Running a car on water..

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Running a car on water..

Postby RS13 » Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:04 pm

Can I just say, I understand that lee90's thread was blatant advertising, however this is not, so please don't lock it.

After Sergei's post regarding electric cars.. I had a look at this too. Read a fair bit about it on the internet.. figured I'd have a nudge.

I hooked up dads' battery charger to 4 stainless plates arranged as per pics I found on the internet, stuck them in a sealed glass jar with water and a splash of white vinegar, fired it up.. and much to my surprise, I got bubbles.

This is the interesting part.. I pulled the lawnmower over, disconnected the fuel line, ran it still it died. Hooked up the pipe to the air cleaner, gave it a couple of hearty pulls, got it to "chug" over a couple of times, but then it backfired through the pipe and split both jars, lol. :)

According to the charger, I was pulling about an amp and a half at 12 volts.

There is no magic to this, no bullsh*t, its' just simple electrolytic process, the same thing that goes on inside any lead/acid car battery, but on a larger scale. I had the idea that all these internet people selling these "run your car on water" machines were just a bunch of conartists, maybe they are, but the idea they're promoting isn't that unrealistic.. its' just that we've got a long, long way to go before this could even remotely considered a viable stand-alone fuel source.

Thoughts?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz-uHj79wy0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u03hPyGa ... re=related
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Postby sleeektoy » Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:50 pm

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Postby hsmidy » Tue Mar 11, 2008 7:22 pm

my thoughts, unless you really set ur car up very safely theres always going to be the same problem with running your car on hydrogen.

personally not something id be doing as a home job, and then you have the problem of creating enough hydrogen to feed a 4 cylinder engine at full load, hope yourve got a LARGE boot
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Postby lee90 » Tue Mar 11, 2008 7:22 pm

I don't sell it I just to show you guys what the hell is this HAHAHA. new fuel~
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Postby fivebob » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:10 pm

If someone can explain how you obtain more energy from burning the Hydrogen & Oxygen than it takes to break the bonds in the first place, then you've got youself a Nobel prize :roll:

Given that energy cannot be created or destroyed, the start point is the same as the end point, water, and no process can be more than 100% efficient, where does the energy to run an engine come from?

I'm not denying you can run a car on water, just that you would require more energy input than you would get out, so you may as well just have a electric car to start with. At least that would be more efficient.
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Postby Dragger_Dan » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:40 pm

fivebob wrote:If someone can explain how you obtain more energy from burning the Hydrogen & Oxygen than it takes to break the bonds in the first place, then you've got youself a Nobel prize :roll:


Seconded. Can somebody please explain how the idea of a hydrogen car is gonna be good for the environment?
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Postby jondee86 » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:11 pm

Nothing new about running cars on hydrogen... not all that much
different from running a car on CNG. The downside is that hydrogen
can be explosive in the right proportions with air (remember the
hydrogen bomb :wink:. The upside is that all that comes out your exhaust
pipe is water vapour.

As a matter of interest, steam cars should be about due to make a
re-appearance, and they were running without gears before the idea
of a CVT was even dreamed of :)

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Postby Mr Revhead » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:32 pm

i locked first thread as its been posted before with the same result each time.....

refer fivebobs post.


btw, hydrogen exploding is a bit different to a H bomb!
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Postby xsspeed » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:22 pm

yes H bomb is a bit different, however hydrogen exploding is much like the hindenburg. catastrophic.

i agree its an interesting area of research but until there is a miracle way of producing hydrogen it just wont work, as mentioned the bonds between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms need to be broken, and of course these are extremely strong bonds, stronger than most due to the nature of hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

the only commercially viable way i can see this being done is when t here are vast quantities of hydrogen produced as a by product. i believe this happens in oil refining. this however poses the issue of how to distribute colourless, odourless, extremely flammable gas to cars. similar to lpg i imagine but will need more controls due to the nature of the gas, and how to store it without it leaking etc etc many issues blah blah

BUT would love to see it done, cos i dont wanna see the internal combustion engine die when oil runs out,
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Postby postfach » Tue Mar 11, 2008 10:56 pm

xsspeed wrote:i dont wanna see the internal combustion engine die when oil runs out


You won't. Plenty of oil left on earth. Take the oil sands in canada for example. Second largest known oil reserve on the planet, and only 2% of it has been processed so far.
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Postby Doriftering » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:25 pm

xsspeed wrote:yes H bomb is a bit different, however hydrogen exploding is much like the hindenburg. catastrophic.


The hindenburg didn't explode from the hydrogen, it was the skin that covered it all that caught fire cause its really flammable
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Postby Lloyd » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:40 pm

Yes and no. The static cause the hydrogen that was leaking to catch fire which melted the skins which in turn released more gas that caught fire etc
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Postby stalker » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:46 pm

Mythbusters did this topic last week....

They tested every theroy and myth about free and clean fuel (and all the crap thats on the net about "buy this product to save gas")...and they came down to the answer that none of it could run a car, or save gas.

The best thing they came up with was the whole "used fast food fat" as diesel, and it worked.
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Postby Bling » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:53 pm

xsspeed wrote:this however poses the issue of how to distribute colourless, odourless, extremely flammable gas to cars. similar to lpg i imagine but will need more controls due to the nature of the gas, and


lpg is odourless too, odour is added to it so you can smell it :wink: i'm sure the same idea could be used with hydrogen
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Postby matt dunn » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:14 am

stalker wrote:
The best thing they came up with was the whole "used fast food fat" as diesel, and it worked.


We have a late model diesil mitsi in that was running on used fast food oil,

started and ran and they were driving it around,

but was a gutless as hell, and we could not find anyone in the diesil trade willing to strip and repair the electronic pump once they were told it was on vege oil.
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Postby xsspeed » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:36 am

BZG|Bling wrote:
xsspeed wrote:this however poses the issue of how to distribute colourless, odourless, extremely flammable gas to cars. similar to lpg i imagine but will need more controls due to the nature of the gas, and


lpg is odourless too, odour is added to it so you can smell it :wink: i'm sure the same idea could be used with hydrogen


that is true but it also liquified, so i was tryna say its not as dangerous as hydrogen gas, cos there is little chance hydrogen gas could compressed to a liquid :D
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Postby pc » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:12 am

Hydrogen only has potential as a battery/petrol replacement/whatever you want to call it.

Creating the hydrogen will require lots of power.... nuclear power stations here we come :D
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Postby GTCRSHR » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:36 am

where do people get the idea water is free anways,

last time i looked at my manukau water rates / bills it certainly wasnt free!
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Postby barryogen » Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:07 am

Doriftering wrote:
xsspeed wrote:yes H bomb is a bit different, however hydrogen exploding is much like the hindenburg. catastrophic.


The hindenburg didn't explode from the hydrogen, it was the skin that covered it all that caught fire cause its really flammable


HRT wrote:Yes and no. The static cause the hydrogen that was leaking to catch fire which melted the skins which in turn released more gas that caught fire etc


They made a replica of this on Myth Busters last night, and it definitly looked like a combination of the two(gas and skin).

As for what ignited it, they never went into it, but they had previous ships struck by lightning that didn't blow up, so static seems unlikely. There was a gun with an empty shell found in the wreckage though.


Incidentally, the Thermite covered hindenburg burned like a mother-fcuker
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Postby xsspeed » Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:48 pm

sorry re-reading what i posted above i shouldnt have used the word exploded, not correct in this sense as pointed out :oops: though it was also the gas that fueled the flames.

postfach, i wasnt aware it was that big, do you know what plans are to process it, be interesting to see what happens to prices if it becomes the major oil field. hopefully there are a dew undiscovered gems left in the world
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