http://www.metacafe.com/watch/128967/water_as_fuel/

I haven't seen it posted before...

5/19/2006 2:55:10 AM

Yeah he uses electrolysis on water to create HOH right? Something like that.

It doesn't use water as fuel, water is split into fuel using electricity, then the fuel is used to power the car.

If he could devise a way to use electrolysis that allowed transportation for cheaper than gas, he might have something.

Otherwise it's just a cool welding tool.

5/19/2006 3:12:24 AM

Oh, I see... it slipped by me that it uses electrolysis.

Still though, if they could fine an efficient way to perform the electrolysis (there's a lot of research in to this area using various nano-materials), that seems like a pretty clean means of transportation.

It still wouldn't have the energy density of gasoline, but it would probably be a little cheaper, and a lot cleaner.

5/19/2006 3:26:21 AM

Quote :

"HHO gas"

beware of bullshit pranks -- this term is nonsense and means nothing

Quote :

"burns hotter then the surface of the sun"

only place thats happening is in hiroshima




and

Quote :

"Yeah he uses electrolysis on water to create HOH right? "

HOH = water = H2O

you perhaps meant H2 and O2 gas.



[Edited on May 19, 2006 at 3:53 AM. Reason : jfghsd3`]

5/19/2006 3:32:54 AM

What I got from his explanation was that he converted the water molecule into a linear molecule with Hydrogen-Hydrogen-Oxygen. Of course that would not be stable for an appreciable amount of time... And if it uses electrolysis, then you will need a source of electricity. And since the engine wont be 100% efficient, you'll use more energy in the long run, and the electricity will have to come from somewhere (most likely a coal or natural gas powerplant which defeates the purpose).

5/19/2006 5:46:03 AM

Electrical grid:
12 cents per kw*hour and 1 kWhour = 3600000 joules therefore the rate is 300,000 J/cent


Gasoline = 1.3 x 10^8 J/gallon at $2.69/gallon, therefore the rate is 480,000 J/cent

Therefore, no matter how efficient you make the storage and transportation of electricity (such as through hydrogen) gasoline will always be cheaper at these prices. All we have to do is make our gasoline engines more efficient to match or, heaven's forbid, the price of gasoline returns to historical norms.

http://www.upei.ca/~physics/p261/Formulae_Data/body_formulae_data.htm
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/ArthurGolnik.shtml

[Edited on May 19, 2006 at 8:52 AM. Reason : .,.]

5/19/2006 8:51:47 AM

it's already been talked about, i don't know where the tww link is

that being said, i did a little research and what they are talking about is Brown's Gas

and it while it does burn and can be used for welding, it appears to be a typical conman's ploy to get money

you're not going to make an engine run on water

[Edited on May 19, 2006 at 10:52 AM. Reason : .]

5/19/2006 10:52:21 AM

not efficiently enough to be worthwhile, anyway

5/19/2006 12:42:32 PM

yet

5/19/2006 1:00:32 PM

no, it has nothing to do with efficiency

it has to do with the fact that it's FUCKING WATER

5/19/2006 1:17:10 PM

no, it has to do with efficiency.

we can seperate water into hydrogen and oxygen, but it takes a huge amount of energy to do it. with the technology we have now, it's not a useful way to create fuel.

5/19/2006 1:54:52 PM

That's a negative ghostrider, the pattern is full.

5/19/2006 3:05:11 PM

duke, please tell me you are trolling.

even if it were 100% efficient, all we could really do would be keep powering the electrolysis process with no net energy output...

5/19/2006 9:14:07 PM

not if you used an catalyst. somy biological organisms (algae) create hydrogen and oxygen gasses at low rates from water, they use enymes and zero electrical energy.

another example;http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7082/abs/440295a.html
a synethic photocatalyst. here, you use zero electricity, only light, and get hyodrgen and oxygen from water.

