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Junior Member
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quote: quote: as for getting energy out of water, you would have to put in more energy than you plan to get out, like in the top equation.
You would only have to get more energy out than you put in if you were trying to power the car from water. not if you were going to use the water as (even with a loss) a method of transforming waste energy into usable. yes, you get a loss, as in ALL energy transformations. This is not a factor. The factor is can you convert waste energy into usable energy. gas used = movement + waste I would have thought you would have mentioned the law of conservation of energy. Seems more fitting since we havent discussed much about the stability of the water versus the gas and how the exwater would return to water. quote: quote: A much more efficient use of solar power is to take out the water and power the engine directly from the solar power. Once again, by the first and second law of thermodynamics, electrolysis of water followed by combustion of the hydrogen and oxygen produced is always an energy loss.
of course the less conversions the more efficient, and we are more advanced in transferring electricity compared to other energies, but this is about adding on to an existing vehicle isnt it? quote: quote: These people are not trying to learn at all they are trying to sell snake oil by obfuscating the fact that what they sell violates fundamental laws of physics. They actually tried to use hydroelectric power and nuclear power to prove you could get chemical energy out of water.
sorry, i was under the impression you were making that statement at getreal17, who seemed to me wasnt trying to sell anything, just wondering if something would work and was trying to use what he knew in order to figure it out. i imagined him as coming here trying to understand this better with help from the people here. quote: quote: Hah! Science doesn't go easy or hard on anybody. If your ego is fragile, get an engineering degree.
Actually, my ego was still fragile after the first engineering degree. So I am working on the second.
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Member
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Wow, if you are going to say stuff like this (below) then make sure you realize that I wasn't the one who originally posted this "equation" and I was using it to prove a point.
Unless you want me to believe that this reaction is plausible:
Water + a little energy ---> Water + more energy
Above is a good concept, put ideas into mathematical equations. We call this physics.
if you view the simplified car system as: gas used = movement + waste
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Member
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Okay let's clear up a few things: 1) I'm not selling anything. I just want to see us use reliable, green energy instead of dirty fossil fuels owned by big corporations. 2) I could care less about your PhD in Chem. I work around PhD's all day and am rarely impressed with their "intelligence". Although I have a B.S. in Engineering, a degree doesn't prove anything other than you jumped through hoops at a university for "x" number of years. Get over yourself. 3) As far as "getting out what you put in", here's the deal: An altenator is constantly putting out electrical energy, since the motor is turning and thus turning the altenator it essentially costs us no more to produce this energy than it does to "waste it". Next we SUPPLEMENT our gas with H2 and O2 and improve the combustion of the gas with O2 and combust the H2. Here's where you are getting tripped up: I'm not running the car as a stand alone hydrogen vehicle, but as a hybrid. There are plenty of people supplementing their gas with H2 and O2 and improving gas mileage. I will agree that you can't run a perpetual motor on water - it doesn't work. But I'm not speaking of perpetual motion or overunity. quote: Originally posted by GunsNTulips: quote: Wow, have you ever heard of a nuclear power plant? Or what about damming a river?
Besides your little "formula" doesn't take into account that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen, two very highly combustible elements.
A nuclear power plant gets it's energy from fission, not from water. the energy from daming a river comes from the sun that drives the weather system to bring precipitation, not from water. My little equation takes absolutely every bit of hydrogen and oxygen into account. By the firts law of thermodynamics, you have to put at least as much energy into separating the hydrogen and oxygen as you get out of recombining them when they burn. I guess that's why I'm the one with a PhD in chemistry, and you are relegated to posting garbage on internet websites.
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Senior Member
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quote: There are plenty of people supplementing their gas with H2 and O2 and improving gas mileage.
