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[Idiom]

Check it out -> Some Japanese guy just revealed a car that runs on just water, and outputs water.

Thoughts, opinions?

I smell bullsh*t.
From all the hype I've seen, people are as gullible as the 'inventor' thinks they are.

[LASD]

That does sound a bit fishy, especially the "Put in water and oxygen, out comes water and oxygen" part, but I just might not have understood it properly. I would like that they explained the "CHEMICAL REACTION!"-thing more thoroughly. Now it just seems like they are saying that "Don't you worry about these things, it just magically works, so how about you buy it."

There is also a different kind of zero pollution car. It works with compressed air and seems a lot more genuine. See it here: http://zeropollutionmotors.us/

[Kagus]

It's just a matter of splitting the hydrogen from the oxygen in a water molecule and then using that hydrogen to fuel something.  There's some guy on YouTube who does this stuff, but I can't find his videos at the moment...  Give me a while and I'll see if I can find it again.


So the concept of using water to fuel something is sound.  It's that end process of reforming it that I'm not so sure about.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The principle is sound enough, except it would have a limited resource, because it doesn't take all of its energy from water. An arguably better solution is what I've seen on Discovery a while back - Hydrogen power with water as fuel source. You basically take a tank of water, hook it up to a battery of electrolysis devices, and take a standard IFC engine modified to run on hydrogen. It's bulky, but good enough for home use, and could probably be made small enough to fit in a microvan.

[Idiom]

It's just a matter of splitting the hydrogen from the oxygen in a water molecule and then using that hydrogen to fuel something.

I would like that they explained the "CHEMICAL REACTION!"-thing more thoroughly.

That "Chemical Reaction!", the splitting of the hydrogen and oxygen takes electricity. You get essentially rocket fuel (although real real rocket fuel has both gases in liquid state). But rather than burn this fuel and due to the laws of physics get the energy equivalent of the electricity that went into the water to split it in the first place, this motor spends that much energy again to change it back into water. It could work endlessly splitting and re-combining water if it were a closed circuit and didn't leak energy by powering the car.

My money is on the compressed air car. Yes I've been watching them for some time now, they should hit the consumer market in 1-3 years.

"The principle"? Elaborate? It's pulling energy out of water's arse is what this motor supposedly does. X units of energy + water = H2 & O + same X units of energy = water + ??energy??. Didn't anyone learn about creating and splitting chemical bonds in school, or does the inventor assume no-one passed chemistry 101?

Hydrogen motors would be neat. But then Hollywood's exploding cars would be correct.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, the principle of using water as a reagent in getting heat, or power, or whatever. You could get water to split itself without electrical power, but that would require funny chemicals, and those won't last forever.

Hollywood's exploding cars wouldn't be correct because there would be no fuel tank to shoot. Hydrogen would exist in a very small timespace, from appearing in electrolysis banks, through whatever is used to pump it, and down the tube to the motor's fuel intake.

[Idiom]

And those chemicals would cost 4$ (and rising) a gallon in the US... 

I thought you meant driving around with a tank of hydrogen under your car. Not that shooting it would make it explode. It needs to mix with air first. The car would wreck, the tank leak, and then a spark may set off a fireball.
Storing it as water would be safe. But then it's an electric car, requiring water and electricity. Using electricity to power it directly seems more efficient in my mind.

[LASD]

You could get water to split itself without electrical power, but that would require funny chemicals, and those won't last forever.

That is exactly what I was thinking the CHEMICAL REACTION might be. I think it would also be rather expensive to always have enough of these chemicals. (EDIT: Idiom seems to have had the same train of thought as I did, but his train arrived sooner to the train station at the Bay 12 Games Forum)

This thing is made to look like it doesn't cost anything to run that car. Everything that goes in seems to come out in the same form, the electrons just go through a certain part, transfer electricity to the car and return to the other side to become a part of water again. It doesn't work like that. There's something important missing here.

An arguably better solution is what I've seen on Discovery a while back - Hydrogen power with water as fuel source. You basically take a tank of water, hook it up to a battery of electrolysis devices, and take a standard IFC engine modified to run on hydrogen. It's bulky, but good enough for home use, and could probably be made small enough to fit in a microvan.

Also the emissions are only what is left when hydrogen burns: dihydrogenoxide, also known as H₂0

[Idiom]

Using electricity to power it directly seems more efficient in my mind.

Actually I take that back, as I'm tempted to say we've become much more efficient at burning fuels than electric motor efficiency.

[Sean Mirrsen]

If you power the car with electricity, say N Watts, you use those N Watts to directly propel the car. If you use those N Watts to extract X liters of hydrogen/oxygen mixture, you get to use the power of the combustion of said mixture, which is arguably higher.
I mean, electrolysis doesn't take all that much power, compared to actually moving the car. Consider how much toil a human would go through to mine a ton of coal. Now consider how much more energy that ton of coal would yield, in much shorter time - like moving a cargo train for a few miles?

[Idiom]

I'm suddenly picturing a car with a mini-wind generator on top for electrolysis. 

From what I recall though in chemistry, it requires more energy to separate the water than the components' combustion produces.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I think I've had the equivalent of a C in chemistry. I wouldn't know a base from an acid unless they came with labels.
I'm not too sure about the whole "effectiveness" thing, but I'm fairly certain cars like that were made, so there has to be some manner of advantage over plain electricity.

I still think a permanent magnet motor would trump anything of the sort, hehe.

[Idiom]

HHO! That's what I was thinking of!

Prodding around, yes electrolysis requires mass amounts of power. Although common sense already told me converting energy types (electrical to chemical, thermal to kinetic etc) is inefficient as power is always leaked through heat, friction, radiation, etc in the process.

[Sean Mirrsen]

There's even a Water-powered car article.

Speaking of permanent magnets. I still don't understand what's so wrong about the idea. Just get ring rotor around reciprocating pistons, linked to it, and have some magnets placed in such a manner that there's no stall on return action. With the large radius of the rotor, you can have a piston magnet only come into the effect area of a corresponding rotor magnet in the active phase, without repulsion at any other point in the cycle...

[Idiom]

Are you suggesting magnets that continuously push each other around?
I fiddled with that ages ages ago (I was using K'nex to give you an idea of how long ago).

without repulsion at any other point in the cycle...

That's the catch.