I am sure this has already been mentioned but I am already asking it anyway. On tuesday I took a tour of an Ethanol plant (many of them here in Iowa) and had a speaker speak on what his company does as far as getting investors to support alternative fuels. I am in the University of Iowa Society of Automotive Engineers and we take a tour before our regional meeting every year. Pretty sweet group. Anyway... He had said ethanol wasnt the answer but more a bridge to a better solution which makes sense to me. He and I believe that hydrogen will be an end all solution (at least for now).

My question is that hydrogen can somewhat simply be extracted from water and burned and produce quite a bit of power. The main reason no one has really released "water" powered cars is because they are trying to find a way to converted the used hydrogen back to water to make it a perfectly regenerative fuel. The problem with this is that it takes as much energy to put it back together as it gains by burning it. My question is that why not split the water and burn it then only regenerate 40% or so back to water and expell the rest as exhast? This would produce a vehicle that should be quite efficient and extremely cheap to operate. If you burn 100 hp of hydrogen you still get 60 hp of power and some fuel back.

I also know there are issues with injecting the hydrogen into the engine...currently they highly compress it in tanks and put them in the car. I thought I had seen some kit you could buy and put it on a carbed vehicle that would convert it to H2 provided you did extra things as well. I know that of the water molecule hydrogen is only 2 atomic units out of 18 so by weight its not the best idea but the oxygen is also used in the burning process.

Very wordy...

 

Also since there are a lot of people in off-roading you otta checkout www.hawkeyemotorsports.com to see what we do for UI SAE. We are always looking for sponsors and people who like that stuff.

 

Hydrogen can be used as a fuel, and there are some experimental vehicles already on the road.

However, water cannot be used as a fuel. Read this on it: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/4...r-as-fuel.html

 

Hydrogen when burned BECOMES water 2H2 + O2 = 2H2O... Sounds like someone thinks they have found another perpetual motion machine and should have listened in basic chemistry class instead of sleeping. Anyone with even basic HS chemistry should have learned that. What is going on in today's schools and universities?

 

There is no advantage to using the water that is formed in the combustion process over any other water source. In fact, since the water is a vapor coming out of the exhaust, it would take more energy to convert it back to a liquid before the electrolysis cell could generate more hydrogen from it. Why would you bother?

Just a quick question for you. Where are you getting the electricity to drive the electrolysis cell from? Next take a look at the efficiency of just using that electricity to run an electric motor to move the car as compared to splitting water, collecting hydrogen, compressing it and burning it in an engine. It shouldn't take you long to figure out which one is better.

BTW, I am a chemical engineer installing a new ethanol plant in Iowa, and if it where not for the government subsidies, none of these plants would be built. It is in no way an solution or bridge or what ever you want to call it. It is a good paying job however.