This discussion is locked.
You cannot post a reply to this discussion. If you have a question start a new discussion

Developing a car to run on H2O

Hi,

The new crisis brought up an old thought back in my head. 

10 years ago I was living in a different country, and me and a few friends of mine tried to "build" a concept vehicle that could run on H2O, obviously not directly and not that simple, but, to create an electrolysis chamber and install it on a car, maybe even with an extra battery.

The main thinking here is that if this car would be constructed, even if it wouldn't be as efficient as a petrol or diesel car, because of the lower H concentration. At the same time, there are lots of cars that have been converted to use LPG, that has a combustion formula 100: C3H8+5O2  - > 3CO2+4H20, witch clearly suggests that it will "burn" the H and O giving a "residue" 3xCO2 and 4 molecules of H2O.

If instead of this we will supply the engine with H and O the burn should simply give a clean H20 residue. 

Yes, the problem appears that the LPG has 8 to 10 H, and petrol has 12 to 32 H and diesel has 20 to 28 H. But also these fuels have a high concentration of carbon.

It the electrolysis scenario we would burn pure Hidrogen and the burn could be cleaner for the environment and also the water doesn't need any modification.

There might be other costs involved, like the cleaning of the hydrolysis tank and electrodes, but that would still be cheaper than the constant purchase of fuel. 

Anyway, I digress... This came back to my mind, but, unfortunately, I'm not a car mechanic. I was thinking to buy a cheap car as start working on it and see where I get, but like I said, I'm not a mechanic and I don't have all the required knowledge. I already designed the electrolysis tank, and I'm confident I can build a big enough version to fit a car for this purpose. 

I guess my questions are:

What would be the simplest car that I can/should use so I won't fail from the wrong reasons?

Did anyone worked on a problem like this before? 

Are there any issues that I'm not aware of? 

Any advice? 

Parents
  • The big issue I can see is where are you going to get the electricity to do the electrolysis?

    If it's from a big battery, then you might as well throw out the engine entirely, put in an electric motor, and you have a Battery Electric Vehicle.  If it's from the car's alternator, then the alternator will need more power than the car's engine is generating.

    The only thing that might work is to plug it into the mains when parked, to fill a tank with the hydrogen/oxygen mix.

    It takes as much energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen as you get from burning the hydrogen.  So water isn't a source of energy.  Unless your process is 100% efficient (and it will never be), then trying to power a car of water actually loses you energy.

  • That's why I was thinking of having an extra battery, and maybe some extra small tank for keeping some excess Hydrogen. 

    These are kinks to be worked out through testing, obviously... 

    But splitting the hydrogen doesn't require so much energy... 

    And on the running stage the alternator should provide enough power to keep the electrolysis going. 

    It might not be as efficient as a normal fuel car, but it might work... 

    An EV is not a solution for the issue. 

    But if we look at a hybrid car, the alternator provides enough power to charge the battery so the car can run on electricity. Therefore I'm assuming that with the right combination this can be a viable solution. 

    Like I said before, I'm not a car mechanic... But thank you very much for the feedback. 

Reply
  • That's why I was thinking of having an extra battery, and maybe some extra small tank for keeping some excess Hydrogen. 

    These are kinks to be worked out through testing, obviously... 

    But splitting the hydrogen doesn't require so much energy... 

    And on the running stage the alternator should provide enough power to keep the electrolysis going. 

    It might not be as efficient as a normal fuel car, but it might work... 

    An EV is not a solution for the issue. 

    But if we look at a hybrid car, the alternator provides enough power to charge the battery so the car can run on electricity. Therefore I'm assuming that with the right combination this can be a viable solution. 

    Like I said before, I'm not a car mechanic... But thank you very much for the feedback. 

Children
  • It would be interesting to see the numbers for what you propose. How many kWhrs of fuel do you expect to carry,  i.e. what range?  how do you recharge it? at what pressure are you storing the gas etc. All these things maybe not solved in fine detail but you should at least be calculating to the correct factor of 10 , to reasure yourself that you can avoid wasting time on tanks that are unsafe or impractically heavy, or other components that are not of the right scale.

    Remember there is no free lunch - the force needed to spin an alternator rises in proportion to the electrical load, so that you always have to  put in a bit more mechanical energy than you get out as electricity,  - the rest comes out the side as unwanted heat, vibration and stirring the air inside.  Electrical energy needed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen is one electron per hydrogen atom and there are 10 ^ 23 of the blighters in a litre of gas.
    That is a lot of amp seconds - an amp is 10^19 electrons going past per second after all. That has to come from somewhere.
    Note that the power needed to split water is the energy needed to break the bonds between H and O, plus a bit more that is lost in the electrical resistance of the liquid, so that as well as generating gas, the liquid has to be cooled if you want to do electrolysis at the sort of scale needed for a car - kilowatts.


    When you burn the hydrogen back to water you get back the energy you put in to split the chemical bonds as they are re-created, no more no less, but of course any engine will not convert all of that to torque, some will be lost as heat etc.

    Mike

  • Hi, 

    Thank you very much for all the feedback, I know all about electrolysis, and I'm aware that there will be a lot of energy being lost, contrary to some believes I'm not suggesting a perpetual machine in any way or at any level. 

    Actually after all the feedback here I have a clear plan on what I'll have to do.

    I will start at a very small scale to test my electrolysis tank in real life conditions and improve at the small scale one step at a time as needed. I'm not jumping at large scale straight away, the investment would be too high. That's why I'll start at a small scale and based on the readings I will know how to go on larger scale. 

    But, at this point I want to thank everyone, even if the feedback wasn't positive or helpful form everyone (sometimes even outside the subject), it got my brain working and that helped more than anything... 

    Once I'll start the project and have real results I'll post here for more feedback.