I would certainly love to see the cited equations that demonstrate that this is possible. Since hydrogen has an extremely low energy/volume ratio, in order to do anything effective you have to generate massive volumes of hydrogen, then compress it into the cylinder and a standard vehicle is not equipped to do that as far as I know. Mostly people just try to convince themselves that they didn't waste money by driving less aggresively and finding that "gee I am spending less money on gas". quote: Above is a good concept, put ideas into mathematical equations. We call this physics. It's called thermodynamics, and chemists use it just as often as physicists. Since we are discussing the energy you can get out of a chemical reaction, it falls into my territory. quote: As far as "getting out what you put in", here's the deal: An altenator is constantly putting out electrical energy, since the motor is turning and thus turning the altenator it essentially costs us no more to produce this energy than it does to "waste it". The alternator provides as much energy as the car needs and no more. The more energy you drain from the alternator, the more energy it takes to move the alternator. If you are adding the electrolysis of water to the workload of the alternator, then you are making the alternator drain that much more energy from the engine. The engine will behave similarly to the way it does when you are driving up a hill. quote: Next we SUPPLEMENT our gas with H2 and O2 and improve the combustion of the gas with O2 and combust the H2. Since every bit of O2 you generated is used to combust the H2, it does not help the gasoline combust unless you aren't fully combusting the hydrogen. Remember, you generated the hydrogen from the electrolysis of water, so an equimolar quantity of hydrogen and oxygen were produced. Worse yet, with that volume of H2 and O2 you have either displaced the same volume of the gasoline or the air in the cylinder. Since, as I stated before, hydrogen has an extremely low energy/volume ratio, this is a loss in energy production by every measure. quote: I could care less about your PhD in Chem. I work around PhD's all day and am rarely impressed with their "intelligence". I'm sure they aren't really impressed with your intelligence either. You should tell them about your water4gas idea. That'll get a few laughs. quote: Although I have a B.S. in Engineering, a degree doesn't prove anything other than you jumped through hoops at a university for "x" number of years. I'm sure you dot your I's and cross your T's like every good little engineer. If I want an efficient and practical design for something, I'll get an engineer, but if I want to understand the science behind something, I'll look for a PhD in the field I need to know about. quote: Get over yourself. No way! Now go design a bridge or something.
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Junior Member
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quote: Above is a good concept, put ideas into mathematical equations. We call this physics.
It's called thermodynamics, and chemists use it just as often as physicists. Since we are discussing the energy you can get out of a chemical reaction, it falls into my territory.
Thermo=heat=energy in motion Dynamic=movement Thermodynamics is the study of energy movement. Usually involving heat, pressure, temp,volume.
Physics is the study of space, time, matter, motion, energy, force, blah blah. Physics is understanding how physical things work and putting that understanding into equations.
quote: Next we SUPPLEMENT our gas with H2 and O2 and improve the combustion of the gas with O2 and combust the H2.
quote: Since every bit of O2 you generated is used to combust the H2, it does not help the gasoline combust unless you aren't fully combusting the hydrogen. Remember, you generated the hydrogen from the electrolysis of water, so an equimolar quantity of hydrogen and oxygen were produced.
Is this assuming that the oxygen is placed right back with the hydrogen? I don't think they would just be thrown back together in the cylinder. Electrolysis would produce the gases and then they would be contained separately until used.
I am not saying that you will save much, but I don't see how converting waste heat into usable energy violates any laws or theories.
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Junior Member
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This is a great discussion, and I love to see the professional jabs. But there are some things missing:
1) It has been established that it takes energy to change water into H2 and O2... But how much energy does it take to refine oil into gasoline? Is so-called "HHO" more efficient to produce?
2) It has also been established that nothing is 100% efficient, and that this method will ultimately cause gasoline (or other energy sources) to be used in order to perform the conversion. But does it put enough usable gases back into the engine to compensate?
I'm researching this for the first time and am very skeptical, but I wanted to see if the above points were considered. Instead of making points about how this concept works or doesn't work, I wonder how the results (if any) compare to the methods used to provide our current transportation energy sources.
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Senior Member
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quote: Is this assuming that the oxygen is placed right back with the hydrogen? I don't think they would just be thrown back together in the cylinder.
Either the oxygen is being placed with the hydrogen to produce water or the oxygen is being placed with the carbon to make carbon dioxide, there is no other way. Combustion is a high energy process which inevitably results in the lowest energy products possible. Since you are electrolyzing water in precisely the right proportions to make water, you are either incompletely reoxidizing the hydrogen to water or you are incompletely oxidizing the fuel. Either way you have lost energy in the process. quote: Electrolysis would produce the gases and then they would be contained separately until used. It maskes no difference how they do it. They can be produced together, or they can be produced in separate containers at separate electrodes. It's all the same as far as thermodynamics are concerned. quote: I am not saying that you will save much, but I don't see how converting waste heat into usable energy violates any laws or theories. Nobody in this thread has produced any method that converts waste heat into usable energy. They have claimed that that is what they are doing, but it is either a deception or ignorance. You can not draw more energy from the alternator without drawing more energy from the engine. Just the way driving with your headlights on will lower your gas mileage, so will drawing energy to electrolyze water. Besides, without a cold reservoir, converting heat into energy at all violates the second law of thermodynamics. quote: Thermo=heat=energy in motion Dynamic=movement Thermodynamics is the study of energy movement. Usually involving heat, pressure, temp,volume.
