Er...Running An MR2 On Water??!?

[Mauler]

Eh?

Ceramically coating pistons?!?

What mad but potentially splendid madness is this??

[matt_mr2t]

Ceramic topped pistons are designed to be stronger in high heat situations I think. Although I dont believe the OE ones are. IIRC there was a rumour but it was untrue.

Could be wrong?

[Mauler]

It needs to be done to protect against rust as the engine will be running on an oxygen/hydrogen mix...if this is a feasible theory then why has no-one done it yet?

Slightly cheaper fuel for a start

[matt_mr2t]

Ok, I'm pretty good at science normally but how could you run on water?

[Mauler]

Check the 'Eh?' link

[raptor95GTS]

Ok, I'm pretty good at science normally but how could you run on water?

split the water molecules into Oxygen and Hydrogen then inject the hyrdogen into a combustion chamber and ignite with a spark plug. Big bang and saves carrying liquid hydrogen about in a tank. Dunno how efficient it would be or how much power you'd get but yeah in theory it can be done

[matt_mr2t]

I cant read it all as there's too much and I have work to do. BUUUT it's extremely difficult to physically split water into hydrogen and oxygen?

There are certain power stations that use this techinique and they use state of the art techniques. I recently saw something about a hydro electric car that was being developed in a country where they have excess hydrogen from their plant.

[STUBALL]

It’s totally possible, you just don’t get very far. There is a lot of this "free energy" guff about. Basically it takes more energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen than you will get out of your engine by burning it. It's pretty easy to make hydrogen from water but these guys claim you can run for miles on it as you get more energy out than you put in. If someone actually got this working they'd win the Nobel prize for science as they would have proved all the laws of physics are wrong (although that may indeed be the case, these twonks aren’t going to prove it), Einstein was wrong and so is everyone else. Most of the sites this stuff comes from are wrapped up in conspiracy theories and other half baked ideas and a lot of the proponents of this stuff eventually get done for fraud. My advise, stay well away from this, it's too easy to get sucked in and waste a lot of time chasing rainbows. Real life is far more interesting.

[Mauler]

Know of any evidence on that m8?

[SimonPearse]

the link is a pile of pseudo science mumbo-jumbo.
It takes a lot of electrical energy so split water into hydrogen and oxygen. If you then burn the hydrogen and oxygen in an engine you get power from the engine and steam in the exhaust. Even if you had a 100% efficient engine the amount of power out of the engine could only equal the amount of power used to split the water. Since the power to split the water has to come from the alternator (which has to be driven by the engine) then our theoretical 100% efficient engine will produce a total power output of zero.
All this should be well understood by anyone who did school physics in the first year of secondary school.

Petrol engines produce a lot of water vapour in the exhaust- its one of the reasons that exhaust pipes rust. Pistons dont rust because they are made from aluminium alloys. Since aluminium does not rust AT ALL, EVER, a ceramic coating is not required to prevent rusting.

[Mauler]

I didn't think Ally rusted...but it's been too long since I did physics for my A-Level.


Thanks for that

[klx_boy]

There is a video on streetfire of a guy who has done this to his petrol buggy.
It looks to be a pretty oldish video and theres an interview with him on the news etc... Dont know how true it is mind.

http://videos.streetfire.net/search/wat ... d35fbb.htm

http://videos.streetfire.net/search/wat ... 447362.htm

Clicky^^^

[FreeFall]

If someone actually got this working they'd win the Nobel prize for science

They'd probably be assasinated/kidnapped/paid off by one of the oil companies before that ever happened

[Lictor]

Is this the one were you heat the water to produce steam and then mix the steam with Boron to so the oxygen is stripped to produce hydrogen and boron oxide? (There was no link I could see.) This system looks feasible as you are using a substance with a greater reactivity to oxygen than hydrogen. Plus once the engines going you can use the heat from the engine to help turn the water into steam. Developed by an Israeli company if I remember.

