a hydrogen tank.

I wonder how much gas would be saved with simple changes, like sychronisizing traffic signals, and changing the laws so that stop signs only required a driver to slow to 5mph or a bit more if there was no traffic.

 

[OneVoice]

>Newbie here<

I've looked at several of those fuel-from-water websites. Peswiki even has one. I'll be the first to admit that physics isn't my bag. I am curious though, does anyone know the answers to some questions...

1) Most of the sites with any information mention the use of a catylist such as baking soda or something. Isn't it possible that this could lower enthalpy of reaction to a point where enough energy can be gained to realize an improvement in mileage.

2) Air is something like %80 Nitrogen. Is it possible that other gasses besides H2 & O2 are released during electrolysis, for instance Nitros Oxide?

3) If the O2 released by the electrolysis enriches the burning of the gasoline, wouldn't it also improve the efficiency and also cause less polution?

4) I also don't think the get-more-out-than-in claim some guys are making is possible, but is it possible that this could improve mileage and pollute less overall?

 

[mgb_phys]

>Newbie here<
1) Most of the sites with any information mention the use of a catylist such as baking soda or something. Isn't it possible that this could lower enthalpy of reaction to a point where enough energy can be gained to realize an improvement in mileage.

No catalyst can make the energy required in splitting H2O less than the energy you get back when combining H and O. Otherwise you would have free energy.

2) Air is something like %80 Nitrogen. Is it possible that other gasses besides H2 & O2 are released during electrolysis, for instance Nitros Oxide?

Electrolysus splits the water directly into H2 and O2 - you don't let any air into the system. If you burn the Hydrogen in a conventional air breathign engine you do produce some NOX although you can tune the reaction conditions to reduce this compared to oil.
If you use the H2 to generate electricity directly in a fuel cell you don't create NOx

3) If the O2 released by the electrolysis enriches the burning of the gasoline, wouldn't it also improve the efficiency and also cause less polution?

Diesel at least burns at stochiometric concentrations - it wouldn't burn any more efficently in Oxygen. You would also have the extra weight, complexity and danger of carrying an oxygen tank around.

4) I also don't think the get-more-out-than-in claim some guys are making is possible, but is it possible that this could improve mileage and pollute less overall?

Perpetual motion machines are great, but they take forever to test!

Car makers (at least outside the USA) compete on fuel economy, if there was a simple little gadget to greatly improve fuel efficency do you think all the compact car makers would fit it?

 

[zampano]

so in other words, you need to install a solar pannel on your car to generate the free electricity to run this system effectivley ... ?

then is a series of questions arise such as:
how big a panel does one need to produce that amount of energy?
how much energy is then produced from the hydrogen?
and then one needs to know what it would cost to install such a pannel?
and where the waist production goes when the hydrogen reacts inside of the combustion chamber of the engine (in the cylinder)?


oh and being more of a car guy than a physics guy (although I admit I am young and still learning a lot in both areas), I can't help but point out that adding oxygen (the combustible part of the air we breath) to the cylinder, you will make the engine run leaner, the car's computer is designed to pick up on these things and add more gasoline to make up for it, so the engine would then be running on worse gas milage.

 

[zampano]

OK, so I am aware of the problems with the cost-benefit analysis of this. However, aren't there methods that will make it cheaper and more feasible? If oil runs out, then we would just have to accept a net energy and money loss.

Well imagine what happens when you first start the car

when you turn the key you rotate a starter that cranks the engine, the engine is designed such that as the crank turns it pumps the pistons when all causes your fuel injectors and spark plugs to work at specific timing

pause and back up one second, when you turn the key to the on position it turns the battery on and as you crank, the batter powers the starter ... then the fuel injector(s) fire, spark plugs ignite the fuel and the engine begins to turn on its own means (without the starter). Only NOW does the alternator begin producing energy.

HOWEVER, the fuel used to start a car is a LOT more than that which is used when at idle,

So let's imagine we are now using the hydrogen only system ... this system runs on the cars battery as well which is powered by the alternator (effectivley everything runs on the alternator but the power is stored and distributed from the battery). The issue you would quickly run into is that (it sounds like) this system would not have enough energy produced on startup to hold continued demands of the engine, without the assistance of gas it is a greatter drain on the car at startup than it is an energy supplier.

You would be dead by the time you got out of the driveway ...

 

[IMP]

If you ran the engine on nothing but Brown's gas (H2O in a gaseous state) the exhaust would be pure water.
So you want to start out with water, get a whole bunch of power of burning it, and end back at water?
Where is this magic free energy coming from?

 

[mgb_phys]

If you ran the engine on nothing but Brown's gas (H2O in a gaseous state) the exhaust would be pure water.

