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[Plomien]

http://www.azfamily.com/news/homepagetopstory/stories/phoenix_local_news_062408_water-to-gas.36b68e7c.html

If this does what it says you will be getting better MPG

[Debs.]

My Snake-Oil detector is tingling!

[Marks DTM Calib]

Errr......they take electrical energy from the engine, split a molecule into atoms, fire it into the inlet and burn it which then causes these atoms to re-form into the original water atom which I assume then releases the same quantity of energy used to separate them in the first place.

Now I know conservation of energy is a simple thing to comprehend......but, have they missed it!

The only thing that might be beneficial is the charge cooling effect of the water mist in the inlet air.

[Kevin Wood]

Errr......they take electrical energy from the engine, split a molecule into atoms, fire it into the inlet and burn it which then causes these atoms to re-form into the original water atom which I assume then releases the same quantity of energy used to separate them in the first place.

Now I know conservation of energy is a simple thing to comprehend......but, have they missed it!

The only thing that might be beneficial is the charge cooling effect of the water mist in the inlet air.

Don't understand the problem with that. All perpetual motion machines work on a similar principle.  

Kevin

[jereboam]

Surely if you "burn" hydrogen you get water - OK steam?  Do you really want any more of this in your cylinders?  

And if you actually replace sufficient vaporised petrol with hydrogen, the way the mixture burns is likely to be different from the way the engine was designed to work.  

And I'd worry about having a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen in the inlet manifold.

What sort of engines do they think this would be suitable for?

[Kevin Wood]

Surely if you "burn" hydrogen you get water - OK steam?  Do you really want any more of this in your cylinders?  

And if you actually replace sufficient vaporised petrol with hydrogen, the way the mixture burns is likely to be different from the way the engine was designed to work.  

And I'd worry about having a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen in the inlet manifold.

What sort of engines do they think this would be suitable for?

You get a lot of water from burning petrol / diesel too - with the added complication that it becomes acidic due to the other combustion products - so I don't think water is an issue. It's added in water injection systems on highly strung engines anyway.

Having spent a fair bit of time generating hydrogen by electrolysis in my mis-spent youth I can say a poxy little electrolysis cell like that won't generate enough hydrogen to power a strimmer let along make a significant difference to a car.

Kevin

[philhoward]

Water does actually make a more efficient burn - somehow.  I'm not a chemist so don't really know the full story.

Naturally, efficiency = less petrol needed.  There is a limit to which it works, though although the actual mix can be quite surprisingly high.  

[Tony H]

Casting my mind back into the murky past of my physics lessons at school it take an awfully long time to produce a reasonable quantity of hydrogen using a small electrolysis set up,  :-?

[Kevin Wood]

Water does actually make a more efficient burn - somehow.  I'm not a chemist so don't really know the full story.

Naturally, efficiency = less petrol needed.  There is a limit to which it works, though although the actual mix can be quite surprisingly high.  

Chucking anything inert into a petrol engine, when it's partly loaded, will increase efficiency because the engine doesn't have to be throttled back as much, and throttling the engine increases the losses. It's almost like reducing the capacity of the engine because part of the cylinder volume is effectively removed from the equation. This is the principle behind exhaust gas recirculation too.

Water is even better because it absorbs heat from the combustion process and expands as it vapourises. This expansion adds to the pressure forcing the piston down and allows the engine to recover more of the energy of combustion into useful power.

It has downsides because it reduces the temperature of combustion,  and this affects emissions IIRC.

It is also useful in turbocharged engines running a lot of boost as it reduces charge and combustion temperatures. It does reduce the ultimate power output for a given boost but can be used when the intercooler is struggling to stop the engine lunching itself.

Kevin