Physics is the study of space, time, matter, motion, energy, force, blah blah. Physics is understanding how physical things work and putting that understanding into equations. You can call it whatever you like, I've taken more classes in this subject than you know what to do with. Waste heat will always be waste heat. Very complicated systems can draw energy from heat when a "cold" reservoir exists, but none of that is going on here in the water4gas scam. quote: But how much energy does it take to refine oil into gasoline? Considerably less energy than it takes to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. Notice that commercial hydrogen is not produced from electrolysis of water, it is produced from natural gas. The reason that hydrogen is produced from natural gas rather than electrolysis of water is because electrolysis of water is extremely energy intensive. As GetReal17 has pointed out, the combustion of hydrogen and oxygen produces a lot of energy. Likewise, it takes a lot of energy to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen. It is just running the same reaction backwards. quote: But does it put enough usable gases back into the engine to compensate? See my previous response. The answer is no. quote: Instead of making points about how this concept works or doesn't work, I wonder how the results (if any) compare to the methods used to provide our current transportation energy sources. I would compare it to burning gasoline to run a machine that makes gasoline.
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Junior Member
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Regardless of the 8th grade physics discussed here, the water4gas idea works. I installed the system in my 03 Explorer and my mileage went from 15-16mpg average to over 23mpg. This is nothing more than a supplement to the fuel system. The converted H20 increases the efficiency of your current system, which under normal conditions waste huge amounts of energy lost through the tailpipe. The debunkers, such a Mythbusters do not address this specific system. None of this is rocket science and I'm surprised it's not more mainstream. I save money on gas = it works.
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Junior Member
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Ok, I read this entire useless thread and was amazed that the skeptics never asked this question?
Has anyone claiming that they are getting massive improvements on their EFI car stopped to consider the statement, "There is a simple circuit that you can build that will "trick" your ECU into not adjusting. "
This could EASILY increase your mpg ALONE without any silly HHO system at all. These people are simply leaning out their cars endangering their engine and INCREASING emissions. The irony makes me smile. Funny.
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Senior Member
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quote: Regardless of the 8th grade physics discussed here, the water4gas idea works. I installed the system in my 03 Explorer and my mileage went from 15-16mpg average to over 23mpg. This is nothing more than a supplement to the fuel system. The converted H20 increases the efficiency of your current system, which under normal conditions waste huge amounts of energy lost through the tailpipe. The debunkers, such a Mythbusters do not address this specific system. None of this is rocket science and I'm surprised it's not more mainstream. I save money on gas = it works.
You are a liar or stupid. It is not more mainstream because it does not work. The people that sell these systems use pseudoscientific jargon such as "converted H2O", "Brown's gas" or "HHO" to imply that it is something other than plain old electrolyzed water. It isn't rocket science, but it is thermodynamics. I'm guessing you wouldn't know where to start a thermodynamics discussion on converting Heat of Combustion to work. They never discuss it on those websites either, because they are all a bunch of engineers that never had to take thermodynamics. The most these things do is mess with the sensors on your car. If you do a controlled study you will find that these things are useless. Fact: There are no patents for this technology. Fact: There are no articles published in peer reveiwed journals that demonstrate thins technology. Fact: The only place you see this technology promoted is on the internet where dumb people can be easily scammed by pseudoscientific jargon.
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Junior Member
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No, I am not a liar or stupid, just an adult. For those of you who still have the keys to open your mind, there has been valid research done on this or similar systems. Some of the research is old, late 70's, last gas crunch motivated? Lower fuel prices in the 80-90's probably influenced the abandonment of some researchers, JMO. MIT is also involved in current studies. Yes, this is experimental with many issues to be resolved. Most vehicle's computer will adjust for the "lean burn" and add more fuel. Correcting this issue is important to improving the mpg. And heat can be an issue. This is not a final solution but a promising, re-visited idea. I find it to be a interesting experiment on a vehicle I don't need for daily commuting. Here's a few links, I'll post more as I find them again. http://www.diva-portal.org/ntnu/theses/abstract.xsql?dbid=1978http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/11/hydrogenenhance.html
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Senior Member
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Why don't you link to a peer reviewed journal or a patent? If these guys have everything figured out so well, why do they rely on psuedoscientific jargon and the internet to get a real business strategy going?
The answer is that they are conmen.
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Senior Member
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I'm sorry, I just actually clicked on one of those water assist fuel links and I had to comment. Here is the link. If that looks like a business that's on the up-in-up to you, then go ahead and buy one. Stupidity should cost money. The first video is the dead giveaway. While they never claim that they actually have designed a car that runs on water, they do actually imply that it is possible. Also, the whole bit with the torch is a scam. Cool to the touch? They never show him touching the flame to his hand, he only touches the head which had better damned well be cool to the touch with a flame from hydrogen and hydrogen. Make no mistake, that torch is either plugged into the wall or running for a short time on a battery, yet he leads you to beleive that the energy comes from water. So basically, this website is using an obviously fraudulent video, to advertise their work. It's too bad for Fox News 26. You will notice that Fox News 26 is based in the Scientology capitol of the world, Clearwater Florida. I wonder how much scrutiny Craig Patrick had to go through to get that dreck on the air.
