Running a car on tap water???

gam1984

Professional lurker.....
Not sure if this has been posted before, but I did a search and couldn't come up with anything.....

I found this on the net.

Now, I know absolutely nothing about how a car engine works (well, very little anyway), but it looks like a load of poo to me. I am curious to know whether it would actually work or not though.

Could anyone who knows a bit about car/engine mechanical stuff give an opinion on this?
 
tyhis will never work , water does not compress so it will just bens ur conrod... im sure more but that is what i know so far sure u will get more replies

pepper
 

rlees85

Ex. Club Member
yeah it does work, i think it seperates the hydrogen out of the water and runs on the hydrogen.. which like petrol explodes when ignited.
 

NeX

You're after my robot bee
Club Member
the problem is that it takes more energy to seperate hydrogen from oxygen than the energy that you get back when you re combine them.

you use elcetrolosis (*spell) to seperate it so effectivly its an electric car....
 

Turtle

Ex. Club Member
isnt the problem that it takes more energy (at some power plant) to separate the water than you gain from using it in a car?

I don't know much about this, but petrol is just fine for me :laugh:
 
OP
OP
G

gam1984

Professional lurker.....
So theoretically it could be done, but it wouldn't really be worth while because it would use up far more energy than it would give out in laymans terms? And thats assuming you could build the device safely in the first place with DIY skills.....

Wasn't actually thinking of doing it, but I've never really seen anything like it before.
 

NeX

You're after my robot bee
Club Member
Turtle said:
isnt the problem that it takes more energy (at some power plant) to separate the water than you gain from using it in a car?

I don't know much about this, but petrol is just fine for me :laugh:


i may have said something like that lol :p

Hydrogen cars would only be worth having if all the power used to split the two chemicals came from wind farms and sola pannels etc....

but with people (i say people i mean idiots) saying that wind farms are ugly and ruin the countryside and sola pannels being stupidly expensive it just ain't gonna happen.


what they should have is everybody has sola pannels on their roof and a windmill in their garden etc, and then they use a battery charger to split the hydrogen in their garage and collect it in a canister. then the car is fitted with a collector that collects all the water from the exhaust. then when they are done driving they come home and pour the water from the collector into the splitting machine and fit the new canister full of fresh hydrogen into their car.... one big problem is that pikeys and chavs have cars and imagine them with a garage full of two extreamely volitial gasses eh? boom no more chav!


the advantage of the hydrogen car over putting the electricity straight into a battery rather than using it to split hydrogen is than electric cars are crap and hydrogen cars are just as good as petrol cars :D

and don't get me started on hybrid cars lol
 
i think u are lost n thinking of this in reverse coz i have never heard of a car or anything fission(seperating of elements) bein usd tho i do know of cars which are fusion(joining of elements) and the outcome of the fusion is water as they fuse oxygen n hydrogen to make H2O. the fusion used creates heat then put through a turbinr it creates electricity... enough to power a small town :D

the thing bout fusion and fissin is for the same process more energy is given off from a fision reactor compared to a fusion tho fusion is easier

pepper
 

NeX

You're after my robot bee
Club Member
K11SS said:
i think u are lost n thinking of this in reverse coz i have never heard of a car or anything fission(seperating of elements) bein usd tho i do know of cars which are fusion(joining of elements) and the outcome of the fusion is water as they fuse oxygen n hydrogen to make H2O. the fusion used creates heat then put through a turbinr it creates electricity... enough to power a small town :D

the thing bout fusion and fissin is for the same process more energy is given off from a fision reactor compared to a fusion tho fusion is easier

pepper

i think fusion is a theory, there is no such thing at the mo because energy cannot be created or distroyed which is why its impossible to have a reaction that gives off more energy that was put into it. you are thinking of a hydrogen powered generator.

water is not an element, you can seperate it into its components (oxygen and hydrogen) and when you mix them together and ignite them you get a burst of energy and water. the explosion pushes the pistons in the same way petrol does....


the real reason that we aren't driving these cars now is because with renewable energy the government doesn't get its cut on the fuel tax.....
 
fusion is not a theory ... the nuclear bomb uses fusion were it uses uranium 237 i believe n is smashed together with a high neutron bases element n creates uranium 238/9 n becomes highly unstable which goes bang !!!... bye bye city!!

my theory of the generator i posted above is used in a car already, it was used in a GM concept car which was featured on topgear or 5th gear

i loved discussing this sort of stuff with my physics teacher, its y i still mind it all ... sort of -lol

saw a program bout a scout who made plutonium in his backyard from smoke alarms jus to get his nuclear physics badge in the scouts hahahahahaha

pepper
 

NeX

You're after my robot bee
Club Member
K11SS said:
fusion is not a theory ... the nuclear bomb uses fusion were it uses uranium 237 i believe n is smashed together with a high neutron bases element n creates uranium 238/9 n becomes highly unstable which goes bang !!!... bye bye city!!