[Edited on May 19, 2006 at 9:34 PM. Reason : 663]

5/19/2006 9:30:21 PM

^yes, algae can turn co2 and sunlight into H^2 as well as O^2. So what? We can also make hydrogen via steam reformation of methanol, but it doesn't matter because hydrogen is not suitable as a primary fuel for transportation.

^^I'm sorry, what?

Electrolysis is about 27% efficient.

If it were 100% efficient, "hybrid" cars would have water tanks and onboard electrolyzers to create fuel because hydrogen gas has a hell of a lot more energy per mass than a battery does.


[Edited on May 19, 2006 at 9:39 PM. Reason : 2]

5/19/2006 9:36:32 PM

Which is why using electricity alone to seperate hydrogen and oxygen from water probably isnt going to be possible. Put other processes dont follow the same mechanism, as mentioned.

Quote :

"So what?"

You may not need to transport hyodrogen gas if you can produce it from a stable precursor.

[Edited on May 19, 2006 at 9:42 PM. Reason : 6]

5/19/2006 9:39:50 PM

Quote :

"If it were 100% efficient, "hybrid" cars would have water tanks and onboard electrolyzers to create fuel because hydrogen gas has a hell of a lot more energy per mass than a battery does."

Quote :

"Which is why using electricity alone to seperate hydrogen and oxygen from water probably isnt going to be possible"

right, that's what i was getting at. you COULD have a car fueled by water, with some sort of on-board electrolysis to get hydrogen and oxygen or Brown's gas, but the electricity it would require would be better utilized to just directly power the car (and fueling a car with compressed gas yields a whole other set of problems)

[Edited on May 19, 2006 at 10:54 PM. Reason : asdfasd]

5/19/2006 10:39:06 PM

On a recent Mythbusters, they were able to run a regular engine for a few seconds on regular hydrogen, pumped in through the carburetor (it was maybe 20 seconds or so, until it backfired and flames shot out the air intake).

So, it doesn't seem like too bad of an idea to power a car by H2, assuming they're ever able to refine it efficiently enough.

5/19/2006 11:44:37 PM

^ yea but wasnt that just residual gas

[Edited on May 20, 2006 at 12:07 AM. Reason : like they said. i thought they never got it running after the first one.]

5/20/2006 12:07:28 AM

^ They tried the weird gadget first, and that was just residual gas.

Then they got one of those big tanks of H2, and pumped it in, and that worked.

http://www.cxliv.org/2006/05/17/exploding_pants.php

That link corroborates my memory.

In the same episode, they also ran an unmodified diesel engine directly on used, filtered cooking oil, and it worked perfectly fine.

[Edited on May 20, 2006 at 12:22 AM. Reason : ]

5/20/2006 12:21:41 AM

If you can get the mixture right there is no reason for you not to get a regular gasline engine to run off hydrogen.

Regretfully, you will at best be getting equivalent engine efficiency.

gasoline
130,000,000 J/gallon
259 cents/gallon
501,931 J/cent

Gasoline Burning Gasoline Engine
130,000,000 J/gallon
30 miles/gallon
4,333,333 J/mile
501,931 J/cent
8.63 cent/mile

Electricity
3,600,000 J/kilowatt*hour
12 cents/kilowatt*hour
300,000 J/cent

Hydrogen Conversion
100% Efficiency
300,000 J/cent

Hydrogen burning Gasoline Engine
4,333,333 J/mile
300,000 J/cent
14.44 cent/mile

5/20/2006 12:50:58 AM

Even with a 20% premium on cost/gallon of H2 (or any alternative fuel), the benefits of being near 0-emissions may be worth it to some people.

5/20/2006 12:57:22 AM

^ perhaps, but you must notice I used 100% efficiency for the conversion between electricity and hydrogen, which is impossible. Normally it is closer to 20%, thanks to recent developments of Catalysts to help the process we have it up to 40%, some theorize 60% might someday be possible, but we aren't there yet.

Efficiency___cent/mile__Relative Cost to Gasoline
___20%______72.22_______x8.37
___40%______36.11_______x4.18
___60%______24.07_______x2.79
___80%______18.06_______x2.09

Of course, this is still moot, because if you are running your car on hydrogen you're not going to use a gasoline engine but a fuel-cell which is at about double the efficienccy, even though it costs more up-front.

