Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nickbat]

A friend of mine from South Africa came round today and our conversation strayed on to "green issues" and he told me that there was something in SA about running a car purely on tap water.  

Anyway, I did a Google search and came up with this.

http://www.greencars.za.net/?p=102#more-102

Anyone fancy trying it? Full instructions included in zip file apparently.

[JamesV6CDX]

I posted this up before, the consensus was, it just wasn't possible...

[Martin_1962]

Stanley Steamer?

[Entwood]

If this was truly possible ... don't you think everyone would already be doing it ??  

[JamesV6CDX]

When in Amsterdam, I was interested to see hydrogen powered, and also fuel cell powered, busses, everywhere!

[Nickbat]

I posted this up before, the consensus was, it just wasn't possible...

Sorry, James, I didn't see that. I don't like to re-post.

[Nickbat]

If this was truly possible ... don't you think everyone would already be doing it ??  

True, but I have heard of ideas being buried for "commercial reasons".

[Paul M]

Let's be honest, the energy has to come from somewhere. With hydrogen fuel cells you have to harvest the hydrogen from somewhere, usually this is done by splitting water molecules into their constituent hydrogen and oxygen, which takes a substantial amount of energy in the form of electricity (electrolosys). Then the hydrogen is recombined with oxygen to create either heat (burning just like a petrol engine) or electricity as in a fuel cell. So all the fuel cell is doing is effectively providing a store of energy that you can refill by charging -- it's much more energy dense than a conventional battery.

Getting energy from tap water -- well it's pretty inert so you're not going to get the energy from forming chemical bonds, and breaking the bonds requires energy input (see hydrogen electrolosys above). The only thing I can think of is some kind of fusion, which we can't do without huge pressures and temperatures, usually resulting in net negative energy.

It's an interesting theory but unless they can explain how it works with regard to conservation of energy then it's nothing more than a fantasy.

[Paul M]

Build and install a low-cost alternative method for running your vehicle (internal combustion engine) on tap water, using off-the-shelf components.

This is simply an efficient way to convert ordinary tap water into gaseous hydrogen and oxygen, and then burn these vapors in the engine, instead of gasoline.

This “minisystem” runs easily from your existing battery and electrical system, and it plugs into your carburetor with simple off-the-shelf fittings.

LMAO... someone needs to tell these guys that the energy that is released due to burning hydrogen is caused by the forming of covalent bonds when it combines with oxygen to form water. Yes, that same stuff that you use to create the hydrogen in the first place, by inputting energy to break those bonds. Now unless you can do this with greater than 100% efficiency, you're putting in more energy to get the hydrogen from the water, than is used for useful work when you burn the hydrogen.

Sheesh.... and they were so close to inventing the perpetual motion machine, all they needed to do is feed the water output back through to the input and we'd have infinite energy

I'm sure they've just forgotten to install a flux capacitor in the electrical system somewhere

[Paul M]

The more I read of this page the more I realise it's just a complete and utter piss-take

[VXL V6]

Perhaps we'll need one of those 'Mr Fusion' devices that was on the DeLorean in one of the Back to the Future films! Now who'll be the first to do a 'How To' on replacing the Flux Capacitor?  

[VXL V6]

Beat me to it on the Flux Capacitor Paul!!!

[Nickbat]

The more I read of this page the more I realise it's just a complete and utter piss-take

Maybe it is, I don't know. But look here on this New Scientist link:

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/energy-fuels/mg19125621.200-a-fuel-tank-full-of-water.html

[Paul M]

The more I read of this page the more I realise it's just a complete and utter piss-take

Maybe it is, I don't know. But look here on this New Scientist link:

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/energy-fuels/mg19125621.200-a-fuel-tank-full-of-water.html

That's an interesting read, in fact I'm sure I've read that very article in the print edition of NS.

The important bit in this context is here:

The only by-product is boron oxide, which can be removed from the car, turned back into boron, and used again. What's more, Abu-Hamed envisages doing this in a solar-powered plant that is completely emission-free.

So basically the energy to liberate the hydrogen from the oxygen comes from the reaction with boron, during which the formation of chemical bonds releases enough energy to break the hydrogen-oxygen bonds. The boron oxide can then be removed, but to complete the loop (i.e. turn the boron oxide back to boron) you need to supply energy -- which will be a greater amount of energy than that released and made available to the car due to losses -- which they propose to do using solar energy to keep it emission free.

So it's just another way of storing energy, allowing a more dense and easier to handle form. The principle is exactly the same as creating hydrogen from electrolosys at the solar power plant and storing that in the car to release the energy (via electricity in a fuel cell or otherwise).

[Nickbat]

I reckon your analysis is right Paul.

The bottom line is that you can get today's internal combustion engines to run on hydrogen and you can get hydrogen from tap water through electrolysis. Therefore, in theory, you could get a car to run on tap water, in that the tap water would be the main fuel input but obviously the car would actually run on hydrogen.

.....I think  :-/