You Still Can’t Run Your Car on Water
On this post I stated I was mildly amused with the antics of idiot scammers who are trying to claim that you can “run your car on water”.
So I was moderately amused when we get a nice spam/scam comment which I purposefully let through our spam detector to illustrate a point.
The comment said:
As everyone is looking for alternative fuel supplies to power their automobiles and trucks. As technology races ahead - and oil quickly runs out, people are actually converting their cars to run on water.
So what do you need to do to run your car on water? This sounds too good to be true.
So how does it work?
Introducing hydrogen into an internal combustion engine means you can burn hydrocarbon based fuels more efficiently, which means you can burn less fuel for the same power output - hence the saving on fuel.
This is exactly the scamming type of behaviour these sites use to try and get click-throughs or people to buy their insane $97 “hydrogen conversion kits”. Lets look at the logical problems with the above quote
1) The comment says run your car on water, then starts talking about introducing hydrogen into an internal combustion engine. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe with 9 out of 10 atoms in the universe being hydrogen. Indeed water has hydrogen in it (the H in the H2O) and hydrogen can be used, through fuel cells, to power an automobile. But you can’t just add water to an internal combustion engine (go ahead try it out, tell me how it works), you need to extract the hydrogen atom(s). But you can’t add pure hydrogen to an internal combustion engine - it is a gas at temperatures higher than -253 degree Celsius. Gasoline of course is a liquid, not a “gas”. So to use hydrogen in a fuel cell you need to extract it from water and then place it in a device which can harness the power (the fuel cell). Typical hydrogen cracking methods require temperatures of 2,000 degrees Celsius to remove the hydrogen atom. To generate that heat you need a fuel source such as natural gas or uranium in a nuclear power plant in order to crack the hydrogen atom out of the water. The problem is, it is very hard (if not impossible) to generate that kind of heat without using more fuel then you actually get out the hydrogen. So creating hydrogen from water in that way has a “negative energy balance” (you use more than you get).
2) Introducing hydrogen in the tiny quantities produced in these devices into an internal combustion engine DOES NOT mean you can burn fuel more efficiently.
When considering the above comment I really wonder how stupid people actually are. It kind of feels like arguing with a brick wall. It doesn’t matter how outrageous the claim or how insane the concept, there are obviously people who keep these scammers in business by buying these ridiculous products which make claims that anyone who passed grade 7 science should know are BS.
As a note - the other comment on that post comes from Dan at www.autosanity.com who looks like he is fighting the good fight against spammers/scammers on the fuel use subject. The post on a $7,300 1996 Geo Metro is good for a laugh.
Also good a blog post from a couple days ago (!) about this exact subject. Same conclusion. Total BS. Although to see some of the commenters there argue about how HHO (Brown’s Gas) is real is pretty hilarious (OMG it worked on my 1998 Taurus!!!!). And why is it that the same people who proclaim HHO or Brown’s Gas works are the same ones who link to things like “free energy devices” or “how to make a perpetual motion machine”.
Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
Edit: on July 17, 2008, www.consumeraffairs.com came out with this good report which (again) totally debunks the theories propsed by these water as gas hucksters. In fact they go straight to some scientists which are totally against even the concept that these devices work.
Dr. Andrew Frank, Professor of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of California, Davis said: “This has been around for years, but it didn’t work back then and it won’t work now,” Dr. Frank said. “It’s such a very small amount of hydrogen-oxygen gas that it is impossible to have any real effect on combustion.”
Dr. Thomas Asmus, retired Senior Research Executive with DaimlerChrysler Corporation and a current member of the Fuel Economy Panel for the National Academy of Science said: “These devices simply cannot generate enough hydrogen or oxygen to amount to a hill of beans. A 12-volt car battery might create some bubbles, but beyond that, a standard car battery isn’t powerful enough to do anything,” he said.
“This stuff has been around forever and it’s been researched to death. It’s a simple electrolyzer that could quite possibly cause more energy to be used than if you didn’t use the device. It’s as ’scammish’ as anything I have ever seen,” Asmus said.
So unless some of you crazy hydrogen injection fuel believers can come up with something as concrete as a peer-reviewed scientific study, I consider the case closed. Scam.