my theory of the generator i posted above is used in a car already, it was used in a GM concept car which was featured on topgear or 5th gear

i loved discussing this sort of stuff with my physics teacher, its y i still mind it all ... sort of -lol

saw a program bout a scout who made plutonium in his backyard from smoke alarms jus to get his nuclear physics badge in the scouts hahahahahaha

pepper


ah yep :) an unstable compound (uranium) reaches critical mass where atoms split other atoms expenentially until the atoms are too far apart to contune the reaction ;) i must be thinking of nuclear fusion where the power of a nuclear bomb is contained and kept at optimum reactivity so it becomes an infinate source of energy.... like spiderman two lol ;)

yep i know there are hydrogen cars out there, i didn't know they used hydrogen fuelled engine to generate electricity...

lol i used to try and confuse my physics teacher, mainly so why they were thinking we could rob all the scince equipment lol,
like.... would something be invisible if the light it reflected was out of our visible range eg untra violet? eh? hehe,

can you get a nucular physics badge?!?! cool!! :D
 

Ed

Fusion Motorsport
MSC Founder
Official MSC Trader
Physics was excellent. I enjoyed my course in that :) Shame you lot didn't appear to pay as much attention in your English classes :p
 

NeX

You're after my robot bee
Club Member
Ed said:
Physics was excellent. I enjoyed my course in that :) Shame you lot didn't appear to pay as much attention in your English classes :p

i got an excuse....... mild dslexyia (sp lol) not bad enough to get any extra time for exams but bad enough that i still made spelling mistakes lol i think the technical name was retarded lol :D

but yea physics was fun, it was my favourite but i got an A* in biology and only a C ins phyisics?!?! explain that :(
 

Turtle

Ex. Club Member
NeX said:
i may have said something like that lol :p

lol yes, bit of a double post there... I didn't copy him sir honest!

Fusion has never been successfully carried out on earth as far as I understand, although its thought its whats happening inside the Sun. Its when certain atoms are bashed together to release energy. :glance:

Fission is the opposite of fusion and what ended WWII. Its when certain atoms are split apart to release energy. Nuclear bombs etc.

Sorry to be geeky, just finished a physics A level... gotta make use of it :laugh:

A lot of people are too selfish to care about the environment over their own money, but when its economic to own a hydrogen car, everyone will jump on board I guess...
 

NeX

You're after my robot bee
Club Member
paddymarsden said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4686826.stm

it has been done by honda... the guy guy off 5th gear drove it

that car seems to be slightly different to what i was thinking of, that is an electric car being powered by electricity generated by hydrogen.

i'm on about when you use hydrogen insted of petrol.

using hydrogen to generate electricity seems a bit pointless to me cos that is another state that it has to change into which is where energy is lost, if it was already electricity in the first place before it was turned into hydrogen then why not store it in batteries?

Turtle said:
Fusion has never been successfully carried out on earth as far as I understand, although its thought its whats happening inside the Sun. Its when certain atoms are bashed together to release energy.

ah i thought so :D i think somebody in America claimed they had done it... the were looking under a microscope as saw tiny flashes of light as the particals collided.... but i don't know if it was true or not :)
 

Ed

Fusion Motorsport
MSC Founder
Official MSC Trader
NeX said:
that car seems to be slightly different to what i was thinking of, that is an electric car being powered by electricity generated by hydrogen.
I was just looking at reports on engine efficiency, and car engines are typically it seems around 32% thermal efficient. That is to say, for every KW of heat produced by burning the fuel in combustion only 32% is of any use.

i'm on about when you use hydrogen insted of petrol.
The problem with this should be immediatly obvious from the comment above. Why keep to IC technology when its so inefficient.

using hydrogen to generate electricity seems a bit pointless to me cos that is another state that it has to change into which is where energy is lost, if it was already electricity in the first place before it was turned into hydrogen then why not store it in batteries?

Because hydrogen is a much more compact and light weight source of stored energy when compared to a lead acid battery. Take a typical Micra battery 12.5v @ 45Ah = 540watts/hr or 1944000 Joules of stored energy!!! you can see how tiny that now is!! and to have enough stored for any use requires lots of batterys = expensive + very heavy and not at all really suited for the job.

Hydrogen however has an energy content when reacting with oxygen of 140,000,000 Joules per kilo. One Joule is 1W/Second. So 140,000,000/3600 (1hr) = 38.8 Kw/hr - compared to 0.54 KW/hr of the battery.

