Alternative Fuel sources...

Markp.com

Markp.com

Well-Known Forum User
I was reading a very interesting article the other day (I'll dig out the link when I'm home) in which some mechanic types were using Electrolysis (sp?) To separate hydrogen and oxygen from salt water and were using it to power a small two stroke engine...

I remember doing the experiment at secondary school, two types of metal, pass a current through them, hydrogen and oxygen are produced, they you "capture" them in a testube, then pass a flame over the top and they make a loud popping noise when the gas ignites...

So, how can we fit this into a car?

"honey, just off to the beach to fill the car up!" ;)
 
I thought of that very idea years ago. Problem of course is where does the energy come from to power the electrolysis. I'd guess the amount of batteries needed to make enough hydrogen and oxygen to keep up supply to a decent sized engine would weigh a considerable amount, so you'd be straight in the the viscious circle of needing more power to lug them around, which would mean more fuel needed and so more batteries.

Alternatively you could just have separate hydrogen and oxygen tanks in the car, which would also be heavy to cope with the gas pressure, not sure how they'd compare to the weight of a full petrol tank though, or how big they'd have to be to give a comparable range to a petrol tank. In fact you might not even need the oxygen, there might be enough in the air to power the explosion.

It's kind of a nice theory, keeps the basic internal combustion engine but only exhausts pure water, probably not cheap or practical though. Companies seem to be focusing on the hydrogen fuel cell idea, which I'm pretty sketchy on. I'd say that we're most likely to end up with efficient, quiet and soulless electric engines eventually. Course they're still going to need to get power from somewhere, hmmm, what can we burn next? ;)

Cheers,
Rob
 
Its all about getting the maximum oxygen and hydrogen out of the salt water, as alot of it goes to waste... and I have a cunning plan! ;)

Just need to work out how much "gas" you'd need to power the average engine... I'm currently trying to find all the LPG info I can! :)

Can you run a normal two stroke on gas or does it need some kind of modification?
 
Markp.com said:
Its all about getting the maximum oxygen and hydrogen out of the salt water, as alot of it goes to waste... and I have a cunning plan! ;)
Click to expand...

Why salt water? Is it just because it conducts electricity better? If you could get the electrolysis working at 100% efficiency (yeah right) then using distilled water would be the ideal source and you'd of course comsume that completely. Using salt water would of course mean having to regularly clean out the water tank.

I'd also guess that once you'd collected the gases, you'd need to pressurise them to some extent in order to aid squirting them in to the engine.

Markp.com said:
Just need to work out how much "gas" you'd need to power the average engine... I'm currently trying to find all the LPG info I can! :)
Click to expand...

Would LPG be comparable? The L being 'liquid'. I'm guessing it's squirted in to the cylinder in liquid form which is why it's a relatively straight forward task to convert a petrol engine to LPG. Could of course be talking crappola.

Markp.com said:
Can you run a normal two stroke on gas or does it need some kind of modification?
Click to expand...

Well in theory an internal combustion engine will run on anything that can be combusted quickly enough and release enough explosive energy to overcome the mechanical friction in the engine and driveline. I believe Mr. Diesel originally wanted to run his engine on coal dust (mad or what?!) but that didn't work. I guess any engine modifications would depend on the sort of temperatures reached during combustion for a given fuel. Course there might be some sort of physics law along the lines of 'for x amount of energy released there will be a y increase in temperatute' which would be the same for any fuel, but then again I might have just made that up! Thank God I haven't done any chemistry since my GCSE days many years ago!!

Sorry that doesn't help too much ;)

Cheers,
Rob
 
Just thinking a bit more on this, I guess you wouldn't need to use a 4 stroke engine if you were providing both the hydrogen and oxygen, 2 stroke would be fine. Gas mix injected at near TDC and ignited (note, no need for inlet valve at all!), piston goes down, at BDC get that exhaust valve open and keep it open as long as possible whilst the steam exhaust is expelled on the upstroke, then immediately back to injection and ignition. Strikes me as being a very interesting concept.

The downside is that the car would sound like a freaky combination of the Crazy Frog and Ivor the Engine, not sure if I could live with that ;)

Cheers,
Rob
 
hehehehe... its an interesting concept and I have a genius idea for getting a higher conversion rate :)

Ahh, I thought LPG was liquid petrolium gas?

We'll see how I get on... now to find me an old lawn mower engine! :D
 
Black Bug said:
Just thinking a bit more on this, I guess you wouldn't need to use a 4 stroke engine if you were providing both the hydrogen and oxygen, 2 stroke would be fine. Gas mix injected at near TDC and ignited (note, no need for inlet valve at all!), piston goes down, at BDC get that exhaust valve open and keep it open as long as possible whilst the steam exhaust is expelled on the upstroke, then immediately back to injection and ignition. Strikes me as being a very interesting concept.
Click to expand...
Yup! Thats why this is so interesting, to me anyway... the only problem is getting rid of the salt, it would eventually furr up the pipes as I'm sure on some level the salt would be vaproised and travel along with the gas...

We'll see, what results I get from my idea :)
 
I can see it now... "solution to perpetual motion engine conundrum found on car club website"

That´d be front page news I reckon!
 
Perpetual motion is totally different to this...

