"Convert your car to run on tap water"! "not fake!"

[m1spw]

Someone on ebay is trying to sell a guide on how to covert your car to run on tap water only, giving you better performance and economy! How gullible can people be?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Convert-you-car-to-run-on-TAP-

If this worked, why wouldn't everyone be doing this??? What an idiot...

[hal 1]

Oh yee of little faith, Dont be so sceptical , my cash is winging its way as we speak !

[tomtvr]

perhaps he means £100 of timber to build a raft for the car to float down a river?

[_Al_]

Up to 300 miles per gallon eh?

Not bad for tap water...

[atomicrex]

He has got some good feedback, so not sure what he is trying to sell!

Maybe someone should invest?

[john75]

This can infact be done but first you would need to split the Oxygen and the Hydrogen as both are good burners.

[_Al_]

john75 said:

This can infact be done but first you would need to split the Oxygen and the Hydrogen as both are good burners.

Yep, but the energy you need to put in to split them has to come from somewhere...

Also - do you get more energy out from burning the hydrogen and oxygen than you had to put in to split them?

[Pigeon]

_Al_ said:

Also - do you get more energy out from burning the hydrogen and oxygen than you had to put in to split them?

No. In a "perfect" system, you get exactly the same amount. In a "real" system, there are various losses, so you get less - usually quite a bit less.

Using water as a fuel requires nuclear techniques - fusion - which nobody has cracked yet, and if they did it'd still be a lot more complicated than bolting some magic doobrie onto an existing engine.

[ATG]

Mr Fusion (tm)

[FunkyNige]

Pigeon said:

Using water as a fuel requires nuclear techniques - fusion - which nobody has cracked yet, and if they did it'd still be a lot more complicated than bolting some magic doobrie onto an existing engine.

You don't need nuclear technology to separate Oxygen and Hydrogen from water, if you want to convert the H2 to energy you need fusion, if you just want to burn it you don't need any special technology.
Oxygen doesn't burn, it's an oxidiser (funnily enough).

[GreenV8S]

I guess that's what he's selling, then. The instructions probably read something like this:

obtain a working fusion reactor
install fusion reactor in car

Worth every penny I'd say.

[D_Mike]

Pigeon said:

_Al_ said: Also - do you get more energy out from burning the hydrogen and oxygen than you had to put in to split them? No. In a "perfect" system, you get exactly the same amount. In a "real" system, there are various losses, so you get less - usually quite a bit less. Using water as a fuel requires nuclear techniques - fusion - which nobody has cracked yet, and if they did it'd still be a lot more complicated than bolting some magic doobrie onto an existing engine.

I'm not going to dig out the numbers etc. now and do a calculation but I always though that modulus of the free energy for H2 + 0.5 O2 was less than the activation energy for H2O --> H2 + 0.5 O2 in an electrolytic cell.

does that make sense?

I need to go and read my books.

[D_Mike]

It'd be easier to adapt your car engine to run on H2 and then make it by the electrolysis of water... but as previously pointed out you need to get the electricity from somewhere...

[wtd]

heres what he is selling (DL the zip) www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/carplans.htm

[GreenV8S]

So that confirms that he's selling a perpetual motion machine using electrolysis to split hydrogen out of water and then burning the hydrogen.

Frankly I'm surprised they bothered with such a complicated solution. It would have been much simpler to put a windmill on top of the car, driving a shaft to a propellor at the back. The vehicle's head wind would power the propeller which in turn pushes the car along. Much simpler than all this electrickery. Of course you might need to experiment with the propeller sizes otherwise you might end up going backwards ...

[portas young]

I remember a scientist came up with a successfully patented water engine design a few years ago, as far as I can recall, only to be payed off and have the design locked away out of sight in the vault a bit tout suite by the oil companies. Not at all what he had in mind! Remember the fuss at the time.

[GreenV8S]

portas young said:

I remember ...

I'm sure we all know somebody who knows somebody who has definite proof that the oil companies are suppressing inventions like this. After all it's well known that the oil companies forced the USAF to hide the antigravity fusion reactors they discovered in those wrecked UFOs, and anyone who gets too close will find themselves whisked off by flying saucers ...

[annodomini2]

Given that the best electrolisis machines in the world are only 35% efficient, I'm guessing it would work of a fashion, however you would need to keep recharging your battery every few miles (especially if you have your lights on! )

EDITED TO ADD: Not to mention hydrogen and oxygen are EXTREMELY VOLATILE (significantly more so than petrol, see challenger disaster!).

>> Edited by annodomini2 on Sunday 8th January 15:25

[D_Mike]

given that they are gases at r.t. it would hard for them to be much more volatile

edit: I think what you mean is "reactive". A stoichiometric (or thereabouts) mixture of O2 and H2 it very explosive.

having said it always amazes me, when i fill a balloon up with H2 and O2 and it could just sit there and do nothing for the remainder of the lifetime of the universe, unless you give it a spark/flame and then it makes a fairly impressive bang

still, acetylene and O2 is even more impressive

>> Edited by D_Mike on Sunday 8th January 15:31

[FunkyNige]

If anyone's interested in how to get H2 from water, turn on to Scrapheap Challenge (Channel 4) now, they're making a machine to fire tomatoes by using H2 explosions...