5/20/2006 10:01:26 AM

The problem with hydrogen as a transportation fuel is and always has been hydrogen storage. It simply is not feasable to store it as a liquid, and it's energy density is too low when stored as a gas.

Fuel cells are pretty cool and their prices are going down, but they are more suitable for stationary CHP (combined heat and power) applications because of the strong exothermic reactions that take place inside. The most efficient fuel cells on the market, solid oxide fuel cells, operate at around 850 degrees Celsius. As such, that thermal energy is better used to heat up a building than a car.

A promising idea that NASA is researching is a fuel cell that can also be used as an electrolyzer. That way, during braking, the fuel cell could reverse it's process and use electricity to create more hydrogen fuel. Nevertheless, if we ever see fuel cells in mass-produced cars, they will probably be fueled by methanol or LNG with an onboard steam reformer, because hydrogen is simply too difficult to store.

5/20/2006 1:08:16 PM

Quote :

""burns hotter then the surface of the sun" only place thats happening is in hiroshima "

and Val Kilmer movies

5/21/2006 11:59:20 AM

nothing on earth could burn hotter than the sun.

5/21/2006 2:37:46 PM

H-bombs can for a short period of time

5/21/2006 8:50:10 PM

and of course inside nuclear reactors -- the point is, its not happening in that guys lab

[Edited on May 21, 2006 at 8:52 PM. Reason : 5]

5/21/2006 8:52:11 PM

Quote :

"and of course inside nuclear reactors -- the point is, its not happening in that guys lab"

The typical light water reactor doesn't get that hot, you might have temperatures in the center of the fuel of ~1000 F. Other than that it is all about 600 F.

5/21/2006 8:59:11 PM

Somebody mentioned something about performing electrolysis using a catalyst. Before I ask my question, I want to set an example up first.

Suppose (for the sake of argument, because I don't actually know the numbers) it takes 1000 J/g to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen (this is the absolute minimum amount of energy needed and ignores the obvious inefficiencies). If it takes this much energy for the reaction to go in this direction, the reverse reaction direction presumably gives off that same amount of energy. So you could get a maximum of 1000 joules of energy out of reacting a combined mass of 1 gram of hydrogen with oxygen.

But, now you have this catalyst that allegedly reduces the amount of energy necessary for electrolysis. For the sake of argument, let's say it reduces the necessary energy input to 500J/g. In the unaided reaction, it takes 1000J/g, and the reverse reaction gives off that much. In the catalyzed reaction, it only takes 500J/g.

Here's my question. I'm assuming that the reverse 500J/g reaction will happen without the catalyst being added, ie we only use the catalyst to electrolyze the water and not form it. If this is the case, then does the hydrogen and oxygen formed from the electrolysis only give off 500J/g of energy? If that is the case, then while this magic catalyst has made electrolysis cheaper it has also decreased the energy density of the fuel, which (I would imagine) completely offsets the reduced cost of electrolysis. If, however, the hydrogen and oxygen give off the original 1000J/g of energy, then where did the other 500J/g of energy come from? Conservation of energy still applies; we cannot extract more energy from a system than we put into it. So if the catalyst only requires that we put in 500J/g of energy, isn't it only possible to get a maximum of 500J/g of energy back out?

5/22/2006 6:37:38 AM

Quote :

"Conservation of energy still applies; we cannot extract more energy from a system than we put into it."

thats a wrong statement; conservation of energy means you cannot create or destroy energy.

you can infact get more energy out of a system then you put in (the system can start with huge amounts of energy that are released with small amounts of input energy). im sure you can think of examples on your own that validate this principle.

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 6:49 AM. Reason : 5]

5/22/2006 6:48:29 AM

Yes and no. You are correct in that it does state that energy cannot be created or destroyed. However, this must necessarily mean that you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put into it. You're confusing activation energy input with total energy input.

Take gasoline, for example. In order to get the exothermic release that we call combustion, there has to be a small, initial energy input called the activation energy. In this sense, you are right; it is possible to get more energy out of a reaction than is required to begin said reaction. However, where did all the chemical energy that is stored up within the gasoline come from? Over millions of years of intense heat and pressure. You and I may not have relocated energy from the sun and into the gasoline, but it did get there nevertheless. Gasoline does not magically appear out of nowhere, that energy has to first come from somewhere. Whether it gets there through natural means or human intervention, it still has to get there period. All the activation energy does is allow for the release of all that pent-up energy.

And you still didn't answer my question.

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 7:49 AM. Reason : blah]

5/22/2006 7:46:57 AM

Quote :

"and of course inside nuclear reactors -- the point is, its not happening in that guys lab"

nuclear reactors use fission. The sun is fusion. Fusion is hotter than fission.

5/22/2006 8:38:42 AM

umbrellaman, I will try to answer your question
Ok, I will follow your example. Let us presume that 1 gram of hydrogen can react with oxygen to produce 1000 joules of energy. Given "Conservation of energy," we can also say that the minimum amount of energy required to produce 1 gram of hydrogen is 1000 joules, this assumes perfect efficiency, which doesn't exist in the real world. More likely, without the catalyst required the application of 4000 joules of energy to produce 1 gram of hydrogen, an efficiency of 25%, and with the catalyst we can produce the hydrogen for 2000 joules of energy, an efficiency of 50%.

What this means is that 1 gram of hydrogen has a constant energy density, regardless of how it was produced. What different production technologies change is the percentage of your input energy that was wasted.

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 8:53 AM. Reason : umb]

5/22/2006 8:53:25 AM

So the catalyst doesn't reduce the energy density of the fuel, it only reduces the inefficiency associated with producing that fuel? Okay, that makes much more sense to me.

thxu LoneSnark

5/22/2006 9:25:51 AM

Quote :

"you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put into it."

Your example is fine. Take a a cup of gas. The system has very little heat energy until you input a spark. Im not sure what youre talking about with all this, energy being stored over time in gas, theres no question if gas has stored energy -- it doesnt matter, you can define a system as anything isolated from its surroundings.

Quote :

"Gasoline does not magically appear out of nowhere, that energy has to first come from somewhere."

water has O-H bonds.....gas has C-C and C-H bonds mostly....both are compounds that start with chemical energy; there is chemical enregy stored in gas,

there is chemical energy stored in water.

again, i can think of 100 simple thought experiments to disprove the notion a system can only output the amount of energy you put in it. youre forgetting that a system can start with tons and tons of energy, which can be accessed in millions of different ways with small input energy.

how about a spring? i can compress it, and then place it in my system, now all i have to to do is remove what is keeping it compressed, and ive released a greater amount of energy then i have inputted into the system.

Quote :

"If it takes this much energy for the reaction to go in this direction, the reverse reaction direction presumably gives off that same amount of energy."

why would this be true? some thing that happen take a lot of energy, but spontaneously reverse and give off no energy.

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 2:46 PM. Reason : 6]

5/22/2006 2:25:18 PM

Quote :

"how about a spring? i can compress it, and then place it in my system, now all i have to to do is remove what is keeping it compressed, and ive released a greater amount of energy then i have inputted into the system."

Fine, but you did not get any more energy out of the system. All your system did was convert potential energy into kinetic energy. No net energy was created and you are not allowed to "take off energy" from a closed system.

Quote :

"there is chemical energy stored in water. "

This fucking again. It is 2005 all over again! "Water" is at the point of stability, it cannot oxidize any further. There is no more potential energy left in water by itself. Water, H2O, is like carbon dioxide, CO2, it has already bonded with all the oxygen it can, there is nothing left for it to do given the gases available in the Earth's atmosphere.

5/22/2006 3:02:21 PM

Quote :

"theres no question if gas has stored energy"

No shit? Good to see we're all on the same page here. But that's my point; where did THAT stored energy come from? You can't take energy out of a system if it isn't there to begin with.