This is an alternative fuel source... perpetual motion basically... well:

"The continual operation of a machine that creates its own energy and thus violates the first law is called perpetual motion of the first kind. The operation of a machine that utilizes the internal energy of only one heat reservoir, thus violating the second law, is called perpetual motion of the second kind." From page 179, Heat and Thermodynamics 5th Ed., by Mark W. Zemansky, © McGraw-Hill 1968

So, if you're a fan of established science, perpetual motion is like erm unicorns or something... :D
 
It has been done!!!

I know of someone who is able to mix Hydrogen with Diesel to achieve a better performance for HGV's. The only real reason for the mix is so as not to draw too much attention from the Oil Companies. (Could you imagine the backlash were you to design a car that doesn't need petrol or diesel?!?!?!?!)

Theoretically you can run a car on water, you separate the Hydrogen from the oxygen and burn the Hydrogen using the Oxygen as an aid to burning. Waste product? - Water!!

However, this has taken a HUUUUGE amount of investment and still requires alot more. Then you need to have it accepted by manufacturers and governments around the world, then you need to convince the buying public that it really does work and you need a decent refuelling infrastructure around the country to support it. So right now it makes sense to keep sales to localised vehicles where they can go to fill up e.g. Taxi's, Council vehicles etc.

So if you know anyone who has a few spare billion squids then there's a business opportunity for them!!!

Like alot of good ideas, it probably won't come to fruition due to a lack of funds.

(Does it work??? Well I've SEEN a Peugeot 205 in the UK running on water!!)
 
Terry B G said:
It has been done!!!

I know of someone who is able to mix Hydrogen with Diesel to achieve a better performance for HGV's. The only real reason for the mix is so as not to draw too much attention from the Oil Companies. (Could you imagine the backlash were you to design a car that doesn't need petrol or diesel?!?!?!?!)

Theoretically you can run a car on water, you separate the Hydrogen from the oxygen and burn the Hydrogen using the Oxygen as an aid to burning. Waste product? - Water!!

However, this has taken a HUUUUGE amount of investment and still requires alot more. Then you need to have it accepted by manufacturers and governments around the world, then you need to convince the buying public that it really does work and you need a decent refuelling infrastructure around the country to support it. So right now it makes sense to keep sales to localised vehicles where they can go to fill up e.g. Taxi's, Council vehicles etc.

So if you know anyone who has a few spare billion squids then there's a business opportunity for them!!!

Like alot of good ideas, it probably won't come to fruition due to a lack of funds.

(Does it work??? Well I've SEEN a Peugeot 205 in the UK running on water!!)
Click to expand...
Where did you see this mythical beast of a 205?

All the other stuff you said seems to be rubbish... why can't people fill up at home? Who needs a station to put water in their car? Or were you meaning this diesel/hydrogen mix?

:)
 
Markp.com said:
Where did you see this mythical beast of a 205?
:)
Click to expand...
Wales!

Markp.com said:
All the other stuff you said seems to be rubbish... why can't people fill up at home? Who needs a station to put water in their car? Or were you meaning this diesel/hydrogen mix? :)
Click to expand...
The diesel/hydrogen mix m8. Currently needs compressed hydrogen, so if you can cut through all the licencing and bureaucracy to get a filling station at home, feel free!!

and put yourself in the oil companies shoes, someone proves an engine can run on water, what's that going to do to your company and how far would you go to defend it........................?

But hey, I respect your opinion, if you think it's rubbish you're entitled to say so. :D :D :D
 
Terry B G said:
Wales!


The diesel/hydrogen mix m8. Currently needs compressed hydrogen, so if you can cut through all the licencing and bureaucracy to get a filling station at home, feel free!!

and put yourself in the oil companies shoes, someone proves an engine can run on water, what's that going to do to your company and how far would you go to defend it........................?

But hey, I respect your opinion, if you think it's rubbish you're entitled to say so. :D :D :D
Click to expand...
Hehehe... crossed wires... I wasn't saying you're rubbish or anything like that... I was saying that people couldn't fill up their cars at home with water, that was rubbish! :)

It all makes sense now anyway... Sorry for the confusion!

I also think oil companies can go stuff themselves! The damage they've knowingly done to the environment is horrific, they destroy sea life, plant life, all sorts... I'm sure they have working cars that run on alternative fuel sources, but they'd rather bleed us and the planet dry first! :)

Been researching this a bit and its very interesting! You get a greater conversion rate if the reaction is heated, cars naturally produce heat, so its meant to be! :D

Currently looking for an air tight "box" to put all this in... it probably needs to stand up to a fair bit of heat too... any ideas of something I can use?

Ideally I'd like a box with a lid I can drill a couple of holes in.

And where the hell will I get some Zinc and Copper from? (Apparently I can use Platinum, but that'll be a bit expensive!)

Help chaps! ::D
 
hybryd cars are ok but you have to think latterally...i went out to a ************** ( cant say).. it had a petrol engine and an elec. motor.

the cars batteries were flat.

i ended up running the car on axle stands (with foot on throttle ,in gear)for half an hour so the batteries had enough power to re-start the car ,every time the car stopped at traffic lights, so did the engine ,and not enough power to re-start..... what a bummer........
 
Um... I don't think you understand! These (apparently) are plans to build a water powered car! Its not a hybrid! You can just leave the original petrol tank etc there incase you run out of water!

Even if you have to carry a spare battery or 10 around I'd be willing to give it a go! :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top