[jmachling]

Even if you had a 100% efficient engine the amount of power out of the engine could only equal the amount of power used to split the water. Since the power to split the water has to come from the alternator (which has to be driven by the engine) then our theoretical 100% efficient engine will produce a total power output of zero.

Indeed. For this to work energy would have to be created somewhere in this reaction, and as far as I'm aware it's only possible to convert matter to energy by nuclear fission or fusion, either of which would be pretty impressive feats in an MR2.

What next? The schematics for a flux capacitor???

[ugli-stix]

As mentioned above there is a lot of research into using third party additives and also catalysts to lower the activation energy required to split water into hydrogen and oxygen components. In fact, the use of boron was covered in an article in the New Scientist at the beginning of this month.

I agree with the general energy conservation comments made throughout this thread. However, clever uses of chemistry (e.g. catalysts) can negate a lot of these issues. Admittedly you will still never get energy for nothing (due to conservation laws) but by using clever techniques already being investigated will likely prove that water->hydrogen->power cars may be feasible in the distant future.

[particle physics mode]
Incidentally - a lot of people (a generalism - I'm not pointing the finger at anyone here) seem to get hung up on the theory that you can't get something for nothing. Whilst this is true, it IS possible to SEEM like you're getting something for nothing. For instance, vacuum energy fluctuations when virtual photons are created and destroyed around the zero-point energy of space (e.g. the Casimir effect) make it seem like you are getting something for nothing as the original energy source for this is the near infinite vacuum energy density.

By the way - this isn't a load of made up technobabble.. the harnessing of this "Casimir" energy is an area of research looked into on an off/on basis by space exploratory organisations such as NASA.
[/particle physics mode]

[Lictor]

Okay. Just saw the diagrams and the thing that scares me most about that system if it would ever work would be a pressurised hydrogen/oxygen mix in a very hot enviroment. The circuit might be interesting to build just to test if it works. I doubt it though (Maybe I could use the 9100 at work)

[GeoffC320]

For anyone interested in this sort of stuff (and a darn good read) I'd highly recommend "The Hunt For Zero Point" by Nick Cook:-

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076790 ... e&n=283155

[jmachling]

Incidentally - a lot of people (a generalism - I'm not pointing the finger at anyone here) seem to get hung up on the theory that you can't get something for nothing.

I'll get my coat as I go and wait for that taxi for one then

Very interesting thread! I just googled a few key words and came up with a load of info on this sort of process and many others like it - one guy in the US apparently running his car for 100 miles on 4 oz of water.

It would appear this has been around for a while and the equipment is reasonably easy to get. I guess it's widely known in the scientific community but can it really be down to the stranglehold of the oil companies that means things like this don't get the exposure they deserve? Surely converting water to a fuel that can be used in modified legacy technology and then reverts mostly back to water is a good thing? It'd solve pollution problems, global warming and neutralise the power/terror of the middle-east.

Oh wait, I remember...the Bush administration has all its money tied up in oil and companies that rebuild the infrastructure of countries after they've been 'liberated'.

Cynical? Moi?

[Andy Champ]

[particle physics mode]
Incidentally - a lot of people (a generalism - I'm not pointing the finger at anyone here) seem to get hung up on the theory that you can't get something for nothing. Whilst this is true, it IS possible to SEEM like you're getting something for nothing. For instance, vacuum energy fluctuations when virtual photons are created and destroyed around the zero-point energy of space (e.g. the Casimir effect) make it seem like you are getting something for nothing as the original energy source for this is the near infinite vacuum energy density.

By the way - this isn't a load of made up technobabble.. the harnessing of this "Casimir" energy is an area of research looked into on an off/on basis by space exploratory organisations such as NASA.
[/particle physics mode]

Hmm... I only studied Biology at Uni, none of this weird quantum stuff.. but...

If you really can get zero-point energy, and NASA are working on it, how come they're shipping all those solar panels up to the ISS? How come they send big heavy lumps of uranium in the deep space probes?

People keep talking about this, but when is it likely to happen? They've been talking about fusion for as long as I can remember - and that's a long time - and that isn't running yet. Perhaps zero-point is just too hard.

Andy