So this latest "car that runs on water"-is this the real deal?

is this the answer we've been waiting for?
Is this another cold fusion?
I'm skeptical, but if it's a hoax, it's
an elaborate one.
This was posted last night without much
followup.

what say you, gearheads?

http://hytechapps.com/science/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImGaraPrEo8

It's not free energy, just a (not really new BTW) method of transferring energy from one place to another.

Jewelers and plumbers have used similar torches for many years.

http://www.lrultrasonics.com/industries/industrial/aqua.html

Check it out! http://www.stanleysteamers.com/

Fascinating cars. Thanks for the linkee.

The pilot light was known for blowing out when coasting downhill.
Otherwise except for having to stop for water in addition to gas. (It came with a Siphon hose)
And being limited by the ten HP boiler.

In the video one of the inventors does say it uses electricity to turn water in "HHO gas". They claim they have created a very efficient electrolysis process, which they have patented.
Electrolysis of water does produce two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. I imagine it's a matter of mixing those together at a temperature high enough to prevent it recombining into water. I suppose keeping the gasses over 100C would be a good start. Presumably it uses electricity not only for electrolysis but also to pre-heat the gasses.

It does not claim to be free energy, it claims efficient electrolysis and it seems to demonstrate that HHO gas does have some very interesting properties.

HHO is an odd way of saying water, H2O, but that is still steam!

If it is splitting the water via electrolysis, it would be producing H2 and O2, not "HHO" or whatever that may be.

but i looked it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

Electrolysis of water produces 2H2 + O2; Two parts Hydrogen, One part Oxygen.

To call a mixture of those gasses "HHO gas" may be scientifically incorrect, but it's close enough for me. I wouldn't be surprised if the H2 and O2 do split single H's and O's at high temperatures.

Which by a strange coincidence happens to be the stoichiometrically correct mix of the two gases to be recombined into water by combustion.

:freak:

:D

:freak:

In a RESTAURANT!

The site you gave displays a unit that's supposed to give a 5000-degree flame temperature. The site the OP gave claims 10,000-degree flame temps. It's the same technology...how's this new guy getting twice the heat out of the same fuel?

I wouldn't run a machine like either of those--far more control is offered with plasma-arc; it offers a nice pinpoint heat. 'Course, you need two cylinders on a plasma-arc welder--the plasma gas and the shielding gas. There's tradeoffs in everything.

"does it violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics" and if it does, then it's bunk.

In this case, it's not clear what he's doing. Apparently he's added water to a welding torch.

:shrug:

Which is always more then you get out of it.

I suspect the oil companies are working on laws to surpress this.

if it sounds to good to be true, it may be.

(from the video)

This is very interesting technology, but it really does not "run on water". Rather it runs on water and electricity.

have to be Perrier. That Wal-mart stuff wouldn't work.

Eat lot's of beans, and only drive near Taco Bell.

...if they can really acheive the temperatures that they claim, one could get very high levels of heat -> kinetic energy conversion. Thermophotovoltaics, for example, might be used to convert light energy from a heated mass into source of electricity for an electric primary motor. They are already rivaling gas ICE efficiency. Solid state thermovoltaics as well may be very efficient in their next gen products. The
question would be if you have H2 to safely stored onboard to start out with (a big if) do these techniques really yeild a higher efficiency than a fuel cell or a H2 ICE?

As a fuel additive, hydrogen has demonstrated an ability to greatly increase ICE fuel combustion efficiency
(chechfi.ca sells units that do this based on traditional electrolysis.) That much is pretty solidly established.

However the technical descriptions are so vague as to be meaningless.

As an aside there's another interesting hydrogen-based torch technology:


http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/AtomicH/atomicH.html

(and there's of course the "overunity" crowd weighing in with this, if you like to walk on the fringe:

http://jlnlabs.imars.com/mahg/index.htm

)

:silly:

:)

:silly:

:silly:

the driver would.

is enter into negotiations with the car industry, the oil industry, or the U.S. government . . . all of which would do everything in their power to ensure that it never happens . . .

Every conversion of energy from one form to another dissipates energy.

If there is sufficient electrical power storage on board, it would be
far more efficient to drive electric motors to power the vehicle.

Electric motors can be in excess of 90% efficient in converting electrical
energy to motion.

The holy grail of the electric vehicle would be a lightweight 'battery'
that is environmentally friendly, can be recharged 100,000 times, and has
sufficient capacity to drive a lightweight vehicle.

Nothing wrong with burning hydrogen to produce usable energy but it will always take more to extract it than you can get back.

The inventors do not claim to have created anything like a perpetuum mobile.