Quote :

"it doesnt matter, you can define a system as anything isolated from its surroundings."

Except that gasoline isn't really isolated from its surroundings, now is it? It's not a closed system because energy enters (in the form of unstable chemical bonds) and leaves (in the form of a combustion reaction) the system.

Quote :

"i can think of 100 simple thought experiments to disprove the notion that a system can only output the amount of energy you put in it."

No, a system cannot output more energy than is put into it. Here's just one simple thought experiment; I put 100 joules of energy into a system. Assuming no inefficiencies, I can only get 100J back out. If I add another 100J, I can now get 200J, but only because I added 100J to the system.

Quote :

"you're forgetting that a system can start with tons and tons of energy, which can be accessed in millions of different ways with small input energy."

I'm not disputing that a system can start off with loads of energy. My whole point is that it even has that energy to begin with. If a system has 1000 joules of energy, for example, you can never remove more than 1000 joules of energy. The only way you could remove more than that is if you add more energy prior.

Quote :

"there is chemical energy stored in water."

Yes there is. But chemically speaking, plain ordinary water is at the lowest possible energy state it can attain. In fact, for the water molecule to occupy any other state will necessarily place it into a higher energy state, but the only way for this to occur is to add energy into the water molecule. The reason gasoline has such a high energy content is because it's in a very high energy state, ie it's in an energy state that is greater than the lowest energy state it can occupy. Below the lowest energy state that is possible, there is simply no usable energy for you to use. You can't just say "well there's a bond between these two hydrogen atoms and this oxygen atom, therefore I have energy I can use." No! Water is in the lowest energy state possible (chemically speaking, thermal energy is a different matter), and so you cannot make it go to a lower energy state. Therefore you cannot extract any further energy from water.

Quote :

"how about a spring? i can compress it, and then place it in my system, now all i have to to do is remove what is keeping it compressed, and ive released a greater amount of energy then i have inputted into the system."

Wtf?! How have you released more energy than you put into the system? Hooke's Law, anybody? DEMONSTRATE to me where in your "simple thought experiment" the spring gave off more energy than you put into it.

Quote :

"some things that happen to take a lot of energy, but spontaneously reverse and give off no energy."

The only times this ever happens is in an ideal system, which is to say that it never happens in the real world.

One thing I can think of for this example is a pendulum in a vacuum. Energy has been put into the pendulum to make it swing, but it isn't working any sort of mechanical system that will bleed off energy. The pendulum just swings back and forth on a frictionless hinge, so there's no energy loss there. And because it's in vacuum, there's no energy lost in the form of air friction. In this case, no energy is being "given off" because no work is being performed. Work = energy. No work = no energy being used. And because no energy is lost in our perfect and ideal example, once it reaches the lowest energy state possible (that is to say, the pendulum is at the lowest gravitational position it can attain), it will return to its original height. So yes, you are correct in that it would spontaneously return to its original position.

But you're assuming ideal conditions, no inelastic collisions, and no mechanisms for friction to occur. This simply does not happen in real world conditions. As LoneSnark said, you'll usually end up using more energy than is necessary for input simply because some of the energy you try to put into the system will be transformed into waste heat.

My advice: re-take thermodynamics. I know that it's difficult material to grasp, but trust me. Once you go back through it, a lot of this will make a lot more sense to you.

^ And speaking of you, thanks for the contribution.

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 3:42 PM. Reason : blah]

5/22/2006 3:31:56 PM

Quote :

"not if you used an catalyst."

seriously, Josh. we've already pwnt you on this before. Catalysts, by definition, reduce activation energy. They don't eliminate it or make it negative. You will NEVER be able to make a system that takes water, breaks it up into H2 and O2, and then burns it that will produce a net energy result. Period. End of story. All the efficiency in the world won't matter.

It scares me that you are going to get a degree from this university...

