Running a Car on Hydrogen Made from Water

[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.

 

[russ_watters]

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?

Well, any energy gained via a wind turbine (on a calm day) is energy that must have first been expended by the motor. So no net gain: only a net loss.

And solar, again, it doesn't provide a meaningful amount of power.

 

[technutz]

What are the problems associated with bacteria as a means to produce hydrogen and oxygen for our energy needs?

 

[mgb_phys]

Shortage of stuff to feed the bacteria on?

 

[PaperProphet]

That link doesn't work. http://www.truth777.netfirms.com/Conspiracy/carwater.htm is it.

In any case, there is no good summary and I'm not going to go through the whole thing to figure it out. The fact that it comes from a conspiracy theory website makes it suspicious. This is the best summary Its not clear, but if the site is claiming that you can use a car's alternator to split hydrogen and oxygen from water, then burn the hydrogen and oxygen to power the car and provide the power to split hydrogen and oxygen from water, it is wrong.

We've already been over why: The reaction is symmetrical and conservation law applies. This is taught in junior high school chemistry. Gasoline is fuel ready-to-burn. Water is not. In fact, water is the exhaust from burning hydrogen and oxygen. What you are describing is identical to putting a hose on your car's tailpipe, capturing the exhaust, and turning it back into gasoline.

Maybe this will help:

Assume all systems are 100% efficient. Put 1kWh of energy into some water and split some into hydrogen and oxygen. How much energy will you get back when you burn the hydrogen and oxygen you just produced?

(hint: all the info you need to do this problem is contained in the problem and no calculations are required to find the answer. Apply conservation law.)

I can add some color to that. I've read a bit on these boards and nobody seems to understand the entire concept. Most seem to default to the conservation of energy law to refute it--to the detriment to those who wonder if there's more to the story.

Generally the equipment is called a hydrogen booster but can be whatever else anyone wants to call them. The 'technology' has been around since about the 1970's.

Basically the hydrogen booster theory is this...hydrogen is fed in with the gasoline/air mixture into the cylinder of the engine. On the spark plug firing, the hydrogen wicks the flame around the mixture faster resulting in a cleaner 'pop'. This supposedly increases efficiency.

From what I can gather, the concept does seem to "work" in that it creates a cleaner pop and a slight boost in efficiency of the cycle. The bad news--well that's where the energy balance comes into play. Producing hydrogen is energy intensive, energy of which likely is only partially recovered by the cleaner pop plus the partial recovery of the hydrogen being combusted in the cylinder. I don't have access to direct numbers generally claimed by people pushing hydrogen boosters but recovery of the energy to produce the hydrogen plus an additional increase in efficiency seems extremely unlikely. However, disproving the claims of everyone pushing a hydrogen booster concept would be a monumental task. If anyone disproves one, the people pushing the concept can change a word or two in their claim and all the work of disproving was for naught.

There are a number of penny stocks out there which push the hydrogen booster concept and, while claims run rampant, to my knowledge none has ever proven economic viability. The story is juicy, however, and hucksters and swindlers often use it to their advantage to get naive investors dreaming and throwing money at their stock. It would be interesting to see the cumulative total money lost by investors who were suckered into investing in hydrogen boosters and similar 'technologies' since about the 1970's. All I know is that it's not a trivial amount.

 

[buffordboy23]

I can add some color to that. I've read a bit on these boards and nobody seems to understand the entire concept. Most seem to default to the conservation of energy law to refute it--to the detriment to those who wonder if there's more to the story.

I agree.

Generally the equipment is called a hydrogen booster but can be whatever else anyone wants to call them. The 'technology' has been around since about the 1970's.

Basically the hydrogen booster theory is this...hydrogen is fed in with the gasoline/air mixture into the cylinder of the engine. On the spark plug firing, the hydrogen wicks the flame around the mixture faster resulting in a cleaner 'pop'. This supposedly increases efficiency.

Your right. The faster burn duration is due to the combustion properties of hydrogen. This will be depend on the quantity of hydrogen, which of course will vary from system to system. From what I have seen, systems do exist that can create an ample amount of hydrogen, which would cause one to expect the combustion modifications that you described.

From what I can gather, the concept does seem to "work" in that it creates a cleaner pop and a slight boost in efficiency of the cycle. The bad news--well that's where the energy balance comes into play. Producing hydrogen is energy intensive, energy of which likely is only partially recovered by the cleaner pop plus the partial recovery of the hydrogen being combusted in the cylinder. I don't have access to direct numbers generally claimed by people pushing hydrogen boosters but recovery of the energy to produce the hydrogen plus an additional increase in efficiency seems extremely unlikely. However, disproving the claims of everyone pushing a hydrogen booster concept would be a monumental task. If anyone disproves one, the people pushing the concept can change a word or two in their claim and all the work of disproving was for naught.

I agree that the energy losses to produce the hydrogen are difficult to overcome. To my knowledge, the only way that this could happen is through the modification of sensor data, either through manual tinkering or by the modification of combustion due to hydrogen and oxygen addition, so that the vehicle runs leaner. A leaner operating engine by itself (without hydrogen) can give improvements in MPG. In fact, many people out there now use an EFIE to make their vehicles run leaner, and by doing this, this would be the major reason for any MPG gains; the role of the hydrogen in this case is to make this process smoother. In the long-term, this is not likely good for the engine.

There are a number of penny stocks out there which push the hydrogen booster concept and, while claims run rampant, to my knowledge none has ever proven economic viability. The story is juicy, however, and hucksters and swindlers often use it to their advantage to get naive investors dreaming and throwing money at their stock. It would be interesting to see the cumulative total money lost by investors who were suckered into investing in hydrogen boosters and similar 'technologies' since about the 1970's. All I know is that it's not a trivial amount.

Yes, the idea has been around for a while. I've seen numerous U.S. patents spanning back decades. The proposed benefits are always improved economy and cleaner emissions. Yet, we don't see these systems installed on modern vehicles. Is the idea impractical (or crap) or is the control measures needed to ensure improvement too difficult to overcome or too impractical for considering at this moment?

 

[Cantab Morgan]

They, the Inventers etc. are perhaps unrealistically suggesting the car can run totally on their Generator, and so far I have not seen any real proof it will not.

The proof is in the world's oceans. They are stable. If you take a match to them, they will not ignite. H2O is the output of combustion, not the input.

Respectfully, your unwillingness to accept this elementary fact is so distracting that it robs any weight to your arguments about using fuel additives to boost mileage on a car. You're asking intelligent questions, racprops, but they're getting lost in all this nonsense about trying to get energy from water.

 

[Phrak]

I heard on the Planet Green channel, "Future car: The Fuel, Alternatives to Gasoline" series (2007) that we may envision a future where water is continually recycled for energy via perpetual motion, and Planet Green wouldn't lie. (ok, so it's sarcasm. so shoot me, but this was their implication. they even went so far as to advance perpetual motion by name.)

 

[crazy horse]

Haven't read the whole thread but there is only one way I can think of that the HHO device might work without violating any of the laws of thermodynamics. That is if the hydrogen or oxygen extracted from the water somehow increases the efficiency of the burning of the gasoline. I'm no chemist, but I know most combustion reactions are not a hundred percent efficient, and leave some unburned fuel as well as other compounds like CO and nitrogen oxides in the exhaust. Is it possible that adding extra H2 (or O2) to a fuel-air mixture inside a combustion chamber would cause the fuel to burn more efficiently (ie fewer unburned leftovers or non-energy yielding reactions)? Then the H2 is not serving as a supplementary fuel source (which would violate energy conservation); it is working as a catalyst. The result would be more energy extracted per volume of petroleum.