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[Charlie Zureki]

 Great experiment...

two containers of same dimensions, both containing 1/2 gallon, put one in the sun and one in the shade.

They'll weight the same, but see the difference in volume.

Hammer

[Ryan Lantzy]

Mac Kerr wrote on Sun, 11 May 2008 15:14

I admit I know little about modern car engines, but after the battery recharges, isn't there excess electricity available from the alternator? It keeps on spinning whenever the engine is running. If that's the electricity that's used for the electrolyzing, how are wasting fuel?

There is a potential voltage at the alternator output, yes. However, the more things that are connected to the alternator (i.e. the magic electrolysis machine), the lower the impedance and the higher the amount of current flow from the alternator.  The higher the current flow, the harder the alternator is to spin, resulting in an increased load on the engine.  The higher the load, the more fuel required.

So no, there is not excess electricity.

[Ivan Beaver]

But as JR points out, there is not that big a change a good bit underground where the tanks are actually located.

[John Roberts {JR}]

Phillip Graham wrote on Sun, 11 May 2008 15:08

Its actually a little worse than a zero sum game, JR.  I just did the thermodynamics out to double-check. The heat extractable to the surroundings from the decrease in entropy caused by the formation of the H2O from combustion of H2 and O2 will always be lower, in the case of a reversible, isothermal process (ie the best case scenario). This is a function of the definition of entropy under these conditions: dS=dQ/T.  Since, for irreversible processes dS>dQ/T real processes are worse than in the reversible case. Even if you consider the behavior of the system as reversible, and use an ideal Carnot cycle (ie two isothermal steps linked to two constant entropy steps) The energy from the chemical reaction of combustion of the hydrogen and oxygen (which takes place at the high temperature point of the carnot cycle) has an inherent penalty. Ach, that's still complicated.  One more try: 1.  Put a fixed Q into the system by a chemical reaction at some high temperature: dQ=T_high(dS), or after integration at constant T: deltaQ=T_high*deltaS  That means you get an amount of entropy S for a given Q. 2.  Now you cool the system to a lower temperature under constant entropy conditions, so S stays the same.  dQ is now: dQ=T_low(dS) or deltaQ=T_low*deltaS.  Since S is fixed, and T is smaller, the extractable Q is always less at T_low that the Q you put in at T_high. The difference between the input Q at T_high, and the extracted Q at T_low then represents the total work done by engine during its cycle. It should be clear then that the lower T_low is, the less heat you have to pull from the system to return to the beginning of the Carnot cycle, and the more was converted to (Pressure)*(Volume) work on the surroundings during the isentropic expansion phase.  Hence the desire for the largest temperature gradient possible between the Q in (chemical reaction) and Q out (e.g. radiator sending heat into the ambient air).  Since T_low is not 0 Kelvin, and dS for a real engine will be greater than dS_ideal for a reversible system, there is always a penalty for the extraction of mechanical work. In a real system, the input Q is fixed per amount of fuel burned, in this case from the electrolysis of water. At a minimum you therefore take the Carnot efficiency penalty, and the efficiency penalty of the battery/alternator combination.   The are only two ways the system would seem to come out ahead.  First would be with the production of the hydrogen by an external battery, which of course is just passing the buck for input Q. The second way the system might possibly come out ahead would be if the injection of H2 and O2 dramatically increased the T_high for the car's engine (ie increasing the average internal cylinder temperature).  The efficiency of a Carnot engine is related to the difference in (T_high-T_low)/Absolute temperature.  I give this a remote, at best possibility of happening, but it is at least conceivable. BTW, if anyone reads this and feels just totally confused, don't feel bad!  I had two semesters of undergraduate thermodynamics/kinetics, and two semesters of graduate thermo/kinetics, and THEN TA'ed for a graduate level thermodynamics class.  It didn't start to make any real sense to me until graduate school and TA'ing.  J. W. Gibbs was a genius! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle

Thanx, I was aware of inefficiencies both ways but not the details...

I feel like this level of scientific detail while interesting is not going to help Randy understand what is going on. These purveyors of "something for nothing" depend upon customers who want to believe in simple answers, and that they are being screwed by car companies or oil companies, or.. whatever all powerful organization.

The modern IC engine is mature and well refined. There may be a couple percent inefficiency here or there, but there is no free lunch. Easy improvements have already been taken.

The odds are 99.9999% that this product is a scam. There were a bunch of similar products when people were equally desperate during the oil embargo back in the '70s.  

I would really love to be wrong, as this one product could solve the worlds marginal oil supply issue. I am not holding my breath, or shorting oil.