Quote :

"If it were 100% efficient, "hybrid" cars would have water tanks and onboard electrolyzers to create fuel because hydrogen gas has a hell of a lot more energy per mass than a battery does."

wrong... The efficiency of the cycle is relatively unimportant when it comes to a "hybrid" car. Doing anything other than pouring hydrogen straight into the tank is pointless, because you will lose energy in the conversion process.
Besides, as for your "hydrogen gas is lighter" argument, you are forgetting about the mass of OXYGEN as well, man. Sure, you are going to expell that O2 into the atmo during combustion, but it's still in there in the "water fuel." That and the weight of whatever else you have powering the electrolysis should more than make up for the difference in battery weight.

5/22/2006 5:20:20 PM

You're wrong on this one, mr Burro. If electrolysis were 100% efficient, then water would have replaced batteries in cars a long time ago. because hydrogen gas can be used to efficiently produce large quantities of electricity with a fuel cell, electrolysis of water would be an ideal method of storing onboard energy if the process was more efficient. You could even trap the exaust from the fuel cell and condense it so that you would never have to refill. And it's not like electrolysis is rocket science. Stick an anode and a cathode in some water and gas bubbles up.

Storing electrical energy is very difficult. Batteries are really heavy, and they take a damn long time to charge up. Thats why hybrid cars are not a good deal for the average consumer. They sacrifice more from the added cost and weight of the battery than they save in gas money. Onboard electrolysis would be a much more efficient way to store electrical energy if not for the huge energy losses in the electrolytic process.

5/22/2006 6:21:20 PM

Quote :

"If electrolysis were 100% efficient, then water would have replaced batteries in cars a long time ago."

what is powering the electrolysis? ooooooh, that's right... Don't say "hydrogen combustion," because if that's the case, then 1) you have a perpetual motion machine, and 2) you could only power the electrolysis with it and thus you'd have no net energy to use on the fucking motor...

AKA, you gotta have something to power the electrolysis independently. Braking alone is not going to cut it, because it won't do enough. You could get some residual energy out of it, but that's about it.

also, if my dick could produce wine, then I'd never have to work a day in my life.

Quote :

"You could even trap the exaust from the fuel cell and condense it so that you would never have to refill."

now I KNOW you are a fucking moron. What you are describing is a fucking perpetual motion machine. It's physically impossible to build. Hey genius: if we could just condense the water and run it back through the fuel cell again, wouldn't that be great? Sure, it would, but there'd have to be, ONCE AGAIN, something to power the fucking fuel cell, in which case, you'd just be better off USING THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE! I mean, I can't imagine that throwing in a fucking fuel cell is all that light as far as weight is concerned...

Besides, it's not like making diamonds is rocket science. All it takes is some coal and a lot of pressure, and BAM! you have a diamond

5/22/2006 6:36:24 PM

Quote :

"You could even trap the exaust from the fuel cell and condense it so that you would never have to refill."

I know that this kid did not honestly just propose a perpetual motion machine. Only a gross ignorance of basic laws of physics can produce such a thing.

5/22/2006 6:48:18 PM

Quote :

"seriously, Josh. we've already pwnt you on this before. Catalysts, by definition, reduce activation energy. They don't eliminate it or make it negative. You will NEVER be able to make a system that takes water, breaks it up into H2 and O2, and then burns it that will produce a net energy result."

its already beeen done, son. using a photocatalyst. need i post the article from nature again? you gain net elecetrical energy, but of course, you get energy from sunlight.

also enzymes in algae can split water, just go google it and learn for yourself. there is no input in energy, and yet you get hydrogen gas.

reality says, youre wrong.

5/22/2006 8:05:50 PM

Quote :

"Yes there is. But chemically speaking, plain ordinary water is at the lowest possible energy state it can attain."