Exposing Intellect, People and Esthetics since 2001.
Maxpower - You are the absolute first person I’ve read to, ahem, introduce some real facts to the “run your car on water” scams! This subject has become a pet peave of mine because of the amount of absolutely absurd crapola that is being distributed on the internet concerning this subject. Do people really pay good money for this stuff?
Anyway, keep up the great work, and I know there is at least one other voice of reason in the wilderness.
In case anyone is interested, I wrote an article on this very subject you can read here: http://ezinearticles.com/?Run-Your-Car-On-Water—Fact-Or-Fiction?&id=1206320
Thanks,
Dan
You are an idiot. I have more respect for those who actually believe you because they have a lack of knowledge on the subject. What do you have to gain from this? Why post this lie?
All,
Please do not believe MaxPower or Dan. Hydrogen is not Water. Hydrogen (not in its purest form) is combustible and more efficient than petroleum. It does work. I’ve been using it for almost a year now. I would not lie to you, it does work. At most, your car battery will use about 3 amps (to .5 amps). You will save on fuel. I converted my 3.7 Liter Jeep Liberty and I fill up about once every three weeks as apposed to once a week before I converted. IT DOES WORK!!!
Oh wow, thanks Neil!
Hydrogen is combustible? Wow! Maybe you didn’t see the picture of the freakin Hindenburg up top. “Hydrogen (not in its purest form)” - what? Hydrogen is the purest form, it is atomic number one on the periodic table.
Hey Neil… how do you extract the hydrogen atoms from water? Last time I checked, which was like a week ago, you’d require 2,000 degree+ temps.
And WTF does your car’s battery amp use have to do with fuel economy? Nothing! And I call BS on you’re 0.5 - 3 amp usage when the parking lights on the front of your car use 3 - 5 amps by themselves. http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/AronFisch.shtml
While posters like this are indeed hilarious, they just serve to confuse the issue. Run your car on water! Well, hydrogen actually. Hydrogen is not water. No, just the main component of water. Reduce your car’s amp useage by using hydrogen to save on fuel. One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.
I have a better idea Neil, rather then trying to BS yourself and others, sell your Liberty and buy a smaller vehicle.
Maybe you should actually research an issue before you start ranting about something you are proving you have no clue about.
First, Hydrogen production from water is well established and accounts for about 5% pf the worlds Hydrogen generation. Electrolysis of water is done by passing direct current of ~1.4-1.7V from a battery or other DC power supply through it, the resulting reaction releases Hydrogen from the negative node and Oxygen from the positive node. No magic, no super high temperatures, it can be done at home with $5 of equipment. The problem is efficiency, water doesn’t like to conduct electricity, so in order to produce a large volume of gas, you have to increase the voltage to increase current flow. The process still only uses ~1.4-1.7VDC for the reaction and the other energy is given off as heat.
The reference to amperage is for this process. At 12VDC with a %15 electrolyte solution, the electrolysis reaction would consume between .5 and 3 amps to produce ~10ml of hydrogen and oxygen (2H2 + 2O-> 2H2 + O2) per minute.
By “Not in it’s purest form”, he means that hydrogen, by itself, is not flammable. It requires oxygen to burn, ergo in it’s purest form(ie: pure hydrogen), it is NOT flammable because there is no oxygen present.
The installation of a small electrolysis unit on a vehicle and the injection of the resultant gasses WILL change the efficiency of the engine, not by as much as the “scammers” you refer to claim, but ANY increase in efficiency is and increase no matter how you look at it. Injecting hydrogen and oxygen into fossil fuel engine is similar to injecting NOx, it increases the oxygen content and the Hydrogen aids in providing for a more complete burn of the fossil fuel.
On a EFI vehicle, the computer will have to be modified because it will see the additional oxygen in the exhaust as the engine needing more fuel and will DECREASE mileage.
On a carbureted vehicle, the fuel metering must be manually adjusted after the installation as the mechanical process of the carburetor doesn’t care what’s in the intake air, it only sees air volume.
I am not condoning ANYONE charging $300+ for one of these systems or worse just plans to make it since it is ridiculously simple.
Just stating facts, not an endorsement.