JR

[Marjan Milosevic]

I dont know about the device in question but...
My very close friend is a real "nut", and for more than a year he is working on some kind of device that will convert the normal petrol engine to run on water.

As he explained to me there is a way to separate HH form O with some different electrolyze (combining 4 different frequencies applied to the steel plates) and he already succeeded in achieving this.

According to some science literature hydrogen has more calories when burning than petrol and he made some calculation that with 2 liters of distiled water you can run around 100 kilometers.

He is now working on the injector part where hydrogen will be injected to the cylinder.

Knowing him, either he will do that or he will blow up his garage

Regards
Marjan

[Phillip_Graham]

Marjan Milosevic(MarjanM) wrote on Sun, 11 May 2008 18:21

I dont know about the device in question but... My very close friend is a real "nut", and for more than a year he is working on some kind of device that will convert the normal petrol engine to run on water. As he explained to me there is a way to separate HH form O with some different electrolyze (combining 4 different frequencies applied to the steel plates) and he already succeeded in achieving this. According to some science literature hydrogen has more calories when burning than petrol and he made some calculation that with 2 liters of distiled water you can run around 100 kilometers. He is now working on the injector part where hydrogen will be injected to the cylinder. Knowing him, either he will do that or he will blow up his garage Regards Marjan

The direct electrolysis of water is very inefficient, there are better ways to "thermochemically crack" water.

Also, the volumetric energy density of gasoline is much much better than hydrogen, so your friend had better revisit his calculations.  Gasoline is about 35MJoule/Liter, and highly compressed hydrogen (600+ ATM pressure) is about 5MJoule/liter.  That is a seven-fold difference...  

[Patrick Tracy]

Charlie Zureki wrote on Sun, 11 May 2008 14:25

We burn stuff because currently it's cheaper, more efficient, and that it is the technology afforded to us at the moment.

The price we pay depends on whether you factor in the hidden costs of their use or just pass those costs on to the next generation. That can't last.

Is it more efficient when braking to dump momentum as heat or to regenerate it as electricity? The reasons that we don't have electric vehicles are political, economic and social, not technical.

Afforded to us by whom? There are other technologies in existence, but many have the potential for decentralized production which may not benefit those who currently control our energy.

Charlie Zureki wrote on Sun, 11 May 2008 14:25

The "grid for distributing it electrically", the majority of power from this grid is from burning. (some from hydro, wind and solar, but a very small percentage)

Umm, yeah, but my point is that the grid is there if we decide to find other sources of energy. There's no real reason that the source must be combustion other than the substantial economic momentum for doing it that way. There is energy everywhere and all we really have to do is be creative about extracting it. The grid can even make decentralized generation like home photovoltaic more efficient by allowing those generating excess to supply those with a shortfall.

Charlie Zureki wrote on Sun, 11 May 2008 14:25

The laws of Physics are quite clear, you cannot create or destroy matter, all that you can do is change it's form. That the changing of it's form is where we get our "energy". We can only create energy through, Chemical, Mechanical, or Thermal methods.

Yes, the laws of Newtonian physics are clear, but in the quantum world what you say isn't necessarily so. Even within your constraints there are lots of other ways to use the energy all around us. I'm not talking about cold fusion or anything equally questionable, I'm talking about leveraging our solar thermal, photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, tidal etc. technologies into a practical system of generation. I think it can be done on a technical level but it's the political and economic forces that resist the change.

[John Roberts {JR}]

Marjan Milosevic(MarjanM) wrote on Sun, 11 May 2008 17:21

I dont know about the device in question but... My very close friend is a real "nut", and for more than a year he is working on some kind of device that will convert the normal petrol engine to run on water. As he explained to me there is a way to separate HH form O with some different electrolyze (combining 4 different frequencies applied to the steel plates) and he already succeeded in achieving this. According to some science literature hydrogen has more calories when burning than petrol and he made some calculation that with 2 liters of distiled water you can run around 100 kilometers. He is now working on the injector part where hydrogen will be injected to the cylinder. Knowing him, either he will do that or he will blow up his garage Regards Marjan

This sounds like some more bad science.

Burning hydrogen releases heat and ends up with water as the final product.

You might as well collect the water from your tail pipe and refill your water tank. Then you could drive forever...  

JR

[Dick Rees]

Howard Mohr had a hilarious take on the whole thing in one of his books.  The "Compost-o-carb" which you refueled with road kill.  He's the author of "How to talk Minnesotan" and a funny kinda guy.

[Ian Hunt]

John

Any schematics on how to do that? my tailpipes emit plenty  of water