Thats a false claim, if you have a bond, you have potential energy, its the very definition of a chemical bond. An O-H bond is very strong and has a LOT of energy in it; which is why it takes energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 8:10 PM. Reason : 534]

5/22/2006 8:08:38 PM

Quote :

"Truckers Choose Hydrogen Power Hundreds of semitrailer trucks zipping along North American highways are now powered in part by hydrogen. These 18-wheelers make hydrogen as they go, eliminating the need for high-pressure, cryogenic storage tanks or hydrogen filling stations, which, by the way, don't yet exist. These truckers aren't just do-gooders. They like Canadian Hydrogen Energy's Hydrogen Fuel Injection, or HFI, system because it lets them save fuel, get more horsepower and, as a bonus, cause less pollution. "We're saving $700 a month per truck on fuel," said Sherwin Fast, president of Great Plains Trucking in Salina, Kansas. The company tried the HFI system on four trucks and has ordered 25 more. "Drivers like the increased power and noticed there is a lot less black smoke coming out of the stacks," said Fast. HFI is a bolt-on, aftermarket part that injects small amounts of hydrogen into the engine air intake, said Canadian Hydrogen Energy's Steve Gilchrist. Fuel efficiency and horsepower are improved because hydrogen burns faster and hotter than diesel, dramatically boosting combustion efficiency. "You get more work from the same amount of fuel," said Gilchrist. This is not a new idea. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology published research on the uses of hydrogen as a combustion-enhancing agent in the early 1970s. But the ability to make hydrogen on the go is novel. The sticking point for hydrogen has always been getting it. Unlike crude oil, natural gas, wind or solar energy, hydrogen doesn't exist freely in nature. It costs $5 a gallon to make hydrogen from natural gas. But the HFI system uses electricity from an engine's alternator to power the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen as needed from small amounts of distilled water. "That's a big advantage and a bit of a novelty," said Venki Raman, an expert on hydrogen-energy applications who started Protium Energy Technologies. HFI's manufacturer guarantees 10 percent fuel savings, which likely won't interest car companies or consumers, Raman said. But a reduction of pollution emissions could spur broader use. Trucks with the HFI system produce half the amount of particulates -- microscopic, unburned bits of diesel. The system also reduces nitrogen-oxide emissions, which are major contributors to harmful air pollution, by up to 14 percent, according to Canada's Environmental Technology Verification Program. The HFI units are relatively small and cost between $4,000 and $14,000, depending on the size of the vehicle. "It looks like a good transition technology to hydrogen fuel cells, which are still at least 15 years away from commercialization," said Raman. It will take at least until 2040 before fuel cells begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to the National Hydrogen Association, Gilchrist pointed out. "We vehemently disagree with governments picking the fuel cell as the single path to a cleaner environment," he said. Gilchrist recently argued just this point in meetings with California officials, who are considering buying prototype fuel-cell vehicles that will cost more than $1 million each. That money could buy many HFI systems, which would provide "300 times" the air-pollution reductions of one fuel-cell vehicle, he said."

http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,69529,00.html

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 8:12 PM. Reason : 534]

5/22/2006 8:12:16 PM

Quote :

"Photocatalyst releasing hydrogen from water Direct splitting of water using a particulate photocatalyst would be a good way to produce clean and recyclable hydrogen on a large scale1, and in the past 30 years various photocatalysts have been found that function under visible light2, 3, 4. Here we describe an advance in the catalysis of the overall splitting of water under visible light: the new catalyst is a solid solution of gallium and zinc nitrogen oxide5, 6, (Ga1-xZnx)(N1-xOx), modified with nanoparticles of a mixed oxide of rhodium and chromium. The mixture functions as a promising and efficient photocatalyst in promoting the evolution of hydrogen gas."

I can't view the rest of the article. I have to have a subscription or something. Post for me the rest of the article so that I can have a more in-depth view.

That aside, I don't see anything in here about how much more efficient it is compared to, say, unaided electrolysis. All I see in here is that it is possible to use visible light as an energy source for electrolyzing water. I see no numbers, no data, no results. You haven't shown that this method is any more economically feasible than what is done now, you've just shown that a different way is possible. That's not good enough.

Quote :

"also enzymes in algae can split water, just go google it and learn for yourself."