I dont know the exact weight of a Micra car battery. But I shall guess at 5KG. Now, assuming a Micra battery is fully charged, it stores as I said approx 540w/hr or:

1944000 Joules.

compare this to the equilivent weight of hydrogen =

700000000 Joules, hmm just a bit of difference then!

Also, I just had a look at some automotive motors and high efficiency ones are around 93% efficient. Fuel cells it seems vary from 30-90% efficient. So you can see that dumping the IC engine and using fuel cells with electric motors is a much more efficient method.

This is very simplified, 5kg of hydrogen at 1atm would take up a whole lot of space, compress it to 100atm its much more sensible, however you now need to make a nice and very strong bottle to do so. Which does have a weight penalty. And then there is the motor and fuel cell. I would imagine that modern examples of fuel cell technology are probably weight wise pretty comparable or perhaps just a bit more than a typical IC engine. Though to be honest thats a pure guess on my part.

Ed

I also found this if you want a real laugh!!!!!!

http://www.opposingdigits.com/watercar/
 

Turtle

Ex. Club Member
Oh my word.

Check out that websites forum. I think they worry a bit too much!!

http://www.opposingdigits.com/forums/index.php

In 10 minutes of scanning through a few things I found that...

Aluminium cans poison you, giving you alzhimers
Florine (toothpaste, water etc) is especially bad for us
Suger is like pure evil... theres a thread giving a hundred reasons why
Christianity was started by magic mushrooms
Invisible glass has been invented
a comet will destroy the earth on may 25th (last may)
www means 666
dry ice makes grass stronger
911 is a conspiracy
WWII is a conspiracy
HIV is a conspiracy
Everything is a conspiracy!!


Yeah... so... believe what you want :)
 
OP
OP
G

gam1984

Professional lurker.....
Well this thread has certainly turned out to be an education. And to think I never paid any attention to science at school because I thought it was boring.....

So, this "tap water car" could actually be done by someone with the knowledge and access to the materials needed then? Any idea of what kind of costs would be involved? (still no intention to actually do it, but fascinating stuff).

Also, on the subject of fission/fusion, would it in theory be possible to make a nuclear powered road going vehicle if a reactor could be made to fit? I mean, it would be dangerous as hell and financially impossible, but its been done successfully in submarienes and I'm curious.....I'm assuming that nuclear power has something to do with fission by combining uranium and plutonium, but like I said I never had much interest science at school :)

This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night o_O
 

Ed

Fusion Motorsport
MSC Founder
Official MSC Trader
gam1984 said:
Well this thread has certainly turned out to be an education. And to think I never paid any attention to science at school because I thought it was boring.....

So, this "tap water car" could actually be done by someone with the knowledge and access to the materials needed then? Any idea of what kind of costs would be involved? (still no intention to actually do it, but fascinating stuff).

No for the reasons I said above. You need more energy to split the water than you can generate to seperate it - unless you have an external source of power.

Also, on the subject of fission/fusion, would it in theory be possible to make a nuclear powered road going vehicle if a reactor could be made to fit?

I think on such a small scale no not pratically.

I mean, it would be dangerous as hell and financially impossible, but its been done successfully in submarienes and I'm curious.....I'm assuming that nuclear power has something to do with fission by combining uranium and plutonium, but like I said I never had much interest science at school :)

This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night o_O

You need mass amounts of screening from the reactor to keep things safe. Within the size limits of a car this wont happen. Interestingly if you read your insurance small print it will probably say about insurance being void by using nuclear fuels.

Ed
 

ollie240585

Ex. Club Member
Ed said:
You need mass amounts of screening from the reactor to keep things safe. Within the size limits of a car this wont happen. Interestingly if you read your insurance small print it will probably say about insurance being void by using nuclear fuels.

Ed

Those insurance companies will try anything to get out of a claim!!!!
 
OP
OP
G

gam1984

Professional lurker.....
Ed said:
No for the reasons I said above. You need more energy to split the water than you can generate to seperate it - unless you have an external source of power.

Ah, so it would basically be pointless then.

Ed said:
You need mass amounts of screening from the reactor to keep things safe. Within the size limits of a car this wont happen.

So although it would be impossible in a car due to the amount of screening needed, I'm assuming it could still be done with a large truck or bus possibly?

Ed said:
Interestingly if you read your insurance small print it will probably say about insurance being void by using nuclear fuels.

Damn. Thats stopped me in my tracks :( lol

Interesting though. Its amazing what clauses the insurance companies will put into a policy.
 
M

m1ck97

Guest
NeX said:
one big problem is that pikeys and chavs have cars and imagine them with a garage full of two extreamely volitial gasses eh? boom no more chav!

uhmm isnt this a bonus? :laugh:
 

Krian

Fear me, for I am Onibaku
You could possibly do it with a pebble bed reactor, but the weight of the shielding would make a horse and cart have slightly better acceleration :D Plus, you'd not doubt get a crazy modder trying to crack one open to see if they could improve it :D
 
Top