Not necessarily, you would probably need a catalyst to ensure that no H2O2 was produced and since you will also have lubricating oil present there will be some hydrocarbons formed.

All these posts assume that the alternator is busy producing wasted electricty when the engine is running - it isn't.

 

[IMP]

But my point is simple:
You can't start with water, get out energy, and end with water.

 

[mgb_phys]

But my point is simple:
You can't start with water, get out energy, and end with water.

I think anyone with the brains of an Alaskan senator knows that.

 

[zampano]

All these posts assume that the alternator is busy producing wasted electricty when the engine is running - it isn't.

who assumed this and more importantly what's your point?

 

[russ_watters]

If you ran the engine on nothing but Brown's gas (H2O in a gaseous state) the exhaust would be pure water.

"Brown's gas" is a crackpot nickname for a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases: it is not "H2O in a gaseous state" (aka water vapor).

So you want to start out with water, get a whole bunch of power of burning it, and end back at water?
Where is this magic free energy coming from?

Your instinct is correct: there is none.

 

[OmCheeto]

I thought kook posts were forbidden at this forum?

But I'm new here.

 

[russ_watters]

who assumed this and more importantly what's your point?

Many of the sites that sell such devices make exactly that claim. The point is that it simply isn't true. Either the sites that claim it don't know what they are talking about or they are just plain lying.

so in other words, you need to install a solar pannel on your car to generate the free electricity to run this system effectivley ... ?

then is a series of questions arise such as:
how big a panel does one need to produce that amount of energy?
how much energy is then produced from the hydrogen?

Well, if we're going to mount solar panels on the roof, we might as well directly power electric motors, since the efficiency far exceeds what you get by running an internal combustion engine.

Anyway, good solar panels generate about 220 W/m^2 and cost $1000 /m^2. By comparison, a Prius's electric motor consumes 33,000 W. So that would be why solar powered cars aren't viable...

 

[Bigman]

This makes me think of something I was wondering about the other day, when my physics professor went off on a tangent and started talking about how you could produce a crapload of energy using water(though not through the methods the OP described!)- i THINK he said that by seperating the hydrogen from water and than heating that hydrogen to an extremely high temperature the hydrogen atoms will fuse and release a ton of energy (and turn into.. helium atoms?), and that the reason we don't do it is that we're not able to contain that energy. This is how a hydrogen bomb works, right? Anyway, what i was wondering was that if humanity were ever able to actually contain this energy and use water as an energy source, would there be any negative side effects for the environment, or for humanity eventually? Like if after a few years of doing this we converted a decent amount of the worlds water into gas (i'm assuming the end result is helium gas), could this throw things out of wack?

 

[mgb_phys]

We can do it - almost, it'scalled a fusion reactor. The problem at the moment is holding the hydrogen together long enough to get out more energy than you put it in heating it up. There is a project being built in France which will be a prototype for an industrial version.

You get so much energy out of the process that you don't really use up much water - I forget the figures but it only uses a few buckets of water a year.
The only real waste is that the inside of the reactor vessel gets mildy radioactive. The going bang potential is much better than currect Uranium reactors.

 

[Lefty1986]

any idea , what is the material inside a internal combustion engine need to be change when i change the gasoline fuel into hydrogen fuel.? Also what is the lubricant that will suitable for this hydrogen fuel. thx

 

[harvellt]

What about a combination of solar and wind turbines to generate the electricity for a hydrogen additive to the gasoline?
Would the extra drag produced by small wind turbines designed into the car off set any potential electricity to hydrogen energy?

Slight side not I read a quick blurb in Scientific America a couple months ago about research being done. A small electric current applied to the fuel just before it is injected into the engine. The electricity lowers the viscosity of the fuel creating smaller droplets that burn more efficiently they are showing an increase in fuel efficiency of 8-12 % pretty cool stuff.

 

[Subductionzon]

What about a combination of solar and wind turbines to generate the electricity for a hydrogen additive to the gasoline?
Would the extra drag produced by small wind turbines designed into the car off set any potential electricity to hydrogen energy?

Slight side not I read a quick blurb in Scientific America a couple months ago about research being done. A small electric current applied to the fuel just before it is injected into the engine. The electricity lowers the viscosity of the fuel creating smaller droplets that burn more efficiently they are showing an increase in fuel efficiency of 8-12 % pretty cool stuff.

Hydrogen is not good for a internal combustion engine in the long run. It can cause hydrogen embrittlement and greatly increases the odds of a catastrophic failure of your engine.

Also I an pretty sure you read some sort of advertisement and not an article. An engine already burns over 98% of the gasoline inside the cylinders so the advertised mileage increase is not possible.