Or you could post the "articles" that you've read so that we'll all be consistent with regards to what literature we've read. And Google isn't the only source of information, you know. How about you recommend us some peer-reviewed journals or something?

Quote :

"there is no input in energy, and yet you get hydrogen gas."

Do you even bother to check your post before you submit it? Or do you just blindly believe everything you read? You CANNOT EVER obtain hydrogen gas without some sort of initial commitment of energy. The only way you could really do it for "free" is to collect interstellar hydrogen, and good luck trying to scoop that into a pressurized container. Either that or use a Bussard engine, but that still requires an energy input.

If you cannot accept that every action in the universe necessitates an energy transfer, you deny thermodynamics itself.

Quote :

"reality says, youre wrong."

Wrong. Not only does reality say that you are wrong, thermodynamics screams it in everybody's ears.

Quote :

"An O-H bond is very strong and has a LOT of energy in it; which is why it takes energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen."

Wrong wrong wrong! Or at the very least, you're misunderstanding the kind of energy contained within an O-H bond. Keep in mind that all things in nature seek the lowest energy state. Well, in H2O, the atoms are bonded such that their bond energy is negative. Yes, it is possible to have negative energy. It takes a positive amount of energy for the hydrogens and oxygen to terminate their bond. That is to say, the energy difference between unbonded H&O and bonded H&O is positive.

That is really what we're talking about here; the energy DIFFERENCE between bonded and not-bonded. It is this POSITIVE ENERGY DIFFERENCE that represents the minimal amount of energy required for electrolysis. This is the energy that is necessary for hydrogen and oxygen to seperate, and this is the energy that is released when they recombine.

Do you understand now?

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 8:25 PM. Reason : blah]

5/22/2006 8:18:44 PM

Quote :

"now I KNOW you are a fucking moron. What you are describing is a fucking perpetual motion machine. It's physically impossible to build. Hey genius: if we could just condense the water and run it back through the fuel cell again, wouldn't that be great? Sure, it would, but there'd have to be, ONCE AGAIN, something to power the fucking fuel cell, in which case, you'd just be better off USING THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE! I mean, I can't imagine that throwing in a fucking fuel cell is all that light as far as weight is concerned... "

Why do you think I said that electrolysis would replace a battery and not the engine itself? Because I am talking about energy recovery, storage and retrieval, not actual energy production.

Quote :

"you gotta have something to power the electrolysis independently. Braking alone is not going to cut it, because it won't do enough. You could get some residual energy out of it, but that's about it."

Now you're on the right track. The fact is that gasoline engines are never more than 30% efficient. Hybrid powerplants are a way of boosting that efficiency, by storing energy in off-peak usage and releasing that stored energy in situations requiring peak power. If we had an ultra-efficient method of storing energy during off-peak usage and then releasing it when max power is needed, we could boost efficiency by a considerable amount.

Go back and re-read my posts. You're the fucking moron for your lack of reading comprehension.

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 8:31 PM. Reason : 2]

5/22/2006 8:21:21 PM

Quote :

"I can't view the rest of the article. I have to have a subscription or something. Post for me the rest of the article so that I can have a more in-depth view."

youll have to go thru the lib's website. it would be illegal.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7082/abs/440295a.html

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 8:24 PM. Reason : 4234]

5/22/2006 8:23:56 PM

Let me be more specific.

Let us suppose that the free energy of room temperature water is -40J. The free energy of unbonded hydrogen and oxygen is, oh I dunno, -2J. So we're talking about a +38J difference between bonded and unbonded. This is admittedly a simplistic example and these numbers are incorrect, but I think it demonstrates my point. Regardless of what the actual energy states of water and free hydrogen/oxygen are, the difference in their free energies is such that it takes energy to seperate water into its constituent elements, and energy is released when they combine.

Now do you understand?

5/22/2006 8:28:59 PM

Quote :

"it takes energy to seperate water into its constituent elements, and energy is released when they combine."

yes thats true; but the types of energy used to seperate and recombine can be different

5/22/2006 9:07:22 PM