Gas Production-Volume
1500 liters per hour
System Capacity
3.4 liters (53 cu ft) at 50 psi
Power Consumption
17 Amp at 220-240 VAC. 50-60 Hz

So, basically this unit requires around 4000 watts of power to create 1500 liters per hour. So imagine a unit like this in your garage, filling your car's tank each night. 4kwhs of power for 1500 liters of gas seems pretty cost effective. The question is, how far could a motor run on 1500 liters of this gas?

Well, 4000 Watts is just over 5 HP, so if we *ASSUME 100%
EFFICIENCY* (unlikely, of course), then for every hour you
draw 4000 Watts of electricity, you can run the car's motor
at 5 HP. Or two hours of charge for 10 HP, and so on.

Realistically, if you figure a car needs about 10-20 HP
on average, an overnight (12 hour charge) would get you
3 hours of runtime. Can the car store that much gas?

Tesha

... offer detailed explanations of all of the energy created and the energy used, I can't get excited about these sorts of things.

I'm not ruling out the possibility of there being some kind of novel conversion using some cheap form of energy ( after all, one could claim that a nuclear reactor does a pretty efficient job of extracting massive amounts of energy from very limited materials ), but somehow this particular approach sounds more 20th century than 21st :)

it draws almost as much as a hair dryer... you need a 15 amp circuit. read the specs.

http://shorinternational.com/WaterFlameInstr.htm

plus, to get it going, you have to charge it with a very strong alkalai, but that seems to be a one-time deal.

the interesting thing is this (for those of you science-minded):

it claims to draw 1300 watts and deliver 4000 BTUs/hr.

4000 BTUs/hr is the same as 1172 watts. what does that tell us? it's very efficient in converting water to gas. on the news, they called it HHO gas... not hydrogen and oxygen.

anybody know more about HHO? information about that gas on google is very conflicted.

Hydrogen and oxygen don't spontaneously react to form water. Something needs to trigger the reaction. That something could be heat (like fire or a spark) to create the combustion to burn the hydrogen.) It could be laser light or a high intensity uV source.

But, when the water is electrolyzed, the two gasses are released and when kept together make this mixture. It is nothing but a gas mixture, no matter what conflicted information you got from Google. There is no inherent bond energy created when hydrogen and oxygen are placed in close proximity. And, in the gaseous state, there isn't even any hydrogen bonding occurring.
The Professor

On Edit: The energy required for electrolyzing water should be equal to the heat of formation, which is the energy absorbed when combustion occurs. So, the heat of combusion minus the heat of formation is the intrinsic energy. Since some energy was released in the original formation of water, it would appear that this is ridiculous on its face, since the formation of water is a net heat generator, but that energy's already gone. So, electrolyzing water requires energy in, then we combust, we get that energy out and what's left is the difference between combustion and formation. That's exactly the amount of energy we just used to separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen. No matter how efficient the process, it can't do better than 100%
The Professor

until the temp reaches a certain point which I disremember at the moment.

It doesn't need much of an excuse to go "Kablooie!"

Shades of Batman! :D

The gas torch version is said to require 17 Amp at 220-240 VAC. 50-60 Hz which if I am not mistaken is nearly 4 kilowatts.

Oh I just noticed that your specs are for a different manufacturer's device. Here are the specs for this guys torch:

http://hytechapps.com/applications/H2O-specs.htm

:eyes: :wtf:

Electrolysis produces 2H2 and O2 *seperately*, which when mixed can apparently be ignited. For all i know hydrogen is pretty flamable, and oxygen will only help it burn.

O2 + H2 -> H20 (but not really, it is unbalanced), so it is actually

2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O

Oxygen just happens to be the most handy and abundant oxidizer...many other elements are considered 'oxidizing' even if no oxygen is involved...like Sulphur for example.

And yes, hydrogen is one of the most 'flammable' elements that exist.
It's what makes 'hydrocarbons' such good fuels.

and return to the seventies. Of course we also had rumors of mega tankers waiting off shore for the price to go up before docking. Anyone else see the similarities in these stories? Hundred mile per gallon carburetors, dihydrogen oxide powered cars, inventors silenced by the government, or oil companies, or car companies. On and on it went. Oh yea, magnets on the fuel line to increase mileage, that was always one of my favorites. Best advice from the seventies: Buy a locking gas cap.

I remember 6-7 years ago there was a TV show episode titled "Beyond 2000" where an inventor was showing his creation. His creation was a car made to run on water and I believe it was a some sort of steam engine. It didn't look like a rumor since there was a working example.

:silly: