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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 only way that this could work is that you have the electrolysis tank in a fixed place and the car on the road, but I wouldn't exactly want a tank full of a hydrogen/oxygen mixture anywhere near me.

  • indeed, though I suppose if I was the worrying kind I'd also twitch about a volume of blended alcohols and octane with enough chemical energy to put my body into free space or to launch a large part of the whole car into a geostationary orbit, suspended in a single skin sheet steel tank spaced  a few inches above an abrasive road surface that moves  under that tank at speeds of up to 70mph (honestly officer, only up to, never beyond - ahem...). I'm not the worrying kind...

    M.

Reply
  • indeed, though I suppose if I was the worrying kind I'd also twitch about a volume of blended alcohols and octane with enough chemical energy to put my body into free space or to launch a large part of the whole car into a geostationary orbit, suspended in a single skin sheet steel tank spaced  a few inches above an abrasive road surface that moves  under that tank at speeds of up to 70mph (honestly officer, only up to, never beyond - ahem...). I'm not the worrying kind...

    M.

Children
  • I think this is an interesting concept. If the vehicle had its own electrolysis plant you would only have to plug it in and give it water to make your oxygen and hydrogen to store in tanks ready for recombining later. Considering some of the issues that seem to exist extinguishing battery fires (not sure there is a quick credible solution yet) this does not seem overly dangerous as I am sure that we would not be storing the hydrogen in cow bladders like the Hindenburg. Seriously steel tanks are pretty robust and in the event of an accident venting and making safe is not so hard. You might also need some sort of demineralisation system as tap water would probably contain minerals that would ruin the electrolysis equipment.

    Now generating electricity from hydrogen, that is a mad concept. Green or Blue Hydrogen, what are people thinking of!