Hydrogen Car Ideas

[Nekar]

I've been collecting info about Hydrogen combustion for some time now and this is the basics of what I know about it:

1. I've seen this educational program on tv where steam is heated over a Bunsen burner and the steam sets a piece of paper on fire. The explanation given was that when steam is heated it seperates into Hydrogen and Oxygen. When the paper comes into contact with this super heated mixture it catches fire. What temperature is needed for this?

2. Apparently compression applied to water seperates it into Hydrogen and Oxygen. I have not been able to varify this. If this is true, how much pressure is needed?

3. We all know about electrolysis.

4. We all know about solar energy.

My idea is this:
Using a combination of heat, electrolysis and compression, maybe water can be seperated more efficiently than just using any 1 of these components. for this I need to know the following:

1. What temperatures are achieved in a combustion chamber? Where is the hottest point - the spark from the sparkplug maybe?

2. How does the compression ration of a normal piston combustion chamber compare to that needed to seperate water?

3. Is the electricity from the sparkplug enough for electrolysis?

4. Will that little extra electricity from sloar cells be worthwhile for charging the battery in conjunction with the alternator?

In a combustion engine you have heat, compression and electricity. Could the combination of these elements in a normal combustion engine be enough to seperate water into hidrogen and oxygen? Or would it be better to have something like a Bunsen burner instead of a carburetter? What other apsects are there here that I may have missed?

[BattyCoda]

not bad but everyone has left out a minor detail - SOUND
hydrogen/oxygen bonds can be broken by using a resonant chamber (i would say a harmonic of bondlength) combined with sound of a specific frequency
to set up a self reinforcing standing wave (like a laser).
This would be way more efficient than electrolysis becuse it would run cool -  not only that u could use an old defunct car stereo to run it - saves on parts cost 

[dracozny]

hmm reminds me of a morgan freeman and keauneu reeve movie.

[fleebell]

I've been collecting info about Hydrogen combustion for some time now and this is the basics of what I know about it:

1. I've seen this educational program on tv where steam is heated over a Bunsen burner and the steam sets a piece of paper on fire. The explanation given was that when steam is heated it seperates into Hydrogen and Oxygen. When the paper comes into contact with this super heated mixture it catches fire. What temperature is needed for this?

2. Apparently compression applied to water seperates it into Hydrogen and Oxygen. I have not been able to varify this. If this is true, how much pressure is needed?

The capability to burn the paper at is a normal effect of superheated steam.  I was a boiler tech in Navy for 10 years and I have never heard of that effect.  We ran a 1200 psi boiler with superheated steam temps over 1000 degrees f.  It didn't take much effort to keep the oxygen levels below 15 parts per billion in the water....(this prevented corrosion in the boiler).... thats not very much gas created  just due to the psi and heat... there has to be more to it than that.

Lee B

[Mungallo]

not bad but everyone has left out a minor detail - SOUND
hydrogen/oxygen bonds can be broken by using a resonant chamber (i would say a harmonic of bondlength) combined with sound of a specific frequency
to set up a self reinforcing standing wave (like a laser).
This would be way more efficient than electrolysis becuse it would run cool -  not only that u could use an old defunct car stereo to run it - saves on parts cost 

This is called "Sonoluminescence" More information on the phenomena here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoluminescence. Cool idea, but one problem I see is that soundwaves move faster through solids and liquids than air. Maybe running the resonant frequency (occilation) through the container itself or through a metal bar "in solution" would work better, I have no idea if this would work though.

As far as water compression splitting H2O into H2 and O2, I don't know, but I can tell you that large quantities of water in a piston chamber will cause the engine to "hydrolock". More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrolock


I wonder about the spark plug thing myself actually.  My gut says no, because in electrolysis, you're generating H2 and O2 with amperage, whereas a coil/points/distributer/plug system, you're using very high voltage. I have no concrete facts there as I have never tried it. On the other had, its a very hot and rapid discharge of voltage, so I suppose it could.

Solar Cells designed to "Charge" car batteries are more or less just to top off the battery so that it has less chance of complete failure due to being fully discharged. They don't produce a whole lot of power.  I would say they're not a bad idea to keep your battery from failing, but probably not as good for supplementing the alternator. An oversized alternator is probably a better choice for while the car is running.

Mungallo