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Junior Member
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quote: Originally posted by GunsNTulips: I'm sorry, I just actually clicked on one of those water assist fuel links and I had to comment. Here is the link. If that looks like a business that's on the up-in-up to you, then go ahead and buy one. Stupidity should cost money. The first video is the dead giveaway. While they never claim that they actually have designed a car that runs on water, they do actually imply that it is possible. Also, the whole bit with the torch is a scam. Cool to the touch? They never show him touching the flame to his hand, he only touches the head which had better damned well be cool to the touch with a flame from hydrogen and hydrogen. Make no mistake, that torch is either plugged into the wall or running for a short time on a battery, yet he leads you to beleive that the energy comes from water. So basically, this website is using an obviously fraudulent video, to advertise their work. It's too bad for Fox News 26. You will notice that Fox News 26 is based in the Scientology capitol of the world, Clearwater Florida. I wonder how much scrutiny Craig Patrick had to go through to get that dreck on the air.
Time to get a new set of headphones. He mentions that it uses water and electricity twice. The first time you hear him faintly in the background as the reporter is talking while he's filling the generator. The second time he is standing outside and says it's water and electricity. You would think a scientist would pay better attention. Too busy trying to prove a point. BAD Chemist!  I'm not saying if I believe this or not. I'm still gathering information for myself.
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Senior Member
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quote: The second time he is standing outside and says it's water and electricity.
Nope! At 1:32 it clearly states "Klien says his prototype 1994 Ford Escort can travel exclusively on water". My headphones work properly. quote: I'm still gathering information for myself. Then pay your stupidity tax and buy one.
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Junior Member
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quote: Originally posted by GunsNTulips: quote: The second time he is standing outside and says it's water and electricity.
Nope! At 1:32 it clearly states "Klien says his prototype 1994 Ford Escort can travel exclusively on water". My headphones work properly. quote: I'm still gathering information for myself. Then pay your stupidity tax and buy one.
Seeing as it was mentioned that his process takes water and electricity twice prior to that comment I believe that we can carry that forward to the quote above and go with the assumption that he hasn't radically changed his process. That's just being nit picky.
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Senior Member
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Anybody using pseudoscience to make the claim that they can get energy out of one of the lowest energy molecules in the universe needs to be nitpicked because they are scam artists.
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Junior Member
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snake oil. HHO, ( pseudoscience bs) i read the whole post. the alternator does NOT produces any free energy. (save a tiny bit of heat) ever ride one of those bicycles with an alternator attached to the rear wheel?
i have , and it takes hard work to power a 100 watt lamp. Then flip on a switch and one more lamp. You are working 2 times harder now. I have a good friend EE, type that does not watch TV ever , unless he pedals ( I shot mine long ago , the TV not dear friend)
the regulator in the alternator balances the output to match the load. (read about it) The waste on the whole car is 75% and is mostly waste heat. (radiator,block and exhaust) capture this heat and you will have something.
stop listening the the Marketing BS. start thinking. HOw can I capture real waste heat. or how can I put up a huge solar array and not get blown off the road. or how can i afford that darn expensive nano thermocouple that mounts to the exhaust and allows you to throw away the alternator.
and spin an electric motor to help that silly wasteful otto cycle engine.
Ever wonder why you don't see them hucking that? 2 reasons: 1: too stupid to figure it out. 2: Costs more that $600
$600 is the maximum that ignorant people will spend with out learning, it is snakeoil
40 years as a mechanic and now do electronics full time. Automated controls.
please , save us with your pathetic testimonials. Like the two house wives one with Cheer and the other TIDE. I hope i have saved some young man or woman from wasting hard earned money. if you ( young person,etc) what to know why and how these basics work, just ask.
watch out for the free lunch crooks.
If you need links to sites that show the basics of automotive engineering many here can post them. The "SAE" has a full report on a browns gas test. It failed. need a link ,just yell.
Brown was the first to document his discovery ALMOSE 200 years ago. it is NOT New.
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Junior Member
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Hello all
I have a car that is powered by water, however living here in Iraq that’s hard to find. I am looking to replace my HHO engine with something that runs off fossil fuels. There is a lot of that around here.
I think offtrack put it best with the bicycle generator light. The largest misconception with this is the fact that just because your car engine is running, and your alternator is turning, does not mean you have this excess amount of electricity just going to waste. When you ask for more power from your alternator to run your HHO cell, you better believe the engine is asking for more fuel | |