And yes, I have one and have been using it for 8+ years,
original cost of materials:$35
Installation Time: about 8 hours.
Fuel economy on my 1991 GMC Sierra EFI:
Before Installation: 14-16MPG
Since Installation: 16-20MPG (15-25% increase) - Editor: That is actually a 0% increase on the low end there. And apparently your fuel economy has been almost 10% more variable with this “device”. Driving habits (fast starts, speeding etc) have been scientifically demonstrated to reduce fuel economy by up to 30% alone.
Like I said, 50-200% increase is ludicrous, but they do work.
I see you can read Wikipedia! Rather than get into your discussion point by point (yes the concept of electrolysis is simple enough for a grade 7 science experiment, you do indeed need 2,000+ temps to crack the water molecule, and the giant leap from a science experiment to injecting hydrogen as a fuel efficiency boost is a common scam (as was the point of my first post).
I will simply ask - please link to an academic peer reviewed study showing the fuel efficiency increase you claim from one of these conversion kits. Not a blog post, not an anecdotal story, not a proof of concept, an actual scientific study.
Until then, I stand by my comments, and the original post here http://blog.r4nt.com/2008/06/17/you-can-run-your-car-on-water-uh-actually-you-cant/ I did not want to get into the HHO or Brown’s Gas argument (which you note I don’t discard) because I know it draws conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork.
Bottom line, you can’t run your car on water.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4271579.html
This is neither diproving the concept of substituting some gasoline with hydrogen through electrolysis of water, i believe this does work given my grandfather has installed a hydrogen hybrid kit on his car increased his gas milege overnight by around 21% and we have a ‘07 H3 that will be fit with a unit very soon just after we finish chemically bathing the steel plates and metal parts and properly cleaned. This will work it’s been researched for close to 20 years and it is ready for the modenr consumer its people like yourself that remove faith in a product that may make us a little less fossil fuel relient.
Just saw on Treehugger:
That last paragraph in particular…
Full thing here.
I have a challenge for all of the “Run Your Car On Water” advocates out there: Show me a verifiable, third-party scientific study that shows the technology works as advertised. The silence is deafening.
I also have some news for Merovingian - the vast majority of the world’s hydrogen is produced from natural gas (a fossil fuel!). Why? Because the electrolysis method is highly inefficient (read: expensive). More energy is consumed producing the hydrogen than is derived from the hydrogen itself. As for the 15% - 25% fuel economy increase noted, I realized similar gains with a 1994 Ford Taurus just by changing my driving habits. No hydrogen needed.
Facts, guys - show us the facts.
[...] I’ve written a couple of articles giving more detail to the supposed mechanics of the system and why I believe it to be a true scam (click here) (click here) so I won’t go into the gory details again. I’d like to use this editorial page to warn readers about this scam, and to point out, once again that any money spent on these kits (or information) will be wasted. I’ve been following another interesting blog on the subject - one of the very few who is willing to tell the truth - take a look here. [...]
I just wanted to re-state the simple fact that these “run your car on water” machines use electrolysis to break water into its components. This has been proven time and again that it takes more energy (Joules, watts, etc) to break this bond than what you get out in fuel (hydrogen and oxygen, in Joule, watts, etc). That means that since your car uses gasoline to make electricity (turning of the alternator) for the electrolysis, then you actually use more gasoline producing extra electricity than what you would make up by burning the hydrogen that you produce. There is not any other way around this problem. However there are some other new promising way of breaking down the water using microwaves and resonate frequency that could have a higher net effect. Also people need to realize the difference between electrolysis and a true “Fuel Cell” a fuel cell actually directly produces electricity and does not have some of the problems stated above.
Maybe there is something else going on with these systems that cause increased fuel milage. Like lowering of the intake temp due to the water vapor?? I dont know. I’m pretty sure its probably people just changing driving habits, its hard to admit that you just got scammed.
Before anyone insults my intelligence,
I will post some of my credentials: I have a Degree in Industrial Engineering and Mathematics. I have worked as a Nuclear Engineer for 5 years for the Department of Defense. Previously worked on several particle physics experiments for Los Alamos and Brookhaven National Labs.
Bam.
Those creds beat my street cred.