Would it work....................?

http://water4gas.com/2books.htm?hop=lovekae

Comments please............

I've often pondered this topic! In theory it would work fine. At the end of the day you're running on hydrogen gas. In practice, with the eco driving legislation and high taxes being introduced, if it was that simple then the manufacturers would be doing it wouldn't they! If you manage to do it then let us know because i'd happily make the change!

No it doesn't work in theory.

It is infact a massive violation of the fundamentals of physics. Namely the "Conservation of energy". (Energy cannot be created nor destroyed).

To explain further... You put energy into the electrolysis. The energy then "released" from this process cannot be greater than what was put in (as there is no energy stored in water). That would equivalent to "perpetual motion".

Your alternator will simply have to do more work which you will have to pay for in fuel.

Incidently the same goes for "wind generation" on the outside of your car. You will simply increase drag and thus use more fuel.

G

Theres always a down side.................

There is energy in water because it's H2O and that involves hydrogen which explodes!
I don't think that it's easy to 'crack' hydrogen from water though. I get the impression it takes alot of energy to do this. Much more than just a car battery can produce.

The issue of energy from sea water is actually the whole basis of nuclear fusion, but it will be a few years before we all have nuclear reactors under our bonnets. In the mean time, water can be split into Hydrogen and Oxygen to then power a Hydrogen Fuel Cell. The trouble is, it's an energy intensive process and one of the issues has always been generating sufficient hydrogen in an economical way and then distributing it. No point having clean cars and using huge amounts of fossil fuels to create the hydrogen fuel. The person that cracks that little problem will be slightly well off!

_________________
Proud to have a "Gas Guzzler"

The main problem with Hydrogen is storing the stuff on board a car. To compress it to a liquid would take huge pressures so it gets stored as a gas and probably wont go very far.

There is one certainty, the water4gas website (in the OP) and DIY kit that they sell instructions for is a complete waste of time. If you look at the kit it is made from a peanut butter jar, and a flimsy piece of copper winding!

However, there are few die hard geezers on youtube who make some really good quality hydrogen fuel cells for their own cars, and report some fuel savings. of about 20%

I am well aware of the "in thoery it is against the laws of physics" views that some people hold on the subject, but I do think it is worth having a bit of fun with the idea to see if there are any gains to be had. You will need a fair amount of money for the stainless steel plates, and a workshop, and a fair amount of engineering knowledge to do this.

Another option is the (original) Cornish hydrogen generator. I say 'original' because some idiots have usurped the name "cornish" just to sell some useless peanut butter jar type hydrogen generator plans. The usurpers can be found here
Usurpers

The original Cornish generator was designed by Professor F. P. Cornish of a British University back in the 80s. Based on a welding wire feeding mechanism, he fed aluminium wire at slow speed towards an electrified steel drum submerged in water, as the wire got to about 1 or 2 mm from the drum the spark between the two, was very localised and therefore did not require much energy, but the hydrogen that was produced was sufficient to power a generator. And produce more than the input energy.

How can that be? Say the sceptics. Well I don't know, but apparently the system was presented by Cornish to BMW who road tested it and alledgedly said it worked - of course the letter from BMW could be a fake, anyone want to write to BMW and ask them?
Real Cornish design can be seen here
Real Cornish

Downsides to this, would be, if everyone did it the cost of aluminium would go sky high as demand outstrips supply. And creating aluminim is a very energy intensive process.


Some 20 years later, and some guy on a website said he was contacted by Cornish by email, you can read the story here.
Contact


I also found these postings alledgedly from F P Cornish using his trade mark "big boys" terminology and proffpc username.
scroll down to the highlighted words

A recent Amazon book review - on one of his favourite topics, curing disease

His Myspace

A comment on a current affairs site

A very recent post from him

His activity on Wiki - he considers himself a "French nuclear physicist"

That's about all I can find on him. It appears he does exist and believes in his own creation.

I can understand the above point on 'conservation of energy' - infact you can deny it - however at best an internal combustion engine is only around 40% efficient that leaves 60% yet to be harvested.

It make the idea of a 10-20% saving on fuel sound more realistic.

Also See this month 'Car Mechanic magazine'

I guess experimental method is the only way to prove if it works or not.

Im going to add my two pennath on this, theres a couple of guys in Norwich who have a few of these systems working, but the guys say if you do more than 14,000 miles per year you would notice a realistc 15% difference in fuel, But Ive been talking to some one who runs one and he is of the opponion its not so much they system as you are more consious how you drive £ 300 he said put it twards a lpg system

I think you will find that the energy to produce Hydrogen from the cornish generator comes from the Aluminium. At some much earlier stage aluminium oxide was dissolved in molten cryolite and an electric current passed through it to make aluminium metal and oxygen. In the cornish convertor Aluminium will react with water to produce aluminium hydroxide and hydrogen. The real advantage here is that aluminium is a lot easier to store than hydrogen.
The only real problem I could foresee is disposing of the aluminium hydroxide; probably a series of depots could be placed around the country to collect it and convert it back into aluminium.