Is a water fueled car possible?

[prtcool]

I have gripped by a great fantasy. This fantasy is of a world that runs on water and not on petrol...

I tried to searched the net regardind water fueled cars and I found some interesting videos and sites.

Is a technology using water as a fuel available. If yes, then why is it not a popular technology. It will rvolutionise the world.

If not, then is it possible that water can be ever used as fuels...

Prateek

 

[CompuChip]

I don't think water is very easy to fuel a car on, as water is quite stable. What is possible however, is to use hydrogen (H) and "burn" it (combine with oxygen, O) to form water (H₂O). This technology is available, but some of the major problems are

• Large scale availability of hydrogen -- you need to produce it somewhere and you need to distribute it somewhere... if the density of hydrogen pumps is smaller than the action radius of your hydrogen powered car, it's no use
• Safety issues -- pure hydrogen is extremely flammable, especially when stored under high pressure
• Economical considerations -- with the profits the large oil companies currently make on petrol products (petrol, diesel, LPG, kerosin, etc) there is no way they are going to encourage another branch to take over in anytime soon, though some (I know Shell is one example) are actually investing some money in research.

But a few hybrid cars (partially hydrogen, partly fossil fuels) are already driving, and also some experiments are currently going on (for example, Amsterdam has city buses running on hydrogen at the moment).

 

[FredGarvin]

There have been a few threads on this topic. The people out there that are claiming to run something on water are really using electrolysis to create hydrogen from the water and then burning that. Water is not the fuel. When you take into account the efficiency of breaking the water up into its constituents (it takes a fair amount of current to do so) plus add on the efficiency of generation of electricity, the overall efficiency is pretty low.

Take a look at this Wiki article for some background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

 

[jaap de vries]

In order to understand fuels you need to understand the fact that one is utilizing the chemical energy (ethalpy) stored in a fuel. water is at a very low enthalpy state (especially as a liquid). The only way to get energy out of it by dropping it from an elevated distance (Hoover dam). FredGarvin says it well: "water is not a fuel" it rather is a product of combustion. when someone says that "a car is running on water" that should be a sign on the wall that this person probably does not understand thermodynamics.

PS: I transferred from Florida to Texas A&M so out of my Dutch mouth a big fat HOWDY FOLKS!

 

[Ulysees]

Sorry guys, but I think the present understanding of chemical energy is not sufficient to explain what appears to be happening to water when pulses of a certain resonant frequency are applied to it.

Apparently it breaks up in hydrogen and oxygen with MORE energy than was put in as pulses. Ie if those two are recombined, the heat produced is MORE than the energy put in.

This does not violate anything, it just means we don't understand the chemistry of water. Presumably the resulting water cannot be re-used to produce hydrogen and oxygen as before. Can someone check that this is so?

 

[brewnog]

Apparently

A good start for a scientific claim...

it breaks up in hydrogen and oxygen with MORE energy than was put in as pulses. Ie if those two are recombined, the heat produced is MORE than the energy put in. This does not violate anything, it just means we don't understand the chemistry of water. Presumably the resulting water cannot be re-used to produce hydrogen and oxygen as before. Can someone check that this is so?

Of course it doesn't. We fully understand the physics of thermodynamics. It's not just theory, it's never been broken. Please show me the report which states that someone's used water as a fuel.

 

[russ_watters]

This does not violate anything, it just means we don't understand the chemistry of water.

You should, at least, be able to see that that sentence is self-contradictory. Ie, the idea you describe violates our theories on(our understanding of) the chemistry of water.

 

[Ulysees]

Excuse my English Russ, I thought violation is for violation of a principle, not just any disagreement with present understanding at a given point in history. For example if someone says mass is converted into energy, it's a violation [of the principle of conservation of energy], but if someone says the new Golf does an incredible 170hp out of a 1400cc engine (which is true), and someone else says that this is impossible, then it's a disagreement with established methods and understanding, not a violation of a principle.

There are those guys who are experimenting with this special electrolysis process where the breaking of water is caused by pulses on the electrodes instead of dc current. Which anyone of us can probably reproduce, it's very simple, just attach a waveform generator to an amplifier and then to huge electrodes. The only hard thing may be how do you measure the heat produced when hydrogen and oxygen are recombined in another chamber.

Maybe by heating water in a test tube and watching the temperature. Ie exploding the mixture inside a test tube or something.

If I do it and post the measurements, will you believe brewnog, that our understanding of covalent bonds is not complete?

 

[Ulysees]

Notice that I'm talking about covalent bonds, not thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is preserved, what we're seeing is a bit like an exothermous reaction, ie the energy we see is chemical energy turned into heat: it's as if normal water is converted into lower-energy water and the energy difference is emitted as heat. Normal covalent bonds become lower-energy covalent bonds.

 

[chroot]

Let me guess, you're another shill for the "Sully DC" crap?

- Warren

 

[Ulysees]

Here's a related experiment:

Saltwater burning!

Moderator note: crackpot link deleted

That's another principle though, another frequency.

 

[chroot]

Alrighty then, this thread's done. Water is not a fuel.

- Warren