The Water Powered Engine, I need your help
What ?
Just saw a TV show last evening about a Romanian guy who states that he has invented the water powered engine. As opposed to the rest of inventors, this guy did show a Dacia car running. It’s been a while since I’ve finished high school, I kind of lost contact with physics and thermodynamics, so I need your help to confirm or tell me where I’m wrong.
The prototype
A Dacia car has a large water container inside, with two electrodes inside linked to the car battery to have the electrolysis process happening, thus producing hydrogen which is injected into the car engine. The car is also using gas besides the hydrogen.I don’t remember the exact figures, but the guy said that the overall efficiency of the car has been increased in this way (efficiency as in “number of kilometers run with one litter of gas”).
I’m pretty sure that …
the efficiency of the system is lower compared to a regular gas car. Energy is required for the electrolysis to take place, and I’m pretty sure this energy cannot be lower than the energy you get from burning the hydrogen in the car engine. Besides that, at every step you have a efficiency which is lower than 100% (so that you loose energy).
Overall, I’m pretty sure that the efficiency of a car using this kind of water powered engine is lower than the efficiency of a regular car. If anybody has good knowledge in physics / thermodynamics, I would really appreciate a more accurate explanation as a comment.
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December 22nd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Well, unless he’s invented a perpetuum mobile (highly unlikely), you are right!
But maybe the news article omits to mention something else that he’s putting in that water (like calcium carbide
) - in which case, water is no longer the fuel.
Is this the guy: http://mituriurbane.vira.ro/mituri-urbane/213/motorul-cu-apa-inventat-de-un-roman/ ? He tried to sell the idea for EUR 50 mil but, act surprised, nobody wanted it.
My understanding is that he only tried to improved the efficiency of a “classical” combustion engine by recovering some thermal energy. This approach is not new, BMW has been recovering braking energy for a few good years already (I think they call it “efficient dynamics”).
Also, from what I know, a hydrogen-powered vehicle is only as efficient as the production of hydrogen is. And yes, electrolysis is not very efficient, especially for small quantities. I think at some point Toyota had some plans of capturing emissions of hydrogen (from vulcanos) to fill-up fuel cells for hydrogen-powered vehicles.
More interesting stuff here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water-fuelled_car
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:48 pm
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February 27th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Salut
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Mai multe aici: http://www.gas4free.com